MP3 Reviews

The Flipster looks cool, pretty much like a clamshell cell phone. It works well, too, playing specially encoded video files (a conversion tool for Windows is included) as well MP3, WMA and AAC music files. You can also load various picture formats on the 2.5" screen, which is smallist. But seriously, this is really a half-cripped WinCE device, so for this money you might as well get a Pocket PC that has a built-in SD slot. For example, the Toshiba e755 has both SD and CF slots and can thus support up to 2GB of storage (or more in the future), and comes with wi-fi, AND is cheaper than the Flipster... and, of course, the e755 is a Pocket PC so it can do much more. If the Flipster were hard drive-based, it could be cool for my money. As it is, it arrives too late with too few functions.

I recently upgraded to a 3G iPod. When I saw this, I thought it would be the perfect solution for those people who actually USE their iPod, not bury it in a case. If you're worried about scratches all the time, I doubt you are enjoying the music much. This would allow for easy access and quick connection connections. It would also double as a quick and easy car holder.

I received the holster and slid the iPod in. Perfect fit to my slim 3G. Excellent so far. Nice fit and quality, great grip. Then I clipped the holder on the clip. A little loose on the fit I thought. Then I squeezed the clip. It shattered. No, it wasn't cold. Room temp. The sides just cracked and the clip broke into 4 pieces. First squeeze. Upon close examination, it is made from the ultra brittle plastic you see on the cheap import cell phone cases. The ones in Wal-Mart for pennies on the dollar?

Hard to believe Belkin would make such a nice holster and then supply the cheapest clip they could find. A total failure. By the way, I dug out an old Nokia clip I had that had been in use for 2+ years every day until I retired the phone. The clip is very loose with this Belkin as the knob on the case is smaller than that on most cell phone case.

Big drag.

I am not sure about the longevity of the product but we have used this item 2 times with our portable DVD player and watched a couple movies and WOW!!!!!

The sound from the small (6.5") screen portable without anything is really not that good, but when you attach this tote to it, you sound like you are in a movie theater.

Surround sound for sure.

This drive has a lot of features packed onto a small unit.

Pros:
FM Radio.
Plays mp3s (including vbr).
small size.
backlit screen.
Plugs right into usb slot.
Headphones have volume control and actually sound okay.

Cons:
Drag and drop copies files out of order in windows, so mp3s will play out of order--unit does not sort alphabetically. To get around this I copy them to the unit using a DOS prompt, which copies them one by one
Forgets your settings (including track volume) and what song you were playing when you turn it off.
Lousy bass response.
No WMA support.
Feels very cheap and fragile.
Hold switch does not prevent buttons from being pressed--only prevents deletion of data from the unit. The former is more useful, though why couldn't it just do both?
No clip of any sort.

This thing works well as long as you are using original cds or cd-r media. MP3 and audio playback was great. Once you insert a CD-RW media things take a turn for the worst. Whether you burn as a audio cd or as an MP3 cd, the playback is full of pops, crackles and interruptions. If you use CD-RWs then avoid this player, otherwise it will serve you well.

i used this for about 5 months, and it was good, given the $45 price tag. then today i dropped it, u know, from like waist-high, and....it stopped working.... i've taken it running with me, and it does well, but it shouldnt break from a 4 foot fall

A friend gave me this as a gift, which I'm glad she did because I'm not sure if I'd want to pay for it

The good things about the player is that it's very simplistic. It only has two pieces to it, so you don't have to worry abot a bunch of cables or anything. You slide out the flash drive, plug it into your USB port, and start copying files to it directly from Windows Explorer, which recognizes it as an additional hard drive. The player will hold around 15-18 mp3 songs encoded at 128kbps. This is plenty for someone like me who only runs for 20-30 minutes. It's also nice to have a flash drive that I can easily transfer files with. I have not experienced any effect of the player cutting off the first second of each song like another reviewer said. Every song starts right up at the beginning.

