MP3 Reviews

Update:
I think I own about six of these by now (12/2003). Still, no problems.

Transferring songs is a snip with Firewire. I use the device as a hard drive and just drag and drop songs onto it, very easy, takes just seconds.

The quality is excellent, the sound is excellent, especially through the superb Endymion headphones ER6's - I rarely have to have the volume full up even when listening on the subway, the interface is excellent, in fact the IPod is just ...excellent.
I use it nearly every day and rarely have a probem. The only one being that every now and then (very rarely) it 'locks up', easily solved by pressing the Menu+Play button for a few seconds.

Most of the cons have now been addressed by Apple, ie Remote Control, Windows compatibility, loadness(?) and its cheaper, (but not cheap). I have been using 'walkmans' for nearly 20 years none have even come close to this.

You can transfer 10 gigs in under 15 minutes (note that 10 gigs with a USB connection will take hours upon hours). I often visit friends and download their entire iTunes music library onto the iPod in minutes. You can't, by the way, copy iPod music to a computer - only computer to an iPod, for copyright reasons of course.

The iPod has a very intuitive and easy-to-use interface - just 5 buttons and a scroll wheel control the whole thing. I happen to really like the new touch-sensitive scroll wheel. The quickest way to get a feel for the interface is to actually go to the Apple site, where they demo the interface very nicely: ...<

My only complaints with the interface is that long song names will be cutoff (except in play mode, where the song title scrolls across the screen) - this makes it sometimes tricky to view items in the iPod by song title.

In terms of sound-quality, I now import my CDs at 128kbs (to maximize space)... and on the iPod it sounds fine (no hissing, or problems of any kind that I can notice). The iPod will play very loud, which is an improvement over the old model, I have heard.

I listen to my iPod with headphones, in the car (with a audio tape adaptor), and at home connected to our receiver. Again, no complains with volume and sound quality. You might, however, have a number of MP3s that play at different volumes - and this can either startle you or make you think nothing is playing. The "Sound Check" feature of the iPod supposedly addresses this issue - however, it doesn't seem to make to much of a difference in my opinion.

Battery life for me has been at about 5 hours (I think)... but I keep the iPod volume very high on the unit when in the car.

My only real complaint is with how easily the unit scratches, but really, if you take good care of it, scratches will be minimal.

GREAT PRICE: I bought this card, number one, because the price was great. Now the price is even greater when you get it for about 2MB for $1.

NUMBER OF PICTURES THAT CAN BE STORED:
155 in a DC240 with 1MP.
55 in a DX3900 with 3.1 MP.
I never knew the MP versus MB formula, this practical application helped me out. I understand however, much depends on your compression and format. This was all .jpg files and on Kodak cameras.

SEEMS COMPATIBLE FOR PDA AND PC:
I know one of the concerns on these cards is compatibility. Since I have had it, I have put it in an @migo Pocket PC, on the PCMCIA card on an IBM laptop and a Kodak DX3600 and a HP315. It worked great.

Nice card and a nice size, I'm set for awhile now.

I use this to allow me to take unlimited pictures when I'm on a trip. Fill up my CF card, copy all the images to the laptop, delete all the images from the CF card and start taking pictures again. When the card is full, I repeat the process - unlimited pictures! Why buy a larger capacity CF card when you can get this adapter for much less?

Another thing: Images from a camera are just computer files. I've used this adapter to turn my 32 MB compact flash card into a "disk drive". Once you put this CF card and adapter into the laptop's card slot, it shows up just like any other "disk drive".

So you can put the CF card/adapter in your home or offece desktop computer's card reader, use Windows Explorer to copy files (Word documents, spreadsheets, image files, or whatever) to the card, take the CF card out and move it over to the laptop - using this adapter. It makes the compact flash card act just like a high capacity disk drive! You can bring files home from work the same way, and the CF card fits in your wallet...
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I was then able to browse and even edit pictures on the card as if it were a disk drive. Truly amazing. All peripherals should be this easy to install and intuitive to use.

Not only does it save my battery power by allowing me to put the CF card into my computer, but it downloads very quickly. I have had no problems with the unit and received the adapter from Viking earlier than I expected.

So, I call what they call Customer Service and find that they won't give me any advice whatever until I FAX in a copy of my shipping document from Amazon and another sheet with a magic number on it from within the extended service package. They say that Amazon is not an authorized reseller and that they cannot check my order and date of sale from Amazon.

