CHEAP, good, but with some big usability issues
Written: Feb 06 '03
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Pros: Almost free (with Audible.com subscription), free cassette adapter
Cons: Forgets where left off if battery dies or used PAUSE instead of STOP
The Bottom Line: It is CHEAP ($0 + ~$17 S&H), small, light, plays my books, economical on batteries (use rechargeables!), and basically that is what I need.
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| andreasnyc's Full Review: Audible Otis 64 MB MP3 Player |
I have been an Audible.com customer for about two years and have had the otis for about 5 months now. The otis player for Audible.com audible books, periodicals, and other spoken word pieces is a great deal if you subscribe to Audible.com's 1 year plans. Select either 2 books/mo for $19.95 or (1 book + 1 periodical)/mo for $14.95) and you get the player for the price of S&H (~$17)! Audible.com is a great service and this device was made to play their content (note: I do not have any affiliation with them other than being a customer happy to listen to books while commuting, walking, etc.).
Well, now back to the otis itself. It comes with 64 MB of memory and you can add up to an additional 128 MB not just 64 MB (as mentioned on some pages on Audible.com - NOTE: I got this revised information from Audible's tech support line directly which said that some of their pages had not yet been updated) and can use either MMC or SD cards (again, this is the revised info.). The otis is small and has many of the features of current MP3 players with a few exceptions - no play lists and no random play if there is an Audible file in memory.
There are a few annoying usability design flaws that can mostly be gotten around. However, it is important to know about lest you become extremely frustrated. The biggest problem involves the otis’ behavior if the power goes off either because the batteries run out or even when the otis turns itself off after a period of inactivity (if you have stopped playback using the 'PLAY/PAUSE' button -- the otis 'forgets' where it left off in the Audible file! Notice I wrote "if you have stopped playback using the 'PLAY/PAUSE' button" -- bizarrely, the otis seems to record the end position if you press 'STOP', but not if you press 'PLAY/PAUSE'! I wonder which usability genius thought of this. I can see them thinking out the usage scenario:
"Yeah, if the user has been listening to a book
for maybe a 90 minute car ride and needs to
concentrate on reading road signs so they presses
the 'PLAY/PAUSE' button to pause the audio.
After a few minutes the otis will time out
because the user didn’t restart play right away.
When they do start it up again they definitely
would not want the otis to remember
where they left off. Why would they? If they
wanted that they would have known [somehow]
to press 'STOP' instead of 'PAUSE'!"
Basically, I have determined that one should never use the 'PLAY/PAUSE' button to pause/stop playback (instead use the 'STOP' button) and only use it to start play.
Still, even this does not save your place when your batteries die -- now this is really annoying. I have taken to pressing the 'MODE' button periodically during playback which records a 'MEMO' location which you can return to. Otherwise you could just stop (using the 'STOP' button) and the restart -- come to think of it I will just start doing that. Again, it is ridiculous that a user should have to do these kinds of gyrations. If you use the otis for its intended purpose, listening to audio books/works, then it is very likely that you will run down the batteries until they die. It is then very likely that you will have listened to a long period of audio (maybe a hour or more) since the last time you would have naturally stopped the otis. Once you change the batteries, this previous starting point would be the place where it starts again. I know I am harping on this point, but it is a huge issue that comes up every day or two that you use the otis. Finally, this problem is compounded by the fact that most of the Audible works (based on the ones that I have purchased) do not have the chapters/parts marked as 'sections' (like tracks of an album) which you could jump to in order to get close to the place you ended your listening session. Instead, Audible seems to use 'sections' that are about 50 - 70 minutes apart leading me to believe that they are just lazy (in this respect) and are using the end of each CD they probably get most of their content from. Thus if you have not taken any precautions before your batteries die, you will end up slowly 'fast'-forwarding minute by minute until you happen upon the place where you left off. It would be so very easy to have one of their staffers listen to each title once before releasing it and add useful chapter/part marks -- they generally do not and thus compound otis’ short-falls.
Despite my gripes with the otis, I am happy I 'bought' it. I put bought in quotes since it was free (+S&H) with a 1 year subscription that I was close to buying anyway. It is small, light, plays my books, economical on batteries (I use rechargeables of course since they pay for themselves after only a few uses!), and basically that is what I need. Thus the 4 of 5 star rating which is heavily weighted by the price of $0 + S&H if you buy a subscription. Else you can buy a RIO 600/800/900 (800 costs about $100 as of 2/1/2003), an iPOD, or a few other supported players. As a final side-note, I had been playing Audible content on my iPAQ, but found the combination of buttons and on-screen controls much more awkward to use than a simple audio appliance like the otis.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 17.50
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Epinions.com ID:
andreasnyc
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Member: Andreas
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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