Hop on into the Roopaq!
Written: Dec 18 '01
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Pros: Easy to use, great sound quality. Doubles as a portable USB drive.
Cons: Lack of any real MAC support. Shaped like a brick.
The Bottom Line: All in all, with versatility being this units middle name, it's hard to beat the Roopaq.
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| rabscuttle's Full Review: Genica Roodpaq MP3 Player |
Genica touts itself as "delivering the same stuff - only for less" or something like that. And the Roopaq is no exception.. What it is is a MP3 player that you add a notebook hard drive to, and then, via a computers USB interface, copy your MP3 encoded songs onto the built in drive. Having a real hard drive in the unit has it's advantages, the first being that you can make it double as a USB drive (and still have your MP3's on it at the same time). It reads the titles either directly form the directory or from MP3 ID tags. It reads the music into a memory buffer for playback (no skipping), and has a reasonable battery life (1.5 hours on average) for a player of it's type.
Some of it's prominent features are:
1) Versatile - just how COOL is a combo portable USB drive / MP3 player
2) You add the hard drive - which means that you get to pick the size of the drive you put in (believe me, it's very difficult to get 10 gigs of hard drive space filled with MP3's). Very easy to install (I got the drive from the same place I got the unit)
3) 60 Second Electric Shock Protection helps prevent problems with skips (most MP3 players that I have seen do have some kind of buffer like this however)
4) Supports MP3's from 80-320 bit rates and also VBR
5) It has a remote - credit card sized, kind-of useful
6) Includes a car kit - a BIG plus in my epinion
Some of the drawbacks are:
1) Lack of any real MAC support (this being an OEM version of the SSI NEO25, it shares the same problems that plague the NEO25, namely: the lack of support for big drives and MAC crashes in music transfers -- if you have a standard PC you don't need to worry about any of this)
2) Chinchy headphones.. I have never been a fan of the "ear plug" headphones with any portable player - scrap them and get a real set.
3) The battery - not the life span, but it's some kind of cell phone battery, and I still can't find a backup. You charge it by having the unit plugged into a wall outlet.
4) The shape: Standard brick. It comes with a belt-clip case for portability, but it feels like you're lugging around an ammo pack
Websites:
http://www.genica.com/MP3products/Mp3-roopaq.htm
http://ssiamerica.com/products/neo25/
Would I get it again, even with some of the newer MP3 gee wiz stuff on the market? Yes, definitely. Simply put, the versatility and reliability make this player a hard one to beat.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 122
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Epinions.com ID:
rabscuttle
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Member: Bryan Lambert
Location: Carlsbad, CA
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I am the Alpha Geek!
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