I explain that I do not have a FAX machine, and that I will go send the stuff in a few days when I feel like walking that far using my crutches.

I think that it is probably a good product, but if you are in any way handicapped and it is not convenient for you to run around to get their service, I recommend not buying it.

FEATURES:

The touch wheel is so smooth and intuitive that I got used to it in about 20 seconds.

The menus are clear, straightforward and, again, intuitive. You can browse by artist, genre, composer, song title, album. You can have playlists of songs. You can repeat one song, or a group of songs. You can shuffle. And you don't need a reference book for how to do any of it. It's all right there, at the touch of your finger.

The sound is absolutely amazing--Equalizer settings are extensive. If you know how to play with iTunes, you can create your own settings, too, and they'll load into your iPod.

The download speed is fricking unbelievable--When I finally had a "few" songs loaded into my new iMac (about 140), it took less than 2 minutes to download all of them, including the playlists I'd set up. iTunes made the download process itself so easy--all I did was plug in the iPod and iTunes took care of the rest for me. Thank goodness for iTunes. I can't imagine handling mp3s without this nifty (and FREE) program! Oh--and while I was downloading my mp3s that first time, the iPod used my network clock to set the date and time on the player.

I haven't used the iPod as an alternate hard drive yet, but I definitely plan to. My husband has a PowerBook, and there are some files from my iMac that I'll want to bring with me when we travel. The iPod will be the perfect device for that.

I've looked at the calendar/contact features, but I don't really need them. My husband definitely plans to use both, though, in his work as a consultant.

I have one complaint about the headphones that come with the iPod: The earbuds are too big for my ears, and hurt after prolonged listening. This is most annoying, because the headphones are very, very good. The audio quality is wonderful--my husband considers the trade of his Sony earbuds for the iPod buds a great trade in HIS favor.

The remote control is great--I use it all the time, and it keeps me from having to pull the iPod out of my pocket or case to adjust the volume, pause, or skip a song (or part of a song--hold down the forward/backward button to fast-forward/rewind the current song).

The battery really does last 8 -10 hours, depending on how you use the iPod. Some battery drainers are excessive scrolling and backlighting, but, even then, the iPod lasts a LONG time without a recharge. This makes the iPod perfect for me, since I work in a factory and have my headphones on most of the time. Apple doesn't tell you that, yes, you can charge the iPod through your computer, BUT it doesn't charge as quickly as with the provided AC adapter. You also don't get as much info about the charging process when the iPod is plugged into the computer. A third party manufacturer makes a car charger for iPod. I bought one and it works great.

INTANGIBLES:

As always, Apple makes you feel good about spending so much money for one of their products, with the little things that make your ownership a delight. Providing nice headphones, a belt clip case, a remote control, a FireWire cable and an AC adapter are great touches [...] . The belt clip is well-made and the iPod won't fall out of it under most circumstances, but the clip isn't 100% safe. I was lucky to catch my iPod before it hit the floor when the cord caught on something once, and I don't know that I would feel safe doing strenuous exercise with it; I eventually bought a more secure case from a third party.

The convenience factor alone makes iPod worth every penny. Through audible.com, I can download books, and, thanks to my old portable CD car adapter, I'm able to listen to the iPod in my car. This means no more lugging around pre-recorded audio books and huge CD wallets of music. No more switching CDs while I'm driving. No more agonizing over which CDs to keep in my 6 + 1 player. I can record the songs I like off a CD (or the entire CD), and put the disc away, which means less wear and tear on the disk itself. I can put the iPod in my purse, rather than leaving all those listening goodies in my car, where they can get stolen or exposed to intense heat that destroys them (a serious problem here in Texas).

The mirror finish on the case and remote is beautiful, but it shows fingerprints very badly. I keep a polishing cloth handy and use it at least once a day. I don't remember if Apple mentioned it in their documentation, but the cover needs special cleaners. Alcohol and acetone-based cleaners will ruin the lucite layer on the front of the iPod. I've found that the iKlear polish kits work best for cleaning the iPod.

I didn't quite understand an earlier complaint about the lack of options for naming the iPod. Maybe on the Windows version this is a problem, but, on the Mac version, renaming the iPod is as easy as clicking on the name field when you first plug the iPod into your computer, and typing a new name for your new baby.