The cons: AT first, I couldn't do anything with this device until I formatted it. Windows would recognize it, but not let me remove or copy any files to it. I tried it on several computers and could only listen to the songs already on it until I found the format software, but it works great now. The player doesn't have an LCD screen, so you can't see what song is playing, although this isn't really a problem with only 64mb of storage space. Another problem, is that it didn't come with the armband. You have to order it seperately from Creative. For a portable MP3 player designed to be used with exercise, this is ridiculous. For the price they should have thrown it in, or at least put a belt clip on it. I have to wear shorts with pockets in them to carry it with me when I run. I also have to hold the headphone cord to keep it from flapping around. The armband would have prevented all this. The player does come with some earphones that suck and a neck loop that is great if you run in the woods or at night where no one can see what an idiot you look like.

The player also features a "loop" button that allows you to start recording a point in one of your songs, press a button, and it will loop the section you recorded over and over. I have no idea what the point of this was, or why they wasted time with it. As far as I can tell, it is completely useless.

My biggest complaint is the battery life. It holds one AAA battery. This is nice for the compact size, but I would have rather it been slightly larger and held tow batteries. I like my music up pretty loud, and my battery is dead after 45-60 minutes. That is unacceptable. I've seen reviews that say the battery life lasts 12 hours at 60% volume. I have never seen that. I have to buy batteries in bulk just to be able to use it. What's more, the Muvo will actually drain amps from your battery when it's turned off. For the life of me I can't figure out why. It's a flash drive, so there should be zero reason it needs to keep power up. It is not very significant, but if you put a brand new battery in and don't turn it on at all, in about two months the battery will be dead from the drain. WMA files also consume more battery usage than mp3 files.

The player also has a skip button that lets you skip tracks and fast forward, but it can act flaky on WMA files, and instead of seeking through a song, just skip right to the beginning. There is also no repeat feature. After the last song, you have to hit play again to restart it. No random song feature either.

Although this player is pretty much outdated now, it would be a decent player. I like the basic design and the controls are easy to use. It's just not worth the current price, and it has too many flaws to use for serious athletes.

I received the Nomad Muvo 128 as a gift and love it. While it's advertised to support the Windows platform only, I've been using it with ease with my Mac OSX iBook. You can drag and drop right out of iTunes to the Muvo, which couldn't be easier.

I've had no problems with the unit and with NiCad rechargeable batteries, I'd say the 12h playing time is an understatement. Sound quality is great, though the included headphones aren't much good. Plug it into a good quality pair (or your home stereo) and you'll immediately notice the great quality sound.

I'd give it a 5 except that the Muvo cannot remember where it left off each time you turn it off. When you turn it back on, it always restarts at the first song in your play list. The good news is that the Muvo's firmware is upgradeable, so Creative will be able to improve on it in the future. Fixing this issue and adding better mac support would get a 5-star rating out of me. [...]

THis is a great mp3 player. i ordered it sunday night and recieved it on tuesday. Target is an awesome plae to get gifts cuz they ship so fast. the mp3 is easy to use, i can get around 30 songs on it TOPS. the head phones are really nice. also the sound quality is tight. It is the best cheapest 128 mb out there. there are a few not so good things about it. in the insturction manual it tells u to plug it into the usb port in the front of your computer. i did that but it didnt work. then i tried the one in the back and it did. the instructions arent good. also ther shcould be an lcd display screen to infrom the length and title of the song. over all it is a good mp3 player. also it takes around 6 sec to down load a song!

A friend gave me this as a gift, which I'm glad she did because I'm not sure if I'd want to pay for it

The good things about the player is that it's very simplistic. It only has two pieces to it, so you don't have to worry abot a bunch of cables or anything. You slide out the flash drive, plug it into your USB port, and start copying files to it directly from Windows Explorer, which recognizes it as an additional hard drive. The player will hold around 15-18 mp3 songs encoded at 128kbps. This is plenty for someone like me who only runs for 20-30 minutes. It's also nice to have a flash drive that I can easily transfer files with. I have not experienced any effect of the player cutting off the first second of each song like another reviewer said. Every song starts right up at the beginning.

