Get a bit more for less
Written: Jan 31 '01 (Updated Jan 31 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap mp3 player, 600 minutes of songs on one CD!
Cons: Low quality design, worthless manual
The Bottom Line: It's cheap, it does what it claims, and is overall a good product. Could use some work, but maybe that's what the new version has accomplished!
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| marrone's Full Review: MPTrip MP3-CD Player |
Introduction
I've become more and more into music since the advent of the mp3 format. When mp3 players came out, I though they were the greatest inventions ever made (well, ok, they rank up there). Unfortunately, when one thinks of mp3 players, memory sticks come to mind, and players that use those
1) Are expensive
2) Don't store a whole lot of music.
So naturally, when players came out that would actually read a CD-ROM that contained mp3's, I took notice. Unfortunately, even those were expensive...costing over $150 from most places.
Then I accidently stumbled across the MpTrip. It cost only $85, so I figured it was worth a shot. I'm glad I did.
How it works
The MpTrip will read a standard CD-R containing mp3's. These mp3's must not be recorded higher than 192Kbs, but anything above 128 is a waste of space, in my opinion. The mp3's should be placed in directories...the company recommends three subdirectories containing up to 70 files each (they warn not to go over 80). The CD should be burned single-session...the MpTrip cannot handle multi-session discs.
Features
The player can be programmed to play tracks in a certain order, or random order (I like this the best, since a disc with 60+ songs is basically a walking jukebox), and of course, incremental order.
The player has a built in charger for nicads, which is convenient if you're on a trip and don't want to lug around a charger just to charge up two AA batteries (which is what the player takes).
The sound is pretty decent. The included headphones leave a bit to be desired, but get a decent pair of our own and it will sound just fine. There's a EQ button that allows you to change bass settings. The volume control doesn't go very high, but since I pretty much listened to it on an airplane, it may have been somewhat drowned out.
The player has a 50sec skip protection, which works pretty well. Rarely have I had the unit skip on me.
It also contains a voice recording feature, in case you wish to voice in a couple thoughts. I haven't gotten that to work very well, but that's not what I bought the player for.
Good points
It's very easy to use. Stick the disc in and hit play. Programming it will take some getting used to, but I have only used the randomization feature.
Bad Points
The design is rather flimsy. It feels like it's always going to break.
The buttons are of different sizes. Play is a very tiny button, for example, when one would expect it to be a bit larger. The buttons don't have much feedback on them, so it's hard to tell if you actually pushed it or not. They also feel like they are going to break off.
The charging seems to take a long time (at least 24 hours), and I am not sure it actually gives a full charge, since rechargables seem to last about an hour at most. Also, it is supposed to allow you to charge the batteries AND play at the same time. So far I have not been able to get that to work very well...it appears to charge the battery and draw off of it at the same time. Since it draws faster than it charges, the machine tends to have pauses when in this mode.
The manual...well, let's just say they should have hired a 6th grader to do some grammar checking on the 8-page foldout piece of paper. It's useless. However, to their credit, they did set up online documentation which is much better. You can access it at http://www.mptrip.com , which, at the moment, is actually an empty page which will link you to easybuy2000.com which contains all the documentation you need. I highly suggest doing that, because the online documentation tells you everything you need to know. It's downloadable in Word format.
Another bad thing is its questionable ability to use CD-RW's. I have not gotten the player to even spin up a RW...it keeps telling me "No Disc" on the rather tiny LCD. The documentation says RW's are questionable, and said it has to do with multi-sessions, but I can't see how it can detect a multi-session if it doesn't bother to spin the disc up. Not a big deal, since CD-R's are $.50 a pop these days, at most.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
marrone
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Reviews written: 54
Trusted by: 38 members
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