To be honest, the iPod has so many wonderful features that it's just about impossible to list them all here, and the potential uses for it are mindboggling. This is THE Mp3 player to have; no other comes close. BUY IT.

I previously had an old USB Nomad Jukebox, with the drive upgraded to 30GB. My purchase of an iPod was prompted by an attempt to sync the 10GB or so of MP3s I'd ripped into iTunes to it. After 30 minutes, it was about 10% done - then it crashed for no reason. I'd previously ruled out the iPod as having too little capacity. Then along came the 20GB model. Technically speaking, it's still too small - I think I'd need at least 80GB to get my entire CD collection stored at reasonable quality - but the speed of the iPod's Firewire connection makes it so easy to drag music around that, once I get to the point where I've got over 20GB ripped, I can just sync particular playlists, rather than the entire iTunes collection.

Syncing is very fast indeed. The collection that caused my Nomad Jukebox to choke transferred in under ten minutes, automatically, the very first time I hooked the iPod to my PC. The only human intervention required in the entire process was to select English as my language when I first switched it on, plug it into a free Firewire socket and accept the default name it gave my iPod (the rather unimaginative "Alan Crawford's iPod").

The menus are easy to navigate (the circular dial for scrolling up and down is great once you grasp the idea of going round and round instead of linearly), the earbuds are comfy (as earbuds go - at home I still use my big honking Sony headphones), you can either charge it via the computer while it's connected or use the separate AC charger, there's a keylock to prevent sudden unexpected bursts of music, and there's a nice little belt holster to keep it in. Oh, and a little inline remote control gizmo that I haven't really had cause to use yet.

It's all packaged in that typical Apple style that makes just opening the box an event, the design is attractive (although I believe it's prone to scratches - maybe the holster will reduce that problem).

I really can't find anything wrong with it. I think that's a first.

For those wondering about the fate of the Nomad Jukebox - the drive went into a miniature Firewire enclosure for my wife's laptop, and the discarded husk is now a rather aerodynamically-poor frisbee.

I've got mine to the point where it checks my pop e-mail, I can send videos and photos straight out to my contacts that have synced via Bluetooth with my Macintosh, and I can even control iTunes on my computer using a great program called "Sailing Clicker". However, I doubt many people will ever get that far.

The camera is decent, the videos are fun and pointless because of their low quality and short length, but the design of the phone is much friendlier than the 3650. The screen does get scratched up, but the phone is very durable. The battery life is also very decent.

This is a very cool phone if you know how to use it, but, for the casual phone user, I would wait for Nokia to really figure out their operating system. If you like this phone but can't stand the size, wait for the Nokia 7610, which has a 1.3 megapixel camera and is a much more standard, dare I say, svelte size.

- Symbian OS. Excellent features. It has all the features I could ever think of and the UI is great.
- Display. with 65K colors the screen rocks.
- Connectivity. It has all the cutting edge connectivity(bluetooth, IR) I ever need( ofcourse I can crib on the lack of 802.11 and some other stuff but I want to be fair here). These are simple to use and very useful to transfer files.It syncs with outlook as well.
- Solid call quality. Call quality is extremely good. some times the signal is bad inside our home but I have checked with T-Mobile and it is T-Mobiles' fault. They don't guarnatee the coverage inside buildings.
- VGA camera. Nicely done camera for a phone.To be fair, Let's not compare canon S30 with this camera.
- video recorder is useful sometimes.
- Contacts has several customization options. You can store multiple numbers, change the label etc..
- Solid battery life.

Those are the big pros of this phone and now it is my chance to crib..

- Bulky. I don't know what Nokia is thinking. The form factor could be lot better.
- Sometimes the OS could be sluggish. I am not sure 100 percent sure on this but I want to mention this.
- Video recorder works for only 10 sec. I don't understand what Nokia is trying to do here..
- keyboard is slightly cramped. I don't have any problems with it but some people could.
- Games on the phones suck. I found lot better games online but I need to pay for them.

To conclude this is a great phone and I think this is the best Tmobile phone out there in the market. If you like the shape of this phone, this is the phone for you. There was a good deal on amazon when I bought this phone.

