MP3 Reviews

For the Linux junkie, the 5600 is a "must-have". I mean how cool is it to run a website from your pocket! If you feel pretty comfortable with Linux/Unix, then you will love it. Add on a wireless CF card and you can surf wirelessly and connect to wireless hotspots.

The Personal Information Manager (PIM) definitely isn't as mature as PalmOS and it can show at times in terms of the features and usability of the grahical interface. There are also the standard issues that go along with installing software packages on linux. For the person who just wants a PDA that you can keep phone numbers in and play the latest version of foo-bar-tastic Mega-Brickout2004 on, go with a Palm or Windows based PDA.

If you are comfortable with linux, then this is your product. It is essentially a mini-desktop computer that can run Apache, OpenSSH, FTPd, etc and at the time I'm writing this it's the fastest PDA in terms of CPU speed. The internal ROM is a little small, so you may want to look into adding a SD card for additional storage. But to be honest, I love mine.

I've been using Palm PDAs for about five years now and wanted to upgrade to something new. I had seen the Zaurus 5500 and was going to purchase one before I heard that the 5600 was being released. The 5600 is fast, applications load quickly and the OS seems to be very stable. I haven't had anything crash yet. Setting up wireless networking with a CF card is trivial, plug the card in, run the network config application and type in your WEP key and you're on the net. Surfing with Opera is excellent, you can zoom in and out on web pages and I haven't found any pages that it won't display. I have yet to try the Hancom applications for reading and writing Word and Excel docs but everything else works very well. Now I just need to find an SSH client for it and I'll really be in business.

The SL-5600 comes with QTopia, an embedded version of Linux. It looks really good, and the software ROCKS! It can read and write Microsoft Word and Excel files, etc.

Synchronization leaves a bit to be desired. It doesn't work flawlessly, and only works with Windows.

HOWEVER, the Z's true strength is in Open Source softare. You can keep the included QTopia and install Linux apps. Or, you can replace QTopia with one of the OpenSource Linux distributions, and have a Linux workstation that gives you complete control. With the large amount of available RAM and two expansion slots (SD cards at least to 512 MB and CompactFlash cards), you have room to install anything you need. A huge amount of OpenSource Linux software is available for the Z, and most of it has been scaled down so that it takes a lot less space than it would on a full-sized machine. What this equates to, is that a 256 MB SD "hard drive" is equivalent to a 5-10 gigabyte hard drive on a full-sized computer.

OpenEmbedded (www.OpenEmbedded.org) and now Debian Pocket Workstation (http://www.pocketworkstation.org/) are two of the available Linux distributions. What's exciting about Debian Pocket Workstation is that you can run QTopia and a complete Debian distribution on the same machine. Switch back and forth as you need to. You can also build a complete cross-compilation tree on your own Linux computer, and compile and/or modify available open-source software for the Z.

If you want a simple, turn-key organizer, the Z probably isn't for you. But if you want a complete, powerful computer that fits in your pocket, the Z is the best machine you can get. Definitely worth its purchase price.

Clie SJ33 had very good form factor and design. There's no need to spend extra $$ on case or hardcase. The built in flip protects the screen and looks cool. Hold/power switch is also very nice for mp3 playback.

The major pro's are,
1. Good build quality and stylish casing.
2. Jog dial, hold switch and memory stick expansion slot.
3. HiRes color display and good backlight.
4. About 7-8 hrs of battery life with mp3 playback.
5. Runs Palm OS 4 which has zillion free apps available. Very easy, reliable and not bloatware unlike Windoze on PocketPC.

Con's,
1. Only 128kbps or low bitrate mp3 can be played.
2. Uses a Lithium Ion battery...
3. To be discontinued and replaced by a newer model by Sony very soon.
4. Memory stick is expensive compared to CF cards. Plus this model won't support new MS Pro sticks.

If you can wait for till Sept/Oct new Sony PDA's should come out with Palm OS 5 and better features at same price point.

This is my 2nd PDA. I had a Casio PV-S1600. So I was used to monochrome screen and no snazzy apps.
This palm OS based color CLIE just blasted me away.
The palm 4 os based software are easily available online. The PDA serves all my purpose ... entertainment or work. The built in mp3 player is great.
I give it a thumbs up!

