I'm solidly convinced that the NexII is the best player available for its price for what you get. It's not perfect, by most standards, but it does pretty much everything well, or better than average. Some more expensive packages will give you better qualities in some areas, such as design, portability, sound quality, or just overall features, but none will get you your money's worth. The NexII, on the other hand, is extremely well-balanced, and worth every cent.

Hardware
It's well designed, fairly well-built, and easy to use. It's about the size of a pack of cards, making it easily portable, but not so small that you would lose it. The buttons are all on the sides of the unit, making them harder to inadvertently press while it's in your pocket or clipped on (see accessories). There are four buttons, a switch, and a jog dial. The four buttons are Vol+, Vol-, Stop/Off, and Function. Pressing the two volume buttons simultaneously (a little tricky at first) allows you to change play order (normal, playlist, shuffle, repeat 1, repeat all), and a second double-press allows you to change the equalizer settings. The hold switch is small, and not likely to be bumped, but because of the button placement itself, I have never had occasion to use the hold. The jog dial can tilt up and down (for skipping forward and backward a song or option, and for fast-forwarding and rewinding), and can press in to select. The build quality is good, but not perfect, especially the battery door. You have to be very careful with the clips holding the door on, as they will break if you push them too hard in any direction. The company will replace the battery door for free (if I remember correctly) if it breaks. The CF slot takes both CompactFlash and CompactFlash type II cards, as well as the IBM MicroDrive (though the MicroDrive dramatically shortens battery life). The USB interface uses a special flat connector, and will work with the computer like a portable USB hard drive, just drag-and-drop any file onto the device, simple as that. The unit uses two AA batteries, and will run for about 16 hours on alkalines. There is no built-in recharging system/port.

Software
It has a very good operating system which is contained in onboard flash ROM. Most features are easily selectable, but the playing will stop if you go to the function menu to change the display, playlist options, etc. There are two main displays, the information display, and the level bar display. The info display contains the song title, what the player is currently doing, its current settings, the file type (it can play both MP3 and WMA, all bitrates including VBR), the bitrate, the song progress, the low-battery indicator, and so on. Quite a lot of information, I know, but the screen is very high-quality, and it's all easy to read. The spectrum display just shows a dynamic spectrum graph, and the scrolling song title. The equalizer is VERY good, with 5 presets, and a user-defined 5-band preset. It can be adjusted on the fly.

Accessories:
The NexII comes with a nice neoprene carrying case (which is starting to get a little worn at the corners, but that's to be expected), with a removable belt clip, and windows to see the buttons and screen. All controls are easily accessable through the case. It also comes with a nice pair of wraparound headphones, which appear to be rebranded, recolored Jensen JM11 Wraparound headphones. Not perfect, but darned good for what you pay for. They have nice highs, and good bass. (http://www.jensen.com/jensen_headphones/products.asp?catID=2&prodID=11)

Just as a last note, the Nex IIe is coming out this year (Sept 10, 2002), with many of the problems with the original fixed. The Nex IIA will come out even later, with a smaller size, and more features, tentatively including a FM radio, and recording.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 90