Here are the Pros/Cons:

Pros: Awesome sound quality(better than the Rio 500 I own), Small Size (fits flush into Visor), great user Interface (in color) for the Visor, excellent desktop client software (again it kills the RioPort software)

Cons: No add-on memory, earphones included are weak

Highly recommended

Here are the reasons I went with this one over the MiniJam:

1) It fits nearly flush into the Visor. You can put your cover on the front just fine and barely fits on the back due to the fact that the springboard is raised about 1/16 of an inch from the back of the Visor. The MiniJam on the other hand doesn't look like you can put the cover on at all.

2)Although this doesn't support extra memory, 64mb is enough for me. That's over an hour of music. The MiniJam with 32mb costs the same price and then you get to pay extra for more memory.

3)I have issues with the company that makes MiniJam, InnoGear. They were supposedly going to come out with a SixPak module last year that I was totally planning on buying. Then, with no explanation, all traces of the SixPak development and schedualed release dates disappeard. They dropped the ball, I dropped them.

4)SoundsGood comes with a nice case to put everything in.

Sound quality
I'm no audiophile, probably nothing to brag about, but the sound quality is good enough for me. Very close to the sound you get on a PC with "average" speakers and sound card. I can't put my finger on it, but the provided headphones sound "tinny", so using a better quality set ought to take care of that. Max volume is more than enough in quieter places, but on a "rickety" subway like the older NYC trains, you'll be almost hard pressed to hear much of anything.

External controls
There 4 controls: play/pause (technically play/stop, as when you DO "pause", it actually turns off while remembering where you last were), skip forward one track, skip back one track, and a volume jog dial control. The first turns on and plays the player, or pauses and resumes play. The next two are self explanatory, but further adding that reaching the first or last track will wrap around to the last or first track respectively. Unlike many CD and mp3 players however, there is no search mode available (done by pressing and holding these buttons). The last controls volume, but also can be depressed (like the wheel of a scroll mouse), which will automatically bring up the control screen regardless the current state of your Visor. The jog dial gets you to your desired volume setting after a few flicks, but the controls are just rounded knobs, so you'll have to press hard or use your nail. Also, you may accidentally lift and pull out the head phone jack (mine plugged in wasn't snug, but a little loose) when you try to press the button next to it. It has it's faults, but is still a nice alternative to having to whip out your stylus and cover just to control the audio. One thing I do like about this is the play button will light green (dim or bright) if you set it that way. This takes more battery power, but I recommend it so that you can tell if the unit is on or off, without having to turn the screen on or plug in headphones to listen and potentially draining your power without knowing it.

Software interface
It's simple and intuitive. Similar to Winamp minus the skins and fancy equalizer. You can bring down a pull down menu of all the songs you've loaded, there's an simpler equalizer where you can adjust bass, treble, and general frequency settings (none of which I really used), sliders for volume and track position (volume adjustable through the up and down keys as well), options to view details of mp3 tracks, and set modes of play (repeat, shuffle, etc.), as well as oversized standard buttons for play, stop, etc.

Loading music
Easy enough. All you need to do is ensure that all your music files are indeed mp3 format, drag and drop, and your next hotsync op will transfer the songs over. On the desktop software, it even tells you how much space you've got left before you transfer. Takes about a minute to transfer the full capacity. Pretty reasonable considering it Is USB 1.1.

Stability/reliability
Reliability has been good. I've never needed any tech support, and the thing's never broken down on me before. There have been times where upon plugging it in, I get "module was inserted improperly" or "Module seems hung, please try again". I sometimes get that once or twice in a row. The only time I get it 6 times in a row was when I left it in the car for weeks, in 35F degree weather, which I guessing was due to the cold.

Tech support
N/A as far as I'm concerned. The company is still there, but they've changed their business model. I tried calling them up about months after they changed their ways (this was approximately around summer of '02) and only one guy was there who had a decent understanding of what this product is and does. He wasn't able to answer my question though. Don't count on getting ANY tech support. IMO, this product is well made, so assuming there's nothing wrong with your Visor, tech support won't be needed.

Other notes
First, you can play games, take notes while the music is playing simply by hitting the home button. You actually need to hit the 'stop' button either internally or externally to actually turn it off. You could also leave the screen off to save battery. Next, you don't have the option of rearranging your playlist on the handheld. You need to do that before you load the music on there. Finally, only 64MB of nonexpendable memory? That makes this best suited for workouts, grocery shopping, and "low-end" users. 128MB would've been IDEAL. 4.5 stars is my actual rating, since there are some trivial issues with this, but it does deliver what it says smoothly and acceptably.

