The only MP3 player I would get
Written: Mar 14 '03
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Pros: car audio compatibility,features,size,battery life,sound quality,additional memory slot
Cons: learning curve
The Bottom Line: Car audio in the shape of a nice, portable MP3 player.
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| sbambawale's Full Review: Digisette DUO-64 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
Love gadgets, love music, love being out and about - so why didn't have an MP3 player before this? Simple - nothing so far had the right mix of features and price.
I had my eye on this product for quite a while before I saw the Fry's ad that made me go over to the store in the middle of a working day. I'll admit that the market has got quite a lot of snazzy MP3 players now that are really slick and really small, and compared to those, this one looks old and clunky especially because it looks like an audio cassette - one of the many things that the MP3 format almost put an end to!
But, lets see - the gym always has music (whenever I get to it), and there's enough sound equipment at home to keep me satisfied. The car's got a CD player and a radio that enjoy frequent use, and then there's that little flap down there that's supposed to take in audio cassettes that's almost never used - to the point that new cars don't even have that little flap anymore.
Well, if there's one thing that I detest more than bad clichés, its when technology goes unused. So, I used to wonder about what I would do with that cassette player in the car for the longest. When this came out on the market, it seemed like a snap fit. I wouldn't have to burn CDs with my MP3s anymore, and I could also have a completely standalone, portable MP3 player.
After getting it, I spent about fifteen minutes installing the software and the drivers, and this is where I start thinking about when it will be that I'll start reading manuals before doing anything. Getting the software to work seemed a pain before I finally gave in and read the manual and then felt foolish. The device has got this neat power-saving feature that works great when you leave it in the car cassette player - but more on that later.
After installing the software and loading some MP3s and WMAs on the available 64 MB, I started wondering about getting a 512 MB SD card to store more. It seemed appealing because even the Palm uses the SD card format, and it would be really simple to switch the card from the Palm and the Digisette.
Anyway, the available memory held about an hour's worth of music and drew sneers from folks around that said - "It looks like a cassette, plays through a cassette player, holds lesser music than a cassette, and costs ten times as much!". Interesting argument, but then again, the Digisette doesn't lose quality when additional songs are loaded onto it, comes with a dedicated headset jack, comes with volume controls and an equalizer and has extensible memory that, if properly used, would dwarf any regular audio cassette by a country mile.
After listening to the songs through the included headset, I headed down to the car to try playing this through the car's sound system, and to check if my effort was worth it. Well, hallelujah - it was! After notching the volume on the Digisette up a few notches, pressing Play and slipping it into the cassette player, the music came loud and clear through the car's audio system.
To give it a thorough sound check, I rode over to a friend who couldn't care less about the source of the music. After ten minutes of listening, there was still no comment - after which I asked - "What do you think about the sound?", to get an answer - "What's the big deal? All CDs sound this way". I then pointed to the display that said "Tape", and got a "Hmmm...interesting!" and then pulled out the Digisette to get a "What on Earth is this?!!"
'Nuff dialog already! Seriously, this little thing is a very useful device, not just because it saves you from burning CDs just so that you can play your MP3s in your car, but also because you can pop it out of the car's cassette player and take it along with you to the gym or wherever you like. Also, I figure this lets your old tape-FM portable players become MP3-FM players.
Battery life is good. The power-saving feature that I mentioned earlier kicks in about five minutes or so after its not used, and there's never a time when the power-saving feature turns off the device when its being played through the car stereo. The box came with two chargers. One was an AC charger that had an interesting form factor. The socket itself had a slot for charging one battery, and the cord could be linked to the Digisette to charge the battery inside. The car charger also came with the box, and had a similar slot on it to charge the battery. I had trouble getting this to work at the angle that my car's charger "hole" was at, and fortunately it worked just fine in the car charger "hole" back in the trunk. I guess all it needs is a straight car charger "hole" - so all of those of you who have a car charger "hole" that isn't at an angle can use this just fine.
So, lets see - I got myself a portable little MP3 player that takes the same memory card as the Palm, saved myself the trouble of burning CDs just so that I could take my music to the car, and can truthfully say that my car plays MP3s!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 65
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Epinions.com ID:
sbambawale
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Location: San Jose, CA, USA
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
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