Cons:
A faster proccessor and RAM needed... (yes im greedy)
No cradle available with package
Built in Speaker not loud enough

Pros: Built-in MP3 player; fast processor; high-resolution screen; slick clamshell design; 16MB; excellent screen; hard cover; faster processor; small shape; Thin; light; great color screen; Great battery life.

Cons: Wimpy scroll buttons; includes OS 4.1 rather than OS 5.0; expensive; buttons are small again; Doesn't come with a memory stick

Summary: This is my third handheld, and I'm quite impressed with it. Before this I've used two Palms, the 130 and the 515. I always give my old gadgets away to family because I love keeping up with the latest.

The first thing that should strike you is the great look. This is a handsome PDA; although built with plastic, and not metal, it doesn't take away from the quality feel.

The screen is great. Way better than the Palm 130 and 515, and much better than most Power PC's I've seen. With the backlight on I'm able to utilize it non stop for about 9-10 hours, so this will last you probably about 2 weeks with average use.

The processor speed is lightening quick, I was able to move around while playing MP3's with no lag, also playing MPEG's was a great experience. With the 128 or 256 or bigger meg memory sticks you can fit a huge amount of multimedia in there.

My favorite thing about this as opposed to the Power PC is the speed with which I can just open up and use it. This is a great OS first and foremost, and doesn't have TSR's and other BS piggybacking it like the Power PC OS.

I've owned this product for about 2 years and it has been very reliable but there are a few things that could have been added to make it better. The only knock is the interface...parrallel is slow and there's not much you can do about that. I tried using a USB smartmedia writer/reader to download music onto and then tried it in the YP-E32 itself. The player does not recongnize the formate and will not display it nor play it. A friend lent me a 128mb smartmedia card to try and again the player would not read that either. It needs the 32mb cards. I'm still searching for a better interface set-up. Any ideas please post them.
If you want better quality sound you need a good jukebox program that will allow you to rip or write music at or near CD quality.
But remember, the higher the kbs the bigger the file therefore, the number of songs you will be able to download will be less.
Otherwise it's been a great little toy.

I bought the Yepp about a month ago, and it has been a great buy. The sound is pretty good, not perfect, but pretty good. 32mb goes fast, and you can only put about 8-9 songs on it depending on compression rate. It would be nice if Real Jukebox supported the Yepp, it doesn't at the moment, but they claim they are working on a pugin.

The power consumption is great, a few features that would be better is more memory, a backlit display and better navigation buttons. The EQs really don't make that big of a difference but it still sounds pretty good. The earphones are really bad, but I already had a pair of Sony earbuds and the Yepp sounds 100% better with them.

This product is awesome for the price, and I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't want to spend to much on a portable MP3 player.

When I got this excellent Samsung MP3 Player I couldn't believe how small it was! It's extremely light as well. I installed and had this thing up and running in mere minutes. The manual must have been re-written because I had no problem getting started! The player it's self is very cute and stylish unlike some of the more garish looking mp3 players out there. It has a big LCD screen, a cool equalizer, phone book, voice recording! and the most important thing..the sound is FANTASTIC! The volume can be cranked and the mp3's sound exactly the way they sounded when they were on computer. I haven't ripped my own mp3's but I plan to soon. This mp3 player just plain rules! The price is good and even though it's only 32 mb(you can upgrade to 64 mb) I have to give it 5 stars! You can buy a USB adaptor so the file transfer goes even faster also. Buy this player!

My CD player broke, and i wanted to get a new one, so i chose this. But to my dismay, THIS IS NOT AN MP3 PLAYER. THIS HOLDS NO MP3's. I don't think it says that it does but maybe i'm just stupid but it seemed a bit misleading. The ESP-Extreme anti skip works very well, so i can even run with it. THIS IS AN EXCELLENT CD PLAYER. Battery runs out FAST when anti skip is on though. CHarger is nice but i don't think it charges itself as someone said. PRETTY GOOD.

