Still Great!!!!!!!!!!
Written: Dec 19 '04
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Pros: Defined excellence in an immature product market 3 years ago, and is still the best.
Cons: No FM radio.
The Bottom Line: Great for everyone looking for a flash-based player, exposing other MP3 player makers for their lack of innovation.
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| atlascott's Full Review: Mpio DMG (128 MB) MP3 Player |
After 3 years, many drops, and many, many music changes (adding and removing songs from the player), this little gem works perfectly. The sound quality is comparable to an iPod. The storage capacity is not, but is comparable to new players which are more expensive for no good reason. I have the 64MB version, with a 128 MB flash card for 196 MB of total storage. I can get about 4 full albums or about 45 songs encoded in MP3 at 128. It is tiny, light, and durable, solid and well-constructed, perfect for working out or commuting. I dont think you'd want one much smaller, since this is already thin and light enough to fit in any pocket unobstrusively, but the display, with a cool blue backlight, is very readable. Unless you really have a phenomenal commute, you'll have enough memory on here to keep you busy to and from work, whether music, audiobooks, or spoken word/seminars. The interface is USB1, but with the frequent firmware updates, I swear, it seems that they have improved transfer speed. Controls are sparse, logical and easy to use, and there are a ton of menu selections on the player to customize the display, music equalizer, playback order, etc.
I bought it before MP3 players really took off. I dont understand why MP3 players today are no better than this one, and no cheaper, for flash-based players. At this point, a 196 MB player ought to be selling for no more than $100, and probably less. Especially with market pressure from the voluminous-storage hard drive players, you'd expect the flash-based players to come way down in price, but that doesnt seem to eb the case. This player cost me about $160.00 3 years ago as a new technology, but this is a remarkably polished product with great functionality for a Korean company not really recognized in the US. That's a shame, because I can tell you, these guys got it right 3 years ago, and from the look of their website, they just keep getting better. There are tons of firmware upgardes and file-compatibility updates (windows media format either didnt exist or was totally unknown when this player was released, but this company supports it's product, by, for example, giving away a free program that allows you to play windows media files on the MPIO, among others).
Needless to say, I am very impressed by the company and this player. I'll be buying digitalway's 20gb hard drive based player when it comes out in early 2005. I tried the brick-like Nomad Zen 30gb. Huge and inconvenient, with kludgy software.
Comparing this player to other flash players, there is no reason other than the lack of an FM radio to turn you away. But if all you wanted was a radio, you could get a walkman for $20. Cannot recommend it enough.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 160
Recommended for: Athletes - Lightweight and Portable, Perfect for the Gym
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Epinions.com ID:
atlascott
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Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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