Tunes and more on the go!
Written: May 29 '01 (Updated Dec 15 '01)
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Pros: Lightweight, portable, stylish, cheap media, great sound, versatile. New low price!
Cons: The factory headphones aren't great.
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this to anyone looking for an MP3 player with cheap storage media, versatility, solid performance and great audio playback with a price that can't be beat.
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| webscathe's Full Review: Iomega Hipzip 31311 40 MB MP3 Player |
I chose the Iomega HipZip because I trust the Iomega name. I have been purchasing Iomega products since the Zip drive first came out. This product has continued my pleasure with Iomega.
Installing the drive on the computer is as easy as installing any program. The drive also ships with the full version of MusicMatch Jukebox for MP3 ripping, conversions, and will save playlists directly to the HipZip.
This is a very versatile MP3 player. When the player is hooked up to the computer, it acts like a normal disk drive. You copy and paste files to and from the HipZip just like a floppy disk. This means it's very easy to manage your MP3's because it's just like working with files anywhere else on your computer. But this also means that you can copy whatever you want to the player, not just MP3's. This is were the versatility comes in. You can save ANY files on your computer to the player's 40MB Clik disks. I love this feature because if I'm going somewhere and I want to bring some files with me, I can copy them to the 40MB Clik disk with my MP3's, listen to the MP3's and hook it up to another computer and copy my data files off, quite a unique feature if you ask me.
The 40MB disks themselves, which I consider to be a bit small personally, hold around 40 minutes of music, depending on what bit rate the MP3's are. Some may say 40 minutes is nothing, but, the industry standard for the length of a music CD is 40 minutes so... But here's a rumor for you, I talked with Iomega's customer service and they say that they are planning on releasing a 100MB version of this drive, so if you're really looking for more storage space PER DISK, then you may want to hold off till the 100MB version comes out.
The player supports .MP3 files (PC format MP3's only, MP3's recorded with Sound Jam for Mac won't work on the player) as well as .WMA files (Windows Media Audio). Mac users should also keep in mind that the HipZip will only recognize the Clik disk (what the MP3's are stored on) if it is a PC format disk, it won't read a Mac format disk for playback. This shouldn't be a problem though because almost every Mac has File Exchange or PC Exchange installed anyway. Future audio formats will be supported through firmware updates.
The audio quality of the HipZip is very good as far as I'm concerned. Granted, I make sure my MP3's have a bit rate of 192 instead of the standard 128, so the MP3 files are larger in size but the audio quality of the song is better and the HipZip plays them beautifully. Again though, as with almost any walkman/discman/MP3 player, the factory headphones aren't good headphones. Yes, they work, but have poor tone quality and no bass, do yourself a favor and pick up a decent set of headphones.
One thing some people may bring up against the HipZip is that it doesn't use solid state media, it uses disks. For instance, most MP3 players use Compact Flash or Smart Media cards, they have no moving parts, they are just a stick of memory so there are no chances for skipping due to excessive shock to the player. The HipZip uses Clik disks, which is much like a floppy, only smaller with a metal case. The point is, the disk spins and an arm inside the player moves to read the disk so there is a potential for skipping... Not exactly. The HipZip has a large internal cache which stores music ahead of what is actually playing so even if it does loose it's place, the music stored in memory kicks in immediately until the player finds it's place again, which is completely unnoticeable.
A couple of misc facts...
The player weighs in at 185g. It does not care about the copyright status of the song you're playing on it. The battery lasts for around 10 hours in the beginning but after about 3 complete charge and discharge cycles will last for 12 hours. Backlit display of title, artist and album info. Remember the reset button! On the top of the drive, where it flips open to insert the disk, there is a tiny reset button. At one point in time, I inserted a disk and it just kept saying Invalid Format, I hit the reset button, turned it back on and all was well.
So what do you get? The HipZip Digital Audio Player, a convenient carrying case to clip to your belt or whatever, a USB cable for connecting to the computer, power cord for recharging the battery, (poor quality) headphones, 2 40MB Clik Disks to get you started, and MusicMatch Jukebox Plus. Iomega also provides FREE tech support for the life of the product, a 1 year warranty on the drive (for free replacement) and the Clik disks technically have a 5 year warranty, but Iomega has no way of telling how old they are so if they go bad, they'll replace them free of charge regardless of age.
Since the original writing of this Epinion, the price of the HipZip has changed from $299.95 to an absolute steal at $99.95!
Requirements:
PC Users
P166 +
Win 95/98/ME/2000/NT 4.0 (SP 4 or higher)
30MB Hard drive space for software install
Mac Users
Must have built in USB controller
Mac OS 8.6 - 9.x
20MB Hard drive space for software install
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99.95
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Epinions.com ID:
webscathe
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Member: Bernie Salvaggio
Location: Utica, NY
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
The ultimate gift of love is life. Listen, you can learn from everyone, and everything.
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