I will note I have not tried WMA files, but MP3 works great! On most CD's, you can fit 200-250 tracks, and this player is an inexpensive and great value

PROS
~~It allows you to sort by Artist, Album, Track name, and Genre (Genre is pop, rock, rap, etc.) and you can file through the songs
~~Play options, (repeat, shuffle, etc.) are numerous and good
~~VERY EASY to use, if by an off-chance you are baffled, the included manual is great to console.
~~Rechargable batteries (Not-included) can be recharged while still inside the player
~~Great Surround Sound or DPS
~~Allows excellent choice of preferences, such as backlight-timed, Autoplay, etc.
~~AC Adapter included, kinda bulky, but it needs to be to function. Never-the-less, the included AC Adapter works perfect
~~

CONS
~~I'm not feeling too trusty of the fact you must force the CD down and force it back up, what happened to the great "PUSH" button that poppped it up?
~~Sometimes the CD doesn't play automatically and you have to press the play button 2 or 3 times
~~I'm not ranting, but there is this sticker on the Player that advertises the type of program it uses (I'm not mad at the program, it's actually very goo!) but when you peel off the sticker it leaves a horrible residue, but it can be cleaned off with a simple cleaning spray.

Now here is what you will need to fix on your own
~~I'm not to lie to you, these are possibly the worst headphones I have ever used. Buy some new ones, it'll be worth it

~~#1 THING /PAY CLOSE ATTENTION\~~I suggest you buy a stress ball, because this software... ARGH! It makes you want to use the disc as a frisbee! It is the buggiest thing ever, especially on below a Windows 98. Get something else, or a better version of Musicmatch, because you will go insane attempting to fix this

All in all it gets a 4 1/2, A great value for your hard earned-money and a great accesory for any music lover.

I've had this cd player for about 1 year now, and I love it, and belive me i'm not one for buying cheap products, I always look for the best, and this had everything I wanted and more, at an unbelivable price. So if your trying to decide between this player and another one, just make up your mind and pick this one, because like I said i've had it for 1 year now and i've had absolutley no problems with it at all, it has great sound and looks, and lots of features, so if you can't make up your mind, let me make it up for you.........BUY IT!!

The sound is great, with the surround sound, but there are two things that really pisses me off.

1. I bought this, just opened it, held it in my hands, looked into the display... What? Is there dust inside the display? How did they do that? U gotta crack it up to fix that.

2. The unit scratches easily, like all Yepp units.

These are the cons, but if U dont care about how the player looks, U can buy this as a great buy.

After reading all of the reviews for the Samsung YP-55V, I decided that I had to get one for myself. And I must admit, I was not disappointed in the least.

This player is everything that everyone here has raved about... and much, much more! Everything that I have used so far, except for the [bad] headphones (which all MP3 players come with regardless of how high-quality they are), has worked flawlessly and wonderfully! I still can't believe how far technology has come as to allow me to fit so many songs on such a tiny player! The sound quality is excellent, the design and layout of the unit is so cool-looking and innovative, and the battery-life is unprecendented. Most of all, loading songs onto the player is as simple as transfering documents onto a floppy disk - you just copy and paste, or drag-click, all of the songs you want onto the screen that opens for the USB connection you just enabled (mine was labelled drive F:) and let it do its magic - I was able to transfer 23 songs in less than three minutes! This player is by far the best portable sound unit by dollar that I have ever seen!

To tell you truth, a lot of the problems that other reviewers were experiencing didn't happen to me: The USB cover on my player wasn't loose in the least; I found the case for the player to be really great (and yes, you can still changes tracks while the player is in the case, by simply twisting the body of the player while holding the top still); the buttons for the player, while a little confusing and bizarre at first, actually became very intuitive and second-nature for me quickly (although I still hate using the volume button, but it's no big deal); finally, I tested the radio feature (haven't tried the mike out yet, though) and it worked great, nearly flawlessly actually. I guess some of the reviewers' players had small defects, but mine seems to work perfectly!

