Diva vs. Moveman- Both Are Winners
Written: Apr 12 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good sound quality, small size, easy on the wallet, stylish, drag and drop files.
Cons: Construction feels flimsy, controls are cumbersome, carry case provides no shock protection.
The Bottom Line: A good buy for the money. With a modest investment in memory, it will hold 2-3 albums in highly portable form with reasonably good sound. But treat it with
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| tesseract's Full Review: Diva mp3 player / Model number 3128W |
This is actually a re-post of the very first review I ever wrote on Epinions, way back in November 2002. At that time, only the older Diva series, whose model numbers ended in VP, was listed, so I posted it there even though this is a review of a W-series player. But I since discovered that the W's are now listed, and what's more, when you search for "Diva," you can't even find the VP listing, where my poor review was languishing. So I've deleted the old review and moved it to this more appropriate category. (And, not so coincidentally, where it can be found by anyone searching for reviews of the Diva! Wink, wink.) And I don't want to hear any nit-pickers griping about it being off-topic because of the slightly different model number-- the models are all identical; the model number merely signifies how much on-board memory is present. Mine happens to be 32 MB. I hardly see it being worth creating a completely new listing when the only difference is the memory.
Unfortunately, the Moveman, the product to which I compared the Diva throughout the review, seems to have been taken off the market. The retailers where I priced it in 2002 are no longer listing it, and my old picture link is dead. There are also very few listings for it on EBay. It looks to me like Moveman is history-- or perhaps I should say, obscurity. I thought about removing all references to the Moveman, but decided to leave them because (a) that's the way it was originally written, and (b) it can still be helpful to see how the Diva stacks up to another similar product, even if that particular product isn't available new anymore.
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Due to a little over-eager bidding on EBay, I wound up with both a Diva MP3032W and a Moveman SSP-100 on my hands, and here's the scoop so far.
(Note that the W-series is Daisy's newest Diva line and the VP is the older series. Otherwise they're the same. The number immediately before the VP or W indicates the onboard memory.)
Price:
The 32 MB Diva retails for $69.99. I was able to get it from mydigitaldiscount.com (via bidding on EBay) for $59.99. Also available with 64 or 128 MB internal memory for significantly more $$$.
The Moveman retails for $59.99. Again, I was able to get it $10 cheaper through usbetc.com by bidding on EBay. These are both brand new, not used.
Size/Appearance:
Both players are roughly palm-sized and will easily slip into a pocket. Definitely smaller than your wallet. They are about the same thickness and width, but the Moveman is a little taller.
Diva looks cool, with a stylish swish design on the front, silver oval buttons, and it comes in multiple colors (silver/silver, silver/blue, silver/red, and I think I’ve seen silver/black) for the fashion bunny. Moveman looks OK, but isn't as cool as Diva. It's blue with silver-gray trim and buttons.
As noted above, Moveman seems to have disappeared from all the retail sites, so I can't link you to a picture of it anymore.
Here's a link to a better picture of Diva:
http://www.daisymm.com/mpz/diva_XL.jpg
Batteries:
The Diva takes one AA battery. The Moveman takes two AAA’s. I gave the Moveman to my boyfriend, and he reports about 5 hours of battery life. I don't use the Diva for long periods of continuous play, so I can't estimate a maximum battery life, but I have been very satisfied with the battery. If you’re planning to play it all day, you may want to bring along a spare.
Case:
The Diva’s case and buttons feel flimsy and like they might not stand up to much hard use. The battery compartment lid in particular worried me—the first time I tried to close it, I was afraid I might accidentally break it off. The Diva’s carry pouch provides no shock protection whatsoever, and clearly its only purpose is to allow you to clip the player to your shorts while you exercise. The pouch has an attached spring-loaded clip that will probably break within six months, and the thin clear plastic is likely to tear. The good points of the pouch are that it’s completely transparent, allowing your friends to see the stylish-looking Diva at all times, and you can operate all the controls through the flexible plastic.
The Moveman feels sturdier, and its buttons give a healthy click when you press them. Its carry pouch is a hideous, useless black foam rubber thing that provides only marginal impact protection, blocks access to the controls, and is so tight that when you try to snap it closed, it presses on the buttons and makes the player go crazy. As if that's not bad enough, it also won’t clip directly onto your waistband or shirt. Instead, it only has a belt loop, so chunk it and plan to either buy your own armband, have a pocket handy, or just hold it in your hand.
As an update (May 2003), we've been using both players lightly for several months now, and nothing is broken or malfunctioning on the Moveman. The only thing wrong with the Diva is that a small hinge peg did break off of the battery door, but it hasn't affected functionality. The door still stays put. The Diva's carry pouch is still in perfect condition, but the plastic around the snap is starting to stretch and I figure it's only a matter of time before it tears.
