Greatest MP3 Player I ever had! Better than what I've expected to have!
Written: Aug 15 '02
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Pros: Practical, Great Sound, Easy to Use, Jog Button very useful, Great LCD!
Cons: Need PlayList Function & Option of Having a A/C Adapter (for transferring)
The Bottom Line: Greatest MP3 player I ever had! Small, practical, great sound, easy to use, plays MP3s directly. It's your lost not to try the NEX II!
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| oceanbrze99's Full Review: Frontier NEX II MP3 Player |
I got my Nex II from eBay's mp3player.com. I think mp3player.com is in Canada. I believe they have a branch in the USA also. I'm in Canada and the player arrived in 2 or 3 days at my door step! I'm rather excited to receive the NEX II in the mail. It's because I heard from review that it's a very good MP3 player. So, I go ahead and check it out and load up the compact flash card with my MP3s through a compact flash card reader.
The Nex II is very light weight (even with 2 AA batteries and a compact flash card inside). It looks quite neat and attractive. It's so small that it fits on my palm. The casing is white with interchangeable "Nex Skins." The Nex Skins is neat to have, but I just prefer to stick to one without changing the skin all the time. I'm using the whirling water skin. Actually, I hope that the NEX II is silver in color instead of white. Just my personal preference. :>
I was skeptical whether this little machine can deliver good sound. To my pleasant surprise, it does have GREAT sound and the volume is sufficient too. The maximum that I listen to is around 11 or 13. The maximum is around 22. I mostly listen to it at around 5 or 6.
The LCD screen is small but it's very legible and informative. Just like what you see in Winamp when Winamp plays your MP3s on your computer.
Despite what some users complained about, the jog button is actually a great little design. I like it as soon as I started using it. It's very handy and as long as you don't have very clumsy fingers, you'll be fine with the jog button. It's very intuitive and easy to use too.
Users complained about the battery cover being hard to open. It's not. You just have to have nimble fingers and carefully ease the cover off. I find no trouble in opening and closing the battery cover.
As for the compact flash slot, some users also complained that it's difficult to put in the compact flash card. To my experience, it's not. You just have to observe and look into the slot. There... you'll see a silver railing and you just have to carefully slide your compact flash card into the parallel railings on each side. If you have done it right, the card just slide into its slot with ease when you apply a slight push.
I personally don't like headphones. So, I haven't tried out the headphones that came with the NEX II and I used my own Sony ear buds. It sounds great.
The case that came with my NEX II is a greyish black color and looks sturdy. However, again... personally, I don't like using a case. So, I just put the NEX II deep into my pocket.
I heard people saying that the USB interface of the NEX II is not very good. So, not to eat up batteries and avoid the USB problem, I just buy a compact flash reader to do all the transferring and editing of my MP3s. NOTE: In order to have your MP3s correctly display on the NEX II, you need to edit the ID3 Tags (eg. using Winamp). For example, if you have song names in Korean, Chinese or Japanese, you need to translate that into English in order to have them show up legibly on the NEX II.
TIPs: Don't use the NEX II to transfer songs to and from your computer. Use a compact flash card reader instead. The reason is that it eats up your battery quickly and it's easier to edit and transfer your MP3s through a compact flash card reader.
Use a compact flash card. Don't use IBM Microdrive. It's because MicroDrive uses up your battery very quickly. I haven't tried microdrive on my NEX II. However, since MicroDrives are very expensive, I don't think it's worth it to buy a MicroDrive and have it eats up my battery. :>
As for battery life, if you use compact flash card, it's believed to be able to play for around 15 hours of music. I just started using it so I can't really tell you how long is the battery life based on my experience. However, after having NEX II, I found myself constantly listening to it or wanting to listen to it (eg. when I wash the dishes, go for a walk, or plug it into the car stereo...etc)
Before buying NEX II, I was doing my little research on MP3 players. I've refrained myself on buying MP3 players mostly because the memory and battery life of MP3 players seem too small and short in the past.
I used to own the Creative Jukebox (with a few GIGs for memory). However, one day the Creative Jukebox just short-circuited for no reason. I can even smell the burnt plastic. I was using it in normal circumstances. It was around 300 bucks and it got fried and lost all my MP3s that I've stored in it. It was so expensive so I figured that I'm not going for another Jukebox. It's so big and clumsy and heavy to carry around for a walk anyways.
I wanted to buy the Sony MP3 player. However, Sony strongly advocates no music piracy and make you use their proprietary software (Open MG). That means you can't transfer your songs more than once for some songs. That means you have to convert your MP3s into Sony's music format before the Sony MP3 player can play it. And the Sony MP3 player sells for around 200 bucks!
So, with all the constraints that Sony imposes on the MP3 player consumer, I decide that I'm not going for a Sony MP3 player even I like the Sony brand very much. NEX II is very practical and functional. It doesn't make you use any proprietary music format or software. It REALLY plays MP3s directly (without any converting). You just drag and drop the MP3s onto your compact flash card and there you go!
Frontier Labs (the maker of NEX II) occasionally release firmware to update the NEX II. It's downloadable from their web site.
Actually, I think Frontier Labs needs more marketing. If they advertise correctly and sell in the right channel, this NEX II is going to be a hit and sells like hot cakes. I'd be interested in buying Frontier Labs' stocks if it's available! :>
I usually don't write reviews, but this NEX II is so impressive that I just have to write about it! BTW, I'm not affiliated with Frontier Labs at all. I'm just a very happy user who just discovered how great NEX II is.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 79
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Epinions.com ID:
oceanbrze99
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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