Anyway, to summarize: GET THIS PLAYER! NOW! Seriously, it is an unbelievable little piece of technology, and man, is it ever little! I was in the exact same position as most of you readers a couple of days ago, trying to buy the best MP3 player out there, and being overwhelmed by the huge number of choices available! Even after doing extensive research, and reading tons of user reviews for all of the players from numerous websites, I still wasn't too sure if buying this player would be the right choice, since for every single player out there, there are literally at least 5 reviewers who give it the full 5 stars and rave about it like morons (ironically, the same could be said of me), whether it's actually good or not. So I basically had to look at all of the 1 star reviews and see which player truly had the most flaws. And even still, there wasn't a clear winner, but I went with my gut instinct, and bought the Samsung Yepp 55 player, and I can honestly say that it was one of the best purchases I've made in years!

Note: I actually got the Samsung Yp-55i, which has 192 MB memory instead of the 256 MB of the Yp-55V model, since it was significantly cheaper, and I figured that 192 MB, although not upgradeable, was enough memory for me. So if any of you are looking to spend a little less cash to get a player with exactly the same features and design, but that can hold a little bit less songs, go for the Yp-55i (although it isn't listed here on Amazon or Samsung's Yepp site itself - I bought mine "in-store" from Best Buy, since it isn't even listed on their website!).

Wow, I chose this model over all the other mp3 players offered on Amazon because of the reviews. It's very WYSIWYG, small, functional, portable, and for the best 256mb player for the buck.
It comes with everything you need, including a battery. The carry case is economical like the player, small and not much room for anything else, I end up winding my ear buds around the closing flap to keep all my things together. It feels like a sturdy player, I love that you twist the end to move between songs and the bright blue scrolling display, everything makes it feel like a quality product.It ofcourse comes with so-so headphones that I don't recommend using, and you really don't have to install anything, you just plug and drop things in. I use it mainly for work, it's plenty loud and the sound quality is great, all the dynamics and you get a very rich and full volume out of a tiny thing. Battery life is better than expected, a new AAA will last you as advertised 15 or so hours, I recommend rechargeables for environment's sake. The few buttons you see do all the work, you do need to flip through the manual to get a feel for the unusal functions of each button, particularly the volume slider which does most of the work. If you have big big fingers it might take some more effort, I have small hands and I still need to use my nail to dig in sometimes...you do have to remember that you are buying a very very small product! It dissapears in my hands and easily into pockets, it's very cute and it's not orange like you see in the detail photos, but just silver. The FM radio wasn't great from where I tried it, so I can't say much about it yet, voice recording is so so but I don't see myself using that function any time soon. Recording/encoding capabilities though is pretty nice.
In all I recommend it to everyone who's looking to not spend too much on a HD player like the 20GB iRiver iHP-120 which is the best rival to an iPod out there just yet. I think the only thing left to be desired is a FF function and it wouldn't hurt to include one or two more buttons in future models.

I had been looking for a good FM Tuner to use with my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra. I had heard good reviews about this product so I picked it up. Now, I wasn't expecting crystal clear CD-quality sound, but I was expecting something listenable, which explains my disatisfaction with this product.

The product is easy enough to use. You plug the Belkin into the headphone or line out jack of your player, then find a poor quality radio station, tune your Belkin to it, and hit play. The Belkin can run on 2 AAA batteries or off your car's cigarette lighter. My first problem with it, is that the cigarette lighter adapter would not fit securely into the Belkin. It fell out at the slightest touch, as the hole in the Belkin was just too big. I either had to tape it in their, or had to run off the batteries, which run down surprisingly quick.

My next problem, is with the general size of the device. The cord that connects the Belkin to your audio player is about 3 inches long, which means you have to keep it right next to the player. You can't attach it to your dashboard or anything like that. It made it very awkward to change the song or skip through something on the player because I had this tuner hanging down from it.

My final, and biggest problem with the player is the poor reception. I tried it with three different vehicles, and two different MP3 players. I tried every single radio station I could find. I tried every tip I found on the Internet to get good quality. I adjusted the volume on the player and in the car. I turned on the radio first, and then the player, and vice versa. I just couldn't get a decent sound from it. It would sound okay for a few seconds, and then static.

