Complete: Who/Who not for
Written: Jan 09 '01 (Updated Jan 09 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Absolutely Great if it works for you
Cons: Extremely frustrating if it doesn't
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| cutlernj's Full Review: MPTrip MP3-CD Player |
Well I anticipate this review being the most comprehensive review I've written, mainly since this portable CD player can be absolutely great, but it can also be extremely frustrating. I was one of the unlucky ones that found it originally frustrating.
Please keep in mind you will get extreme views on this product because of this, it sometimes just doesn't work for you, and you can imagine the frustrating for those people (look down below to see if it'll work for you)
I try to create my epinions in an organized, consistent manner, so if you're in a hurry, skip down to the bottom for my conclusion.
The Way it Went
I had an old MP3 encoded CD from backup a long time ago, so I inserted that straight into the unit: It worked great!
So I then decided to burn my new MP3's onto a CD in the ISO 9660 standard, it wouldn't load up period. So after 5 CDs without any luck I tried loading my CD burner's original software thinking that might be what I burnt that old backup MP3 disc in. After spending half an hour trying to get it work, which I managed eventually to do (the reason I moved to different software). I burnt the CD, and it loaded and started playing songs.
Great right? not so. The music skipped incredibly bad in songs, I couldn't go 5 seconds without spending 2 seconds on the cd buffering again.
So that's my first experience with this unit. I started researching to try to find what exactly was the problem, I have since managed fairly successfully to conclude the problems.
My Fix for the problem
I can burn my own MP3 encoded CDs and then take it to my brother's, which "magically" makes them work...Even at 8 times burns!
Who's it for
This MP3 player works great for people having a CD Burner that rarely puts out coasters. The MP3 player is extremely picky on CDs burnt. I have found however that most burners with Adaptec's Easy CD Creator works fine.
You should be buying this player for the MP3 ability not the Audio CD ability since it doesn't play Audio as well (described under Cons section)
People not minding spending money on some Ni-Mh rechargeable batteries (the most powerful I've found out there) This thing sucks battery juice! You need rechargeables.
Generally speaking, it works better for PC computer users, Macintosh users might find it much more frustrating (Like myself).
People who don't go for asthetics, The player does not look very cool, and the buttons are rather oddly placed.
Who's it not for
People who want to have a player for both MP3 and Audio CDs, Audio CDs don't play nearly as well as other players.
People who want long battery life, or those who don't want to spend money on rechargeable batteries. (You'll end up spending much more on alkalines)
Those having Macintosh Computers and an external burner will most likely find the cd skips badly.
People who want a neat looking player. This player doesn't cut it, the buttons are rather oddly placed, it looks rather like a prototype look.
The Pros
Hey it plays MP3s from 32Kbps to 192Kbps.
Sound Quality is actually very good for the MP3 player. The Audio CD doesn't sound as good, but is still very good.
The player has 5 different sound settings for MP3 playback (Normal, Subwoofer, Low, High, Super High) and 2 sound settings for Audio CD playback (Normal, Bass)
The player has 50 seconds of anti shock system only for the MP3 playback however. But it does allow you to walk and run without it skipping.
The cost: you can't beat the $87 price tag even for most middle line regular CD players.
It comes with an AC Adapter and recharges batteries by just plugging in.
It does offer recording abilities, but you must plug in an external microphone in order to use it, which I have not done, but I do know that it is rather clumbsy because of the buttons.
The MP3 playback moves over to the next track fairly quickly except when in random mode which of course takes longer. However this is not true for Audio CDs (in Cons)
The Cons
The biggest complaint that almost all people find the same is the battery longetivity, it only lasts about 3 hours on duracell or energizer. I have found purchasing Ni-Mh rechargeables (notice not Ni-Cad) make it last around 5 hours.
It does not even spin up all CDRW Discs I've tried.
There is a forced 3 second delay in Audio CD playback between tracks, which means dance compilations get interrupted between tracks. It seems to be because this player interpretes Audio CDs as a computer might, it seems to have to convert the audio some how rather then just play it like most players do.
The Audio playback is rather poor, it tends to skip very easy and loose track of where it was.
The buttons are rather oddly placed, Play is on the far right and only a tiny one, stop a little over but still as small. The larger buttons are the skip/search and repeat & play mode buttons. I have no idea why they did it this way.
The buttons are very hard to press, the "almost have to break" kind of feel. The open button is the worst, it must be pressed straight down because of it's poor design.
The recording function is limited by needing an external microphone to be attached and then one must use the poor buttons to record/pause/stop. Which makes it harder to quickly record.
On occassion it will skip songs, this appears to be fairly random.
Because it is the first of it's kind (the first CD-MP3 player out there) it does tend to have little idiosincracies that are hard to figure out and can waste quite a few CDs trying to fix them.
Directories are rather frustrating, my findings were that they must be within two subfolders.
Logic doesn't seem to help fix the problem, the fixes for the problems can just pop out of nowhere. In other words sitting down and thinking "how can I fix this" isn't as effective as trial and error.
The Bass sound setting for Audio CD playback tends to not be able to properly execute the bass, even with great headphones (It tends to have a bottoming out sound)
The anti shock system only functions for the MP3 playback, there is very little for Audio CD playback, if not none, another reason to not buy this player for Audio CD playback.
The player does not have playback resume when you turn it off.
You can only buy this product online and is actually fairly hard to find the real manufacturer (www.genica.com)
Other Discoveries
The documentation suggests burning at 2 or 1 times, but I found on the CD burners that worked, I could burn up to 8 times.
Music has to be stored within two subfolders for it to be found. A good example would be to provide genre and artist folders CD\Genre\Artist.
If you're wondering who the manufacturer is, this player has quite an confusing story. it's manufactured by Genica (www.genica.com) and is sold exactly like that to one webstore as is. MpTrip is identical, but renamed for easybuy2000.com. I'm not exactly sure why they do this however.
There's a lot of help available online for this product, including various tips to how to use this product. Although because it's so confusing, quite often a lot of them can be false.
In Conclusion
This player can be great, but it also can be extremely frustrating.
It seems if you have an internal CD burner and use Adaptec Easy CD Creator it should work fine.
However if you have a Macintosh with an external CD Burner, chances are it won't properly work.
Basically, if you have an internal cd burner, it should work. Externals might not.
If you're really unsure about buying it, don't. Because it may end up being an entire waste of money, except the fact that you may find one of your friends or family's computer works great with it and you could give it to them as a present.
And lastly, make sure you don't mind getting good Ni-Mh rechargeables, because I highly advise you to do so (it only lasts about 3 hours on alkalines)
If you don't mind spending more money, there is one created by phillips and Pine, which seems to be an improvement over this model. (Check www.mp3.com for new MP3 portables under hardware)
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cutlernj
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Member: Neil Cutler
Location: Cowichan Bay, BC
Reviews written: 41
Trusted by: 32 members
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