Amazing Sound in an Incredibly Expandable MP3 Player
Written: Feb 16 '00 (Updated Feb 16 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Awesome sounds quality. Exandable and Upgradable.
Cons: Some unfortunate poor design decisions.
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| skadar's Full Review: i2Go MP3 96MB Player |
Wow! I've owned a 96Meg eGo for about a week now and I've been having a blast with it. I'm not sure where to start with this review... but here's a summary statement just in case you don't feel like reading the whole thing... The eGo, made by i2go.com is a portable mp3 player that features amazing sound quality, two type II compact flash card slots (up to 680Meg capacity with micro-drives), a USB port, and free upgradability through flash boosts.
The eGo is made by a small company called i2go.com and it is marketed as the first portable mp3 player made specifically for your car. In this capacity, the eGo is AMAZING! But don't get me wrong, you can also use the eGo just like any other portable mp3 player... carrying it everywhere you go just like a walkman. But because of their marketing twist, the eGo comes packed with a full car kit which includes a tape player adapter, 2 cigarette lighter power cables, a windshield mount, and a cable to connect the power into your car wiring if you want. It also happens to come with batteries, a neoprene carrying case, stereo cables, a belt clip, ear bud headphones, and a nice USB cable.
The eGo itself is a smallish unit (but apparently larger than other portable mp3 players) that comes in a black, clear, or transparent blue plastic casing. It is surprisingly light. Because it was designed for optimum functionality in your car, the LCD screen is on the side of the unit and is brightly backlit with a red light. This makes the screen brightly visible in either full sun or full darkness.
I'll admit that the screen was a little disappointing to me at first. It is not nearly as big as it is advertised to be on the i2go.com website. On the web site, they feature pictures of the eGo with large, LCD-type characters. The actual screen characters are quite small. And the screen itself is only one line with 8 characters. Therefore, all of your song titles will automatically scroll. Another quirk of the screen is that it is best viewed from directly in front or below... which is a little strange. You can't really read the screen if your eGo is sitting on a table and you are sitting in a chair next to it. If you turn the eGo upside down, however, you can read it perfectly! Too bad they decided to mount the screen as they did. Even so, the screen works great when mounted on a windshield.
The eGo has two really strong points which seriously influenced my decision to purchase one. Number 1) the eGo can receive firmware upgrades through downloads from i2go.com. They are constantly improving this player. For instance, they just released an upgrade that significantly improves battery life. They can just as easily release upgrades that add additional features or change menu functionality.
And Number 2) the eGo comes equipped with 2 expansion slots. One of them is a standard compact flash type II memory card slot, and the other can be used for either another card, or some other add-on device. Currently I have one 96Meg card in one slot. I am planning to buy an additional card (probably 128Megs) for the other slot. That's about 3-4 hours of music at 128kbps encoding. Currently, with 96Megs I can store about 25 songs at 128/160/192kbps.
Don't believe the marketing bull that Diamond and other companies feed you about how their product can hold "up to 2 hours" of music on 32 megs internal memory. Blah! That's if you encode your music as 64kbps mono. Yay.... big deal. You need to encode at 128kbps 44Hz in order to get the best sound quality to file size ratio and to really enjoy the power of mp3s.
The eGo can not only store and play mp3s... but it also has a few other unique and interesting features. You can download your email to the eGo, convert them to synthesized speech and then listen to them on your way to work. It is really neat! You can then "reply" to your emails by recording your own voice which is then sent as an attachment. It's too bad there is no way to have the eGo transcribe your spoken word into a text file. Now THAT would be cool.
Similarly, you can also use the eGo as a voice recorder. It has a built in microphone with which you can record memos. It also has a built in speaker which is unheard of on other players. You can use the speak to hear your email or your own memos. You can even listen to mp3s with it, but obviously you won't get the best sound quality.
The unit has a mini-USB port on the back to connects to a standard USB port on your computer. This really improves music upload and download times. It takes about 20-30 seconds to upload a song to the eGo. So you can basically fill it up in about 5 minutes or so. You can store playlists on the eGo in order to have your files play in a specified order. This is especially handy when listening to audio books encoded as mp3s.
With good headphones, or hooked up to your car or home stereo, the sound from the eGo will blow you away! It is top quality! The eGo comes packed with some ear bud type earphones which are really horrible. Don't judge the sounds quality using these crappy little things. The unit has menu adjustments for Bass and Treble which can even be set and remembered for each individual song.
Battery life with the eGo is currently rated at about 5-7 hours. This isn't incredibly long, but it's also not too bad either. Personally I use my eGo at work where it is connected to my PC via USB (and therefore drawing power through the cable) or in my car where it draws power from the cigarette lighter power cable.
If there's one complaint that I have with the eGo it's with the headphone jack that sticks straight out from the side of the unit. i2go.com made no attempt to flush the jack with the unit in order to facilitate keeping your eGo in a narrow pocket. The best you can do is use a headphone cord that has a right angle miniplug. Other people online have also complained about the fact that the compact flash card extends out of the back of the eGo by about half of a centimeter. The card eject button also sticks out a little bit and can catch on fabric and whatnot.
As stated earlier, the eGo really shines when used in its designed environment, your car. I also plan to use it when skiing or just traveling in general. I've done a lot of research on portable mp3 players, and even with the eGo's small faults it is still the best mp3 player on the market today. The Nomads of the world may take the prize for style and sheer good looks, but they can't perform like the eGo. An amazing little machine.
Recommended:
Yes
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skadar
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Location: Connecticut
Reviews written: 158
Trusted by: 168 members
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As a charter Epinions member, Skadar has contributed many trusted and highly rated reviews.
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