As of April 2004, nearly a year later, this continues to be true. The Diva's plastic case still hasn't torn, and nothing else has gone wrong with it except the small broken hinge peg. But I continue to believe this is because I don't use it much, and when I do, I treat it pretty gently. I still think that any amount of hard use will probably either tear the case or break the buttons in pretty short order. The good news is, the inside still works fine, too, after over a year. No glitches whatsoever.
Memory:
Both players take Compact Flash (CF) memory cards, but the Diva also comes with 32, 64, or 128 MB of internal memory. As you increase internal memory, the price takes a steep jump, though. Note that the Diva is currently only compatible with type I CF memory, which means it won’t take a Microdrive. Daisy says their next released product will be Type II/Microdrive compatible. The Moveman does not come with any internal memory, and is useless without a CF card, but it will take type I or II memory, and can theoretically accept a Microdrive (although I haven’t tested it).
Display/Controls:
The Moveman’s display is easily three times the size of the Diva’s. The Moveman has a two-line display which scrolls the track title on the upper line, and shows track number and elapsed time on the lower line. The Diva only has one line, and the window is only about half as wide, so you have to be patient if you want to see the whole song title. You can toggle the title display to show elapsed time instead. Above the scrolling display, each player has a series of icons that tell you things like battery status, repeat mode, equalizer mode, etc. The Moveman’s bigger display provides considerably more information. The Moveman also has blue backlighting that comes on for a few seconds when you press a button. The Diva has no backlighting, so it can be difficult to use in any low-light situation.
The Diva is minimalist in design and has only four buttons on the front— Play/Pause, Forward/Back, Plus/Minus, and Shift. Despite this, it has all of the same functionality of the Moveman and then some. This is accomplished by way of a Shift key that accesses secondary functions. Every button has at least two functions and maybe more, depending on context. While this is highly efficient, it’s sometimes hard to remember how to access a given function. The manufacturer thoughtfully provides a small quick reference sticker that you can place on the back of the player, but it may still take a while to learn the more advanced functions. It also takes a while to get used to using the Shift key.
The Moveman has a few more buttons, and each of them largely only has one function. It has a large four-directional disk or D-button with Play/Pause, Forward/Back and Stop. It also has separate dedicated volume buttons, a repeat button, random button, and equalizer button. For the most part, what you see is what you get, unlike the Diva, and it is very easy to use, but lacks some of the more detailed functions, like custom equalizer settings and track-to-track repeat.
Despite what the blurbs say, the Moveman does NOT appear to support ID3 tags, and it also doesn’t like spaces in the filenames. After I carefully renamed all the tracks I had loaded, it only showed me the first word of each title! I had five tracks called “The” and four called “One.” The Diva does support ID3, which seems like a good thing on the surface, but frankly, with such a small display, I wanted to shorten my track titles, and it still insisted on spitting out the artist first. "Joe Satriani - Always With Me, Always With You" seems to take entire minutes to scroll by, but as far as I can tell Diva won’t view it as simply "Always With Me" unless you edit the ID tag.
Diva allows you to repeat a selection of tracks as well as repeat 1 and repeat all. As with most functions on the Diva, this is somewhat cumbersome, and you’ll have to scroll through your tracks, figure out the assigned track number of the starting and ending song, and then plug those in.
Moveman has an intro function that will play the first 10 seconds of each track in order. I found this mostly useless, since I recognize all my songs by title... but I guess it could be helpful when you wind up with nine tracks called either "The" or "One."
Sound:
Let me first note that I am not a real audiophile, and I am not particularly picky about my sound, so die-hard stereoheads may violently disagree with me.
The Diva comes with a pair of earbuds that I thought were surprisingly good. The volume goes up to 40, and you get a fair amount of distortion after 30, but 30 is plenty loud for most purposes. The equalizer (again, accessed through the shift key) has four presets for Flat, Rock, Pop, and Jazz, as well as User, which allows you to adjust the frequencies yourself via graphic equalizer controls. The process is somewhat cumbersome, since you have to use the Forward/Back Key to select the frequency you want to adjust, then use the Plus/Minus to adjust it, and you have to do it fairly quickly, or the player will leave equalizer mode. Still, if you’re a fiend for customizing your sound, it can be done. It also has a separate treble and bass boost function. I was actually quite pleased with the sound with the equalizer on Flat and bass and treble boost both set at zero.
The Moveman delivers more volume with less distortion, but I didn’t like its street-style headphones as much. They sounded somewhat tinny compared to the Diva’s earbuds, and I found them uncomfortable, so I switched back to the earbuds after only a couple minutes. It has four equalizer presets—Normal, Rock, Classic, and Jazz, and no customizable controls. Again, I was happiest with the Normal setting, but it didn’t sound quite as rich as the Flat setting on the Diva, while Rock sounded too thick and muffled, and Classic and Jazz seemed hollow and thin.