Cons: Backlit lcd, no line-out, hardware glitches, lack of quality control.

Summary: I have owned this unit roughly a month. It has wayyy too many things wrong with it for me to justify the price. One, it has no line-out, which is unforgivable, and the headphone jack is on the front which makes it impossible to mount in a car and make it look good. It also gets really hot underneath when the dc power supply is used. The LCD is backlit blue and looks good, but is really hard to read off-axis. The backlight turns on for about 4 seconds when you push buttons, and then turns off. I think they should have a backlight switch so you dont waste battery this way. The backlight quit working a week ago, so its a moot point anyway. The buttons also beep when you push them, something I find annoying, and the unit beeps when you pause it, something I also find aggravating. The point of pausing it is to NOT hear anything. The unit's headphone jack is also incapable of driving higher-impedance headphones like my Sennheiser 535s, so you are forced to use more efficient ones (like the crappy supplied earbuds). One of the most aggravating things wrong with it is this glitch in the ID3 reader that takes the last part of whatever the artist's name was before the artist name that you are viewing, and tacks it onto the one you are viewing; if the first artist you viewed was Matchbox 20, and the current one is REM, the ID3 readout will say REMchbox 20. The unit also has a display switch, but it doesn't remember your choice, thus, it displays this unneccessarily long filename whenever you switch tracks. The ergonomics are poor, and are hard to use if you use the belt clip. The ESP also turns on whenever you turn the player on, which wastes batteries if you forget to turn it off. The volume control is also recessed, which makes it hard to adjust, and the thing blows through batteries like nobody's business. You can expect maybe 6 hours on standard alkalines.

So what's good about this player? Not much. The backlight looks cool (when it works), and the player has good skip protection even when the ESP is off. It does read ID3 tags, and the belt clip is cool. Since I am currently on my second player, which also does not function properly, there is no way I can recommend this unit. I actually liked the player when it worked, but it has too many unforgivable flaws to be sold as a production unit.

This thing is great. I am quite familiar with MP3 and I try to keep up on the latest technology and I must say that the one most important feature of this player - sound quality - is extremely excellent. All of my MP3s are "archive quality" (IMHO!) and the Philips does an admirable job of reproducing them. Most of my MP3s are variable bit rate, many with BRs ranging from 12 - 320, and I have had no problems there. Needless to say this was a big selling point for me. The ID3 feature (which recognizes artist & song info) is also excellent, as well as the interface, backlight, speed of song title recognition and startup, and included accessories. It is also very compact and light. About the only complaint I can come up with is that it does not include a case... personally I'd like to see a small case befitting this beautiful little player. Needless to say most of the CD player cases out there are bulky and ugly, so I had to create one out of a CD disc case. Ah well, one can dream...

As far as the color, as others have mentioned it is not black, but more of a purple color. However, I like it! Black is so... black. The purple is something of a pleasant change and has a nice iridescence to it.

One draw back I've found are that you can't upload mp3's to another computer. It gives you an error saying that uploading mp3's is illegal and I won't even go into why that is messedup. It claims to be that smallest player out there but from what I've seen it's about as big a the Rio boxes. It's about the size of pack of cards. The realjukebox software it comes with won't record from my CDROM drive at all. I had to go and get a free ripper and encoder. USB would be nice but Parrallel works just fine...

I just got the Samsung Yepp and I think it's a great player. From the moment you open the box it definitely has that "touch me, feel me" look to it. This thing is very very small (smaller than I expected from pictures on the web), I'd say about the size of a deck of cards. You can easily "palm" it in your hand, and it weighs almost NOTHING (I hardly notice it when it's in my pocket, I think it's lighter than my wallet). This certainly beats carrying around a discman and a caselogic.

The sound quality is excellent (The earbuds that come with it are okay, but I prefer my Sony Fontopias). The controls are intuitive, and the PC interface software is easy to use (Make sure to get the newest version from the samsung website). The voice recorder is definitely a nice bonus; it's great for recording lectures in class. I don't use the phonebook feature b/c I have a Palm Pilot, but that's also a nice feature.

My only reservations are that:

It only plays MP3 format, unlike other players which also support RMA, WMA, etc.
There's no backlighting for the LCD.
No USB yet (but due out soon).

If you can deal without these extras for now, this player is for you. If you shop around, you can find this player a lot cheaper than any other player out there.