The Poor Man's MP3-player: Ericsson HPM-10
Written: Jan 02 '03 (Updated Jan 03 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The player delivers cheap, excellent sound and utilises your handset's state-of-the-art battery technology.
Cons: Only works in combination with a SonyEricsson handset.
The Bottom Line: For anyone with a SonyEricsson handset and an interest in portable audio this unit simply must be considered. It is cheap and it delivers high quality sound.
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| knilaus's Full Review: Ericsson Hpm 10 Digital Player - 32mb |
I purchased the SonyEricsson T39m handset a little while ago and was much impressed with how much functionality the engineers had managed to squeeze into a tiny little 86g unit.
However, as is usually the case with the technological toys that I fancy, my focus gradually shifted away from how neat the gadget was and onto the many possibilities that now lay open to me if I would only spend a few extra bucks on accessories. Oh well, at least I keep the wheels of the economy churning.
The first thing to catch my attention in the range of SonyEricsson accessories was an interesting little device that would expand my handset to act as a portable MP3-player.
I had long been considering purchasing portable audio equipment, and in recent years the MPEG3-format has struck me as the one dominant trend towards which audio equipment was headed. Setting issues of intellectual property aside, there is no denying the convenience of being able to transfer your music effortlessly between various audio units on media far less bulky and fragile than the compact and mini discs of yesteryear.
Personally, I had envisioned using a portable MP3-player while traveling, commuting, working out, jogging or even to cancel out the noise coming from my neighbours' flat, when periodically they throw a big party for what sounds like their 100 closest friends.
Before coming across the Sony Ericsson HPM-10 I had been reluctant to spend my money on an MP3 player, because it seemed to me that the high end of the market was going in the direction of units based on hard drive storage. I felt that spending maybe 150 euros or more - which seemed to be the going rate for low-end MP3 players - for a player based on flash memory technology would be a waste of money as over the course of a few years, hard disk players with a vastly superior storage capacity would be available at prices not far from this level.
This reluctance was blown away when I found out I could expand my newly acquired Sony Ericsson handset into a portable MP3-player at the measly cost of roughly 40 euros. That's right: The HPM-10 player has been put up as a sale item on several of the online shops dealing in mobile phone accessories. I found mine at a place called expansys.com, but have later learned that other retailers such as mobilefun.co.uk are selling it at similar prices. Presumably, a similar craze has hit upon American retailers.
In any case, I placed my order right away and received the new player in the timespan of a few days. How eager I was to open the box and lay my hands on this little gadget!
I will in the following describe my experience with the SonyEricsson HPM-10 Digtial MP3 Player. My review will be structured along the following sections:
1. Contents of Package
2. Installation
3. Software
4. Sound Quality
5. User Interface and Ergonomics
6. Durability
7. Lacking Functionality
1. Contents of Package
Immediately after opening the box it becomes clear how rich in functionality the HPM-10 kit actually is. In addition to the usual instruction manuals and disclaimer leaflets, the box contains the following items:
- The MP3-player
- A hands-free headset with ear buds