Song Management/Software:
One of the Diva’s best features is that you can simply plug it in and Windows will recognize it as an external drive. (Note, if you’re running Windows 98, you will have to load drivers first, so it’s not truly Plug&Play.) Open Windows Explorer (or My Computer if you’re one of that crowd), drag the files you want to load onto the external drive, and you’re done… except for the waiting. It can get a little flaky if you try to load a lot at once, and you could have a lockup. This also means you can load any type of file onto it. If you only have 128 MB of memory, file management isn’t really an issue, but it also comes with a Music Loader program that allows you to create playlists if you have larger numbers of tracks to deal with. Playlists are stored as .pl files, and it will NOT recognize .m3u or other types of playlists. Diva doesn’t seem to care if your files are in folders or in the root—it can play sequentially or randomly through every loaded track regardless of how they are organized.
The Moveman does not appear to have any playlist functionality, and it has a problem recognizing files in folders, so you need to load your songs as one long list in the root of the flash memory. To do this, you will have to use the software that comes with the Moveman (which means you can’t load other types of files onto the Moveman). Fortunately, it is easy to use, and if you have a flash reader or another device that can act as an external drive, you can load songs that way, then stick the loaded flash card into the Moveman with no problem.
Voice Recording:
Both players have the ability to record WAV files through the tiny built-in microphone. Diva once again packs a surprising amount of versatility into those four tiny buttons... if you can remember the controls. You can set Diva to voice activate, you can set the microphone sensitivity, and you can record for as long as your memory lasts. Moveman's voice recording is more basic, without the bells and whistles, but as with most other functions, it's easier to access. I don't actually use the voice recording for anything, so I can't vouch for the quality of the recording or the maximum amount of time you can record. I have no idea if you could use either of these to, say, record an hour-long lecture, but bear in mind it's recording a WAV file, which takes up significantly more space than an MP3.
Quirks/Notes:
When the Moveman switches between tracks, it plays a moment of jumbled noise that is very annoying.
Both players have a Lock switch which prevents the controls from being pressed accidentally if you have it crammed into a tight pocket. Because the Moveman's carry case is so tight, you'll need to lock the buttons before putting it into the case.
The Moveman shows you how much free/used space there is when you power it on.
You can change the Diva’s settings to tell it to play only from internal memory, only from the flash card, or from all, so the internal memory and flash card work well together. The only problem is that it can be a hassle loading songs onto both. The computer only sees the internal memory if there is no flash card present, so you have to load the internal memory up first, make a note of what songs you loaded, and then insert the flash card and load it up. Once the flash card is in, you won’t be able to see what you’ve already loaded. A card reader and spare USB port come in handy here, allowing you to view the card and the internal memory in Windows Explorer at the same time.
Daisy has already published multiple firmware upgrades (available on their website at www.daisymm.com), which suggests they will continue to do so. A recent upgrade included USB 2.0 capability. When I had a question, I e-mailed their tech support and got a prompt response. I wasn't able to locate a product support website for Moveman, so their tech support appears to be non-existent. To be totally fair to Moveman, I was able to email the store where I bought it (usbetc.com, which I think is a major distributor of Mediasonic products) and get an answer to a question the same day. But there don't appear to be any upgrades for Moveman.
When I used the Moveman’s software to load tracks onto my CF card and then inserted the card in the Diva, Diva got a little flaky and insisted that certain songs were loaded twice, while refusing to see a few other songs at all. Attaching the Diva to the computer and renaming the tracks didn’t help.
Diva has an icon that indicates data is being transferred over the USB connection and it is not safe to disconnect it. When loading tracks onto the Diva, ignore the transfer monitor on the computer screen (which gets wonky anyway) and just watch for the icon to go off on the player. Moveman doesn’t have this safeguard, and the first time I unplugged it from the USB, it flaked out and I was afraid I had killed it. I had to remove and reinsert the batteries to restore it.
Neither player appears to be compatible with WMA files or Macintosh OS that I can tell. However, the Daisy website has instructions for compiling Diva for use in Linux. Cool.
Pros & Cons:
Diva seems to have slightly better sound quality at moderate volumes than Moveman. Has more functions than Moveman like custom equalizer, repeat selection, voice-activated recording. Internal memory boosts capacity for only $10 more (at 32 MB). Diva has flimsy-feeling construction, controls are cumbersome and difficult to remember.
Moveman delivers more clean volume, but doesn’t sound quite as nice. Sturdy construction, controls easy to use. What you see is what you get. Lack of playlist functionality may make it difficult to manage tracks as memory increases.
Recommended:
Both are satisfactory and are good buys for the money, particularly if you already have CF memory cards lying around your house. I think I personally prefer the Diva, but Carl seems happy with his Moveman as well. They're not the smallest solid-state players on the market, but they combine the right price with room for several albums, depending how much you're willing to spend on memory.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tesseract
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Member: Tesseract
Location: The Fourth Dimension
Reviews written: 71
Trusted by: 19 members
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