The cons: AT first, I couldn't do anything with this device until I formatted it. Windows would recognize it, but not let me remove or copy any files to it. I tried it on several computers and could only listen to the songs already on it until I found the format software, but it works great now. The player doesn't have an LCD screen, so you can't see what song is playing, although this isn't really a problem with only 64mb of storage space. Another problem, is that it didn't come with the armband. You have to order it seperately from Creative. For a portable MP3 player designed to be used with exercise, this is ridiculous. For the price they should have thrown it in, or at least put a belt clip on it. I have to wear shorts with pockets in them to carry it with me when I run. I also have to hold the headphone cord to keep it from flapping around. The armband would have prevented all this. The player does come with some earphones that suck and a neck loop that is great if you run in the woods or at night where no one can see what an idiot you look like.

The player also features a "loop" button that allows you to start recording a point in one of your songs, press a button, and it will loop the section you recorded over and over. I have no idea what the point of this was, or why they wasted time with it. As far as I can tell, it is completely useless.

My biggest complaint is the battery life. It holds one AAA battery. This is nice for the compact size, but I would have rather it been slightly larger and held tow batteries. I like my music up pretty loud, and my battery is dead after 45-60 minutes. That is unacceptable. I've seen reviews that say the battery life lasts 12 hours at 60% volume. I have never seen that. I have to buy batteries in bulk just to be able to use it. What's more, the Muvo will actually drain amps from your battery when it's turned off. For the life of me I can't figure out why. It's a flash drive, so there should be zero reason it needs to keep power up. It is not very significant, but if you put a brand new battery in and don't turn it on at all, in about two months the battery will be dead from the drain. WMA files also consume more battery usage than mp3 files.

The player also has a skip button that lets you skip tracks and fast forward, but it can act flaky on WMA files, and instead of seeking through a song, just skip right to the beginning. There is also no repeat feature. After the last song, you have to hit play again to restart it. No random song feature either.

Although this player is pretty much outdated now, it would be a decent player. I like the basic design and the controls are easy to use. It's just not worth the current price, and it has too many flaws to use for serious athletes.

I received the Nomad Muvo 128 as a gift and love it. While it's advertised to support the Windows platform only, I've been using it with ease with my Mac OSX iBook. You can drag and drop right out of iTunes to the Muvo, which couldn't be easier.

I've had no problems with the unit and with NiCad rechargeable batteries, I'd say the 12h playing time is an understatement. Sound quality is great, though the included headphones aren't much good. Plug it into a good quality pair (or your home stereo) and you'll immediately notice the great quality sound.

I'd give it a 5 except that the Muvo cannot remember where it left off each time you turn it off. When you turn it back on, it always restarts at the first song in your play list. The good news is that the Muvo's firmware is upgradeable, so Creative will be able to improve on it in the future. Fixing this issue and adding better mac support would get a 5-star rating out of me. [...]

THis is a great mp3 player. i ordered it sunday night and recieved it on tuesday. Target is an awesome plae to get gifts cuz they ship so fast. the mp3 is easy to use, i can get around 30 songs on it TOPS. the head phones are really nice. also the sound quality is tight. It is the best cheapest 128 mb out there. there are a few not so good things about it. in the insturction manual it tells u to plug it into the usb port in the front of your computer. i did that but it didnt work. then i tried the one in the back and it did. the instructions arent good. also ther shcould be an lcd display screen to infrom the length and title of the song. over all it is a good mp3 player. also it takes around 6 sec to down load a song!

I was pleased with its performance until I realized that Toshiba doesn't offer the upgrade to Pocket PC 2003. Seems like just a ploy for me to sell it and buy the 755, which is the same machine. Needless to say I'm not happy with Toshiba's support of this product.

