Okay, so I am an amateur nature photographer. Sometimes to get to some of the more interesting spots, you wind up doing quite a bit of walking. So I figured I'd pick up an MP3 player because:

A. Its easier to make your own mixes that playing with a darn CD-R all the time.
B. MP3 players are usually solid state, so they don't skip.

So I did a little research. I looked on Epinions, and saw most reviews saw the hipzip better than alot of the others. I also saw alot of good things about the Creative Nomads, but although they were the same price, the media was alot more... With smartmedia, it is not affordable to make up a few mixes and carry them around. I can buy a 10 pack of 40 meg PocketZip disks for basically the price of 1 64 meg smartmedia card.. Hmm...

Despite all this, I still had doubts about the moving parts - that is why I wanted an MP3 player, anyway, is to do away with skipping.. Luckily I was able to catch a review on TechTV where they actually tried to make the thing skip, but couldn't within the context of real life use (I think they had to throw it.)

So out to Circuit City I went, and picked the thing up. I immediately went home to geek out over my new toy. First thing I noticed is that Iomega seemed to have packaged it pretty well, which just shows Iomega does show some pride in its product. The two disks provided did already have some songs loaded on them according to the manual, so I plugged the thing in to charge up, and hit play. Like all the other reviews say - the headphones really bring down the unit. Those headphones are typical wrap-around-the-ear cheapies. Iomega could have done a little better than that, it made the thing sound like a bad AM radio. Luckily I had a pair of nice Sony headphones floating around.

That said, what I really like are the EQ settings, you can adjust for bass and treble, or choose from misc. presets. Once I got some Fred Durst on there, I cranked up the bass, and was pleasantly surprised. Alot of MP3 players I have heard had really shoddy bass reflex, but this was a good, clean bass. Treble response was also good. There is a slight delay going from song to song, but that is to be expected with a magnetic media based player.

The software was okay, just a special branded version of MusicMatch, nothing great in my opinion. (I prefer WinAmp...) Installing the drivers was no big deal, and I did have used the same drivers with this device on 4 different machines with none of the freezing problems described by others. I never noticed the unit powering itself off unless you let it set inactive for probably 5 - 10 minutes, which I just consider a convenient battery saving feature. (Although on average the battery lasts a good 5 or 6 hours per charge I've noticed on average..) So its not like you're dependent on battery-saving features like other units..

The software is where this unit really shines through. Other units you have to use a proprietary "uploader" or *gasp* verify your MP3s (which I think would be a huge pain)... This unit just mounts as another drive, just drag and drop over the MP3s..

I've taken it on several jogs and hikes with no skipping problems, I've even vigorously shaken the thing in an attempt to make it skip WHILE IT WAS CYCLING with no results. I couldn't be happier with this unit. To me, replacing the headphones was nothing, since most standard headphones suck since I got a nice pair of Sonys.... I feel this unit was DEFINITELY worth the money

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 250.00