How To Listen To Your Bootlegged Music....
Written: Nov 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: nice design, durable, ease of use
Cons: ?
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| shanna's Full Review: Pontis Electronic SP-504 Portable MP3 Player |
Okay, i'll admit it, I've become an MP3 junkie.... i've been found lurking the darkened hallways of Napster and Macster.... and while I of course own every song on CD already, I just wanted to check out some tunes that I may not already own, before buying the CD, WHICH OF COURSE, I do intend to do.... that being said... let me get to the real point of this epinion. I need a portable way to play this music.
I researched a few portable MP3 players before I decided on The Pontis MP3 player. I bought The Pontis SP504 a small, portable MP3 player made in Europe, Bavaria and France to be exact. You won't find the Pontis as of yet in Mac or PC Mall, but you can get your hands on one by going to www.pontis.de and ordering directly from them. Pontis tells us they will soon be available in our favorite computer mail order mags, but I've as of yet seen them there. But buying direct is not problem in my book!
Because I do read Mac Addict Magazine, it's how I found out about the player, I knew not to even install the software that came with the player. At MacAddicts recommendation I went right to the web site and downloaded the latest software, go to:
http://www.pontis.de/site_e/frame_e.htm
for this software.
As usual manufactures put us Mac users in the back seat and give us less for our money than PC's users.... we mac folks will find that we don't get an MP3 ripper or encoder with our software, just PC people will, so you will have to continue using whatever program you currently use for that process. I like SoundApp, but it's just a personal preference.
The LED software that comes for use is basic to use, my kids even got the hang of it right off the bat. You will create your playlist and download them to your cards. One major flaw that I found was that you need to think ahead when creating your playlists, the only editable order is for the very last song you place. Thinking ahead will save you time, downloading your music isn't a lightening quick process here, it took me some 6 minutes to download aobut 40 minutes of music.
The Pontis MP3 works by inserting a postage stamp sized MultiMedia Card directly into the unit and playing your music from there. Because there is no internal memory the Pontis is less expensive than other MP3 players. It's also beneficial that there is no internal memory because when new technology comes onto the horizon all that has to be changed is the card, not the hardware. This also makes the unit very expandable. The SP504 has 2 slots for cards, when you're done listening to one, just plop in another card and you're ready for new tunes. Memory cards aren't cheap however, they are going to set you back about $90 a piece. Pontis is however planning on having a fall release of some 64MB cards this fall which will bring us better storage ability. Right now MultiMediaCards with capacities of 16 MB and 32 MB are on sale. Down the road we will probably be seeing cards with memories of up to 4 gigs of memory, but I forsee that being quite a while in the coming.
So how does one get their music from their HD to the multimedia card. Well using the USB equipped player it's no problem (Pontis also makes a serial version, the SP503). Simply download your favorite music or convert music from existing CD's you own to MP3 files. The LED included software supplied with the unit gives you a music converter, but I still prefer to use my own SoundApp program. The player will handles all different kinds of MP3 formats: SoundJam, QuickTime, MVP and RealPlayer.
Options
You're probably thinking for this little amount of chump change the player will have zero options, but this simply isn't the case, you can shuffle songs and edit your playlists so that your 10 year old daughter can hear Britney Spears continuouly, without taking up any extra memory! For a little extra cash you can even order a set of sunglasses with built in headphones... what a great concept! Those Europeans are such trensetters!
The screen on the top of the player lets you know how much power your AA batteries have left in them, a very useful feature in my book. There's nothing worse than heading off on a trip thinking you have full batteries and finding them dead 5 minutes later. One look at your monitor and you'll know that you need to stop at wal-mart and pick up a case of new batteries. We've found that 2 AA batteries are lasting us around 8-10 hours depending on whether we use Duracell or Energizer batteries, our Radioshack batteries got us less playtime.
What it doesn't have...
No clippie thing for attaching it to your waistband, but it does have a nice little case and even a set of decent quality earphones.
Sound Quality
Okay, so maybe I'm not an audiophile, but I do like the sound of good quality music. The Pontis provides me with just that. It's shockproof and solid. There are adjustments for the bass and treble right on the unit, you can adjust bass and treble separately in a range of -9 to +9 decibel. Probably my most favorite thing about this unit is it's ability to be shockproof, people who use CD players in their auto or while exercising know how easily they can jump or skip, by using a Pontis player this annoying tick will be gone, the cards don't skip like a CD does. Very nice indeed! Men's Health Magazine rated the Pontis with the best music quality, almost matching it with CD quality.
How Much Is It?
This compact little unit ran me only $239 with 2 32Mg Cards, a version with just 32 MB's will run you only about $170 + shipping and handling. In comparison to the Rio, this is a great deal.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
shanna
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Member: Shanna
Location: Pensacola Beach
Reviews written: 231
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