This player rocks
Written: May 06 '02
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Pros: Cheap, light, simple and easy to upgrade
Cons: Nothing significant
The Bottom Line: Great device - buy one!
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| moschops's Full Review: Frontier NEX II MP3 Player |
I'm so glad I discovered this device because its the best value MP3/WMA player out there. Its packaged really well in terms of usability. I love that you can by it without any storage for under $100 and get your compact flash I or II or IBM microdrive from where ever you want. I bought mine bundled with a 256MB compact flash card - it was very close to the same price as the cheapest flash I could find online and saved on some extra shipping. I got it direct from NEX II. I ordered over the weekend not realizing it was coming from Hong Kong. On Tuesday I got email saying it had been shipped with a FedEx tracking number, when I checked I found it had already arrived in California and was clearing customs - WOW! For the standard $15 shipping they sent it express with Saturday delivery. It took the rest of the week to get out of customs and travel the final 20 miles in the USA - I would have got it Saturday if it hadn't been delivered to a business address.
On Windows 2000 or later you can just plug it into your computer with USB (1.0) and drivers are automatically loaded. Drivers are included for Win98 if you need them. The device is then recognised as a storage drive and you can drag and drop files to it directly from Windows. Or if you want to use Windows Media Player you can do that. It supports both WMA and MP3 natively with a wide range of sample rates so there's almost no need to transcode like some other devices.
I love the display on this device - it has some very fancy displays including a little graphic equalizer and all things are easy to access from a variety of buttons. The jog dial is a very simple way to use the device when its in the pouch and on your hip.
The firmware can be upgraded by just copying a special file onto the storage card you have in the device and powering it off and on again. Therefore it'll be easy to get any software patches required. So far the only problem I've seen is that the "spectrum view" display option is not supported at the moment. Frontier Labs promise this and further display options will be supported in future firmware upgrades. At the moment the standard display will show you a scrolling name of the current track, the elapsed and total time for the track, the play mode, file format and sample rate. The display is easily visible through a clear window in the neoprene pouch.
This is a very light device - without a card and batteries in it it weighs almost nothing. Although bigger than some of the smallest device out there its actually very small and fits comfortable in your hand if you're carrying it, or on your hip if you've clipped on with the carrying pouch. The front has the ability to add little coloured cards behind a plastic lens so you can customize the look - either buy some from Frontier or just cut out your own. Gimmicky but kinda cute if you're interested in that sort of thing. Power supply is two AA batteries for 20 hours or so of playing with a Compact Flash card or 2-4 hours with an IBM microdrive (the larger 1Gb drive supposedly has better play time - 4 or more hours).
The only think I would have changed about this device would be to make the front face out of something like magnesium so its a bit more robust. However you'll probably use it in the very nice neoprene carry pouch. They designed it well so all the features are easily accessible (the "lock" switch is a little fiddle to get at, but then you want it to be hard to activate inadvertantly right?) so using in the pouch makes sense and will provide good protection.
I'm no audiophile but the sound is also good and plenty loud enough. Over the ear "street style" phones are included in the package.
Since this player behaves just like USB storage drive you can just drag and drop files to it and use it like a small hard drive. You do need a special USB cable with a thin connector on one end (like a cell phone connector) which is a shame, a mini or standard USB connector on the device end would have been more convenient. But once connected this thing just works - who the heck needs a floppy drive any more?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 109
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Epinions.com ID:
moschops
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Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 4 members
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