a decent MP3 player if bought at a cheap enough price
Written: Jun 10 '03 (Updated Jul 06 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Portability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
|
Pros: price, LCD display, common batteries, memory expandability, size, play modes
Cons: no AC adaptor, memory card cover, LCD display, bit-rate limit
The Bottom Line: I wouldn't pay more than $40 for it--half that for the 64MB version.
|
|
|
| eep_'s Full Review: Comotron C3310-128 128 MB MP3 Player |
I bought this player on a whim because of the $40 (after rebate) price at Fry's Electronics on 6/10/3.
The overall design is compact but the plastic feels chinsy (cheap) and the memory card expansion slot cover is too bulky and flimsy; I doubt it will last very long--or at least will start flopping around due to the plastic nub that locks it in place probably being worn down soon enough. The display case and manual say/show there is a dust cover for the USB connector but it's not there and an email to Comotron reveals: "We have withdrawn from supplying the USB cover. It is useless anyway, and so many people lost it and kept asking for another one." If it's so useless, why does the memory card slot have a dust cover? While I don't have a memory card to test, the slot doesn't look like it would be easy to get the card out, compared to the Digisette design (see below).
The lack of an AC adaptor is discouraging but at least it gets power from the USB adaptor and has the decency to shut itself off after 30 seconds of inactivity. It has an LCD low-battery indicator too, which is nice. I like that it takes standard AAA batteries instead of some propietary kind like the Digisette, but it would be nice to be able to recharge them in the unit like the Digisette--but this is minor. The manual claims the batteries last 7 hours so I don't know where that other reviewer got 24/15 hours from...
I like its 128MB removable storage drive capability--and the fact that it can still play MP3s with non-MP3-files on the flash memory (haven't tried a memory card but I would imagine it works the same). No driver is needed on Win2K/Me/XP+ OSes so it's seamless and easy to connect on most current systems; it even has Mac OS 8.6+ support. The internal flash memory is formatted as FAT(16) but I reformatted it to FAT32 and it seems to work fine so far--and I even got an extra MB of space (126MB vs. original 125MB--3 less than the claimed 128MB) from it. NTFS should allow even more space, I suspect, but I'd rather use FAT32 since it's more compatible (though I don't know how Macs handle it, if at all).
File transfer is slower than the previous MP3 player I had, a Digisette DUO-MP3 (see my review), and it even takes longer because of a lag between computer file transfer (i.e. via Windows Explorer) vs. the player's LCD display. Comotron tech support claims:
"The USB 1.1 speed of this unit is 48,000(48K) bits per second. Your computer can transfer about 10 million (MB) bits of data from your hard drive to the CPU and store in the buffer of the memory to wait to be pumped through the USB port. Hence the waiting."
Which I think is odd since I didn't have this problem with the Digisette and it too used USB 1.1 (or maybe it was just 1.0) to transfer files--faster, up to 2.5MB/s. What's different with the Comotron player? The manual claims it can transfer up to 12 Mbps (megaBITs, mb/s or megaBYTEs, MB/s?) yet I don't get anywhere NEAR the latter (12MB/s). If what they claim is true, 48 KB/s (kiloBYTEs/s), that's pretty pathetic!
The LCD screen, while nice to have, doesn't give much information about the content. It doesn't show MP3 name, size, time, or anything about the current MP3--only which number it is of the total MP3s. When rewinding/fast-forwarding through an MP3, it doesn't show the time and the volume is so low that you can't tell how far the pointer is so it's all just a guess.
The volume doesn't go very high but it's fairly loud--for silent environments; on an airplane it can get a bit faint. The volume needs adjustment so it doesn't take so long to move up/down and there should be less levels before it reaches 0 (even though it's not even fully silent).
The equalizer has an annoying pause between each level, unlike the Digisette, but, also unlike the Digisette, it at least has a "super bass" mode and a way to loop ("clip") a section of an MP3, in addition to the repeat, repeat all, shuffle (random), and shuffle-repeat all play modes, which are nice! Unfortunately, the shuffle mode isn't truly random and plays the same order every time.
The manual needs to be rewritten by someone who's native language is English; it's quite atrocious at times--and inconsistent with the display case in terms of required memory (32MB on case vs. 16MB in manual) to transfer files.
No belt clip or carrying case but at least it has a semi-detachable carry string/neck strap. The earphones are decent enough too.
This player isn't worth the retail $120 (at time of purchase) or $70 before mail-in rebate.
7/6/3 Update: After having the player for about a month now, I've had one corruption incident where most of the MP3s were gone (only 2 remained) and the other few files on the memory had odd filenames (extended ASCII) and exaggerated sizes (1+ GB--huh?). It could be related to low/failing batteries, as another reviewer mentioned, but I don't know.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 40
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
eep_
|
|
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.