This is a a great PDA execpt for one thing. It is has NO built-in memory to save stored data. The E 750 took care of this problem and Toshiba essentially stifed the owner of the orignal -including my letter to them which was written before one year warrantee. They never even answered my letter.

Their answer was to give you a $40 credit towards their old defective E740. Good customer relations - Toshiba

I purchased the Toshiba e740 after the screen on my old tried and true Palm 3 went south. I always liked the Palm and it served me well for over four years, so I was a little apprehensive about switching to the PocketPC world. However, I've been blown away by all of the advancements in the PocketPC operating system. It integrated with Word, Excel and Outlook seemlessly and it also offers the Window Media Player and a host of other Windows functionality. Overall a thumbs up on the Pocket PC operating System.

Now for the 740, I like the unit a lot. So here is what I give a thumbs up to: The size and weight is about the same as my old Palm. The color screen is great. Indoors and out it works well. Having a compact flash and smart media slot is the only way to go.

Here's are the thumbs down: The built in speaker is a joke (but who really expects audiophile sound from a PDA anyway. So plan on buying a set of headphones). The voice record button on the side of the unit is way to easy to set off without knowing it (this runs down the battery and gives you a bunch to screwy recording to delete). The main manual is terrible, there is no index in the back to cross reference anything so if you have a problem good luck. Last but not least, the battery life is only average, so if you travel, do yourself a favor and buy a back-up charger.

Overall, I'd recommend this PDA. The features are better than the iPaq. And, you've got to wonder, how long has anybody ever effectively competed with Microsoft. I was a diehard Mac guy and also and owner of a Beta VCR, neither could effectively compete with stronger rivals. This time I didn't want to be the last guy swimming up stream.

Unfortunately there is not 0 stars. The product I bought just make a humming noise. Customer service? No answer to 6 e-mails. I tried calling. First, false information provided (deliverately?): just download the firmware and it will work. Then, they mock you: just send us the details and proof of purchase and we will replace. They do not (two attemps). Never, never buy anything from this manufacture or trust it.

I still remember the first time I saw a solid state MP3 player: the original Rio at a small side room at Comdex a few years back. For me, it was one of those "wow" moments, like the first time I used the Mosaic browser and clicked hyperlinks. Even though I was excited, I held off from buying a player because of the cost and the limited memory. Well, I finally bought my first MP3 player (Rio 800) last month and am pretty satisfied.

I read all of the reviews and was worried that I'd have the battery issues but so far I haven't. My only beef is how long it takes to transfer songs with USB1.X (not a problem for just Rio 800). It takes me almost 30 minutes to load 128 MBs of music, so it's not exactly a spontaneous thing 5 minutes before going to the gym. I now understand the hype arround Firewire and USB 2.0.

Things I like:
- rechargeable battery (that works). I hate having to swap out batteries, even if they are rechargeable. If you ever moved from a PalmIII to a PalmV, or if you use a digital camera with a built in rechargeable battery like a Fuji FinePix 6800, you know what I mean
- very light, nice form factor. no mechanical parts
- plays my r3mix.net VBR encoded MP3s
- can fast forward through long MP3 tracks. I ripped all my Pink Floyd albums each as a single MP3 track to avoid gaps and was worried that I couldn't fast forward. I discovered accidentally that if you leave the next track button depressed, it FFs.

You definitely want to use another set of headphones. I'm also beginning to think that for my commute in the car I should eventually get a 20GB jukebox when the prices go down (and use the Rio 800 for the gym, office, and the great outdoors).

Good luck if you get this device.

I bought my Rio 800 recently and I absolutely love it and have had no problems with it. Rio stopped shipment of their previous Rio 800 models due to all the battery charger problems (described in many of the reviews on this site). However, they just this month (March 2002) started shipping new Rio 800 models that have fixed all of the previous bugs.

This is by far the best player out there. I held off on buying this until they completely fixed all of the battery charger problems. And now that they have, there is nothing to dislike about this player.