Something to note, is that the poorest quiality station won't always give you the best sound. I sometims found that I received the bst sound from a station that I could somewhat get a broadcast from, even though the manual tells you to look for the weakest stations. The other problem is that if you're in your car, the signal strength of the radio stations change depending on where you are, so the sound quality is going to always vary. I also found that I could only get real good quality when I held the mp3 player and Belkin in my lap, and held onto it. As soon as I let go, I get a little bit of static. The range for this thing in a car is realistically about 2 feet.

One thing I did get a good reception with was with home stereos, where the quality was decent enough to use. But this was pretty pointless for me because I can simply plug in my mp3 player directly into the stereo anyway.

Bottom line, if you can live with subpar quality and don't mind the awkwardness of the Tuner, this is probably the best tuner you will find out there today. Unfortunately, that doesn't account for much until technology provides for better reception in the future.

I used to have an old-school iRock FM transmiter in my car to play my MP3 player through, but good as it was, it only ran on battery power. In the long run, that's a real drain on the wallet.
I found this little baby about 3 weeks ago, and for the money, I'd say it's worth just about every penny. It works every bit as well as the iRock (if not better), and it will probably last longer too.
Here's the rundown:
THE GOOD:
--Works on ANY unused station on your dial, from 88.1 to 107.9 MHz. (The iRock could only use four stations on the low end.)
--Four presets. You can store up to 4 stations in the memory and toggle through them with the touch of a button.
--12V DC power adapter. The TuneCast runs on batteries as well, but this is a moneysaver in itself. And with an automatic on/off, you don't even have to remember to turn it off when you leave the car.
--Compact. The iRock is about the size of a laptop mouse. The Tunecast's size is about 2/3 of that. With the help of a little Velcro, I was able to "hard mount" it neatly out of the way of everything.
THE BAD:
--When the Tunecast powers off, it doesn't remember the last station it was on when power is restored, even if it was a preset. It goes back to 88.1. Little bit of a pain when I'm taking off in the car, but a quick touch of the memory button, and I'm back in the groove.
THE UGLY:
--Nothing ugly about it. It's an all around keeper for sure.
All told, I'm very happy with this little tuner. If you want to travel with all your tunes, I think this is the way to go. Sure, it's a little pricey, but you get what you pay for.

i've never written a review of any of the products i've bought from amazon before, but i felt pretty compelled to write one about this.

if you consider the price and utility tradeoffs for this transmitter, its of good value. of course you can't expect to get cd quality transmission from this, but it works pretty well for the most part. the only bad thing i've found so far is that even on stations where i get the clearest signals, there is some static in the background. this static is only audible when a song is at a quiet part or when there is no song playing so it isn't as bad as you may think. other than that, the sound quality actually kind of surprised me. btw, i live in los angeles where almost every station has some sort of signal, which is also why i am surprised that the product works as well as it does.

overall, i am pleased with my purchase and although i haven't tried any other fm transmitters out there, i would recommend others to buy this if you can't use a cassette adapter.

We purchased the Nomad Zen DAP at Christmas 2003, by May of this year it's hard drive needs to be replaced. It only comes with a 90 day warranty, so we have to shell out $108.00 to get it repaired. Creative must really stand by their workmanship if they will only warrant their products for 90 days. You would be better off with a iPOD or Archos 6000. I have one each of those for years and they still function well full of music. Creative should hide their heads, and their products. What a waste of money !!

Ok I have to start by saying Amazon was the slowest ship time ever.. 9 days to ship although ups shipped it in 2 days.(11 total). That "usually ships in 24 hours" is crap but i didnt deduct points from the product for that because its just magnificent. Im on XP Pro. The Device menu is nice easy to find anything you want.. Although you will need ID3 Tags somewhat filled out but it has mass ID3 change on the app.. took me about 4 hours to setup ID3 tags on about 2900 songs.. as far as pc-zen transfer I dont have usb 2 port so it was goin at usb 1.1 bout 7 seconds a song 7*2900/60/60 about 5.6 hrs but I started it went to bed.. woke up and no problems whatsoever. 290 albums loaded and ready to go.. sounds just as good as a cd player bought a car cassete adapter works good. although hard to change albums and drive so you may need a copilot or a good playlist setup. I paid 224$ for it prolly could have found it for 210$ but oh well. size is nice ipod is about 3/4th the size but oh well it still fits nicely in my poket and is way smaller than an mp3 player. the menu setup is nice mainly based on id3.
-My Music-
+Tracks
-All Tracks
+Artists
-ArtistName
--submenu(open)
<-Lists Albums by artist
+Albums
-All Albums

not exactly but sumthin like that..
theres a few other things like.

Time Display
Surrent Song Display with good info..

Things i wish it had..

menu navigate is fine exept kinda hard to press the scroll navigator to select items

Stop button..not needed but pause/change track will show it as stoped

would have been nice if it had folder layout since thats how my music was sorted but no matter now.

back light button.. back light comes on for a few seconds when the navigate wheel is moved wish there was a diff way to turn it on and posibly keep it on..

but pros outway the cons and i really beleave its a better deal than ipod..

I've never written a review and I've bought from Amazon for years. I am so happy over my ZEN NX that I have to let everyone know. I've downloaded close to 300 CDs and still have over 4 gig left! The sound is amazing. The interface could not be easier. Files are listed by ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, PLAYLISTS and TRACKS. If I want to hear R.E.M. I can listen to "Out of Time" or one song or all 5 albums in order or in a shuffled order. If I'm exercising I can click on Techno and listen to every techno song in the jukebox. It's true the headphones aren't that great. The battery life isn't 14 hours. Did anyone mention the LEATHER carrying case? It's great but should have an opening so you could see the window. The aluminum face plate is ultra cool as is the green light. The scroll wheel is easy to figure out. The media source software is more than adequate. It downloads the track listings and then you copy the CDs. Who needs to pay $200 more for an iPOD?

I received the Lyra 2 as a gift and I can't beleive how lucky I was to get THE BEST MP3 player out there. Easy setup and installation. It comes with a 64 meg Compact flash card. I already have Compact flash cards for my digital camera and camcorder so if I need more space I don't have to buy expensive proprietary memory.

I can't beleive all the features this brings. It comes with nice 'street style' headphones, an in the cord remote, 64 meg Compact flash card and a complete car kit. Sound quality and battery life are A+. It has 6 preset EQ settings and a manual EQ. It has 7 different play modes (repeat, shuffle, etc.). It also includes an FM tuner with 15 presets.

By far, the best out there for the money!!!

I purchased mine ..., and was very happy with it from day one. After installing MusicMatch Plus (already had the basic version, but software included upgrades you to the Plus version for free), I bagan to download MP3's from the internet. My first problem was a strange hissing or ringing noise on some songs, but I soon discovered this was only on those ripped from CD's using Easy CD Creator. When I used MusicMatch to rip, the noise was gone. The sound is excellent - comparable to CD at 128 bitrate. My husband was satisfied with the 64 bitrate, allowing more music on the 64MB card. Downloading even 128MB of music to a CF card took only minutes on my computer (WindowsME), not 45 minutes for half of that as one person said (computer problem!) And the included CF card reader is also useful if you have a digital camera utilizing this media type. The only problem I had was when someone accidentally sat on my player, and the forward button got stuck down.... So I decided to fix it myself, and removed the little piece of brass that activated the forward button, stuck in the down position. It still works, I just can't use the forward button, so I can't use the radio or skip forward a song.

This MP3 player came with more features and peripherals than expected. It is easy to use and the MusicMatch Jukebox software has been great for copying files to memory cards. Any reviews that mention trouble with the software are end-user problems. It is light weight, does not use rechargeable batteries too quickly and I would recommend it to anyone.

This camera may look ultra cool, but believe me, it's not. Unless you don't care much for how your picture quality is, then this camera may be ok, but if you do or eventually will, you are better off getting a better quality camera.

There aren't many options for your pictures that you're taking meaning you can't change the lighting effect (inside, outside, cloudy, snow, night, etc), size, picture type (black & white, etc) or many of the other things that you can on other cameras. I found that when pictures were loaded onto the computer, they looked grainy and dull, and if you used the flash, that also seemed to ruin the effect of the picture. There is also no zoom which is one thing I forgot to check out when purchasing this camera. I was not happy with this camera at all after a couple months when I needed better quality photos.

The video recorder of the camera was also a disappointment to me. The recording was very choppy and colors again were poor. On the bright side, it recorded the sound well.

I had no problem with the MP3 player or audio recorder, they both worked fine and were the quality that one would expect.

I now own a Sony Cyber-Shot camera which I am VERY pleased with. Basically you really need to think about what type of pictures you will be taking with your camera and if you want them to be the best quality possible, or if it simply doesn't matter to you to decide if you will be happy with this camera.

I bought this gadget for it's many functions although I mostly used it to take video and pictures, sometimes record audio. I really did like it, but after a while I couldn't justify the cost versus the quality... The video quality was ok, about what you get with a medium resolution avi file, but nowhere close to divx quality. Picture resolution at 640x480 was decent, but you'd definitely want better if you want quality pictures. Sound recording was good, but I could only playback on the unit. With SD cards you don't have to worry about memory. My main gripe about this gadget though is the absence of a zoom. I was using it one time when a friend asked me if it had a zoom feature. I told him "this is the zoom" and ran up closer to the subject. If Panasonic added a zoom feature I would definitely recommend it, but overall it doesn't excel in any area. You're probably better off picking up a megapixel digital camera that also takes video.

Ok, it may not take pictures/movies like professional digital cameras can, but it's still a good camera if you looking for something to do for fun. It's small enough to carry in your pocket, you can operate it on the fly when you need to, so its pretty reliable there. You have to mess around with the software a bit, and experiment with the camera a bit too but once you get the gist of how it works, you wont regret buying it. However, this camera is NOT worth paying full price for($200-$400). I bought a used one at Circuit City for only $125, I've had it for about a year and it still works great!

This camera may look ultra cool, but believe me, it's not. Unless you don't care much for how your picture quality is, then this camera may be ok, but if you do or eventually will, you are better off getting a better quality camera.

There aren't many options for your pictures that you're taking meaning you can't change the lighting effect (inside, outside, cloudy, snow, night, etc), size, picture type (black & white, etc) or many of the other things that you can on other cameras. I found that when pictures were loaded onto the computer, they looked grainy and dull, and if you used the flash, that also seemed to ruin the effect of the picture. There is also no zoom which is one thing I forgot to check out when purchasing this camera. I was not happy with this camera at all after a couple months when I needed better quality photos.

The video recorder of the camera was also a disappointment to me. The recording was very choppy and colors again were poor. On the bright side, it recorded the sound well.

I had no problem with the MP3 player or audio recorder, they both worked fine and were the quality that one would expect.

I now own a Sony Cyber-Shot camera which I am VERY pleased with. Basically you really need to think about what type of pictures you will be taking with your camera and if you want them to be the best quality possible, or if it simply doesn't matter to you to decide if you will be happy with this camera.

I bought this gadget for it's many functions although I mostly used it to take video and pictures, sometimes record audio. I really did like it, but after a while I couldn't justify the cost versus the quality... The video quality was ok, about what you get with a medium resolution avi file, but nowhere close to divx quality. Picture resolution at 640x480 was decent, but you'd definitely want better if you want quality pictures. Sound recording was good, but I could only playback on the unit. With SD cards you don't have to worry about memory. My main gripe about this gadget though is the absence of a zoom. I was using it one time when a friend asked me if it had a zoom feature. I told him "this is the zoom" and ran up closer to the subject. If Panasonic added a zoom feature I would definitely recommend it, but overall it doesn't excel in any area. You're probably better off picking up a megapixel digital camera that also takes video.

Ok, it may not take pictures/movies like professional digital cameras can, but it's still a good camera if you looking for something to do for fun. It's small enough to carry in your pocket, you can operate it on the fly when you need to, so its pretty reliable there. You have to mess around with the software a bit, and experiment with the camera a bit too but once you get the gist of how it works, you wont regret buying it. However, this camera is NOT worth paying full price for($200-$400). I bought a used one at Circuit City for only $125, I've had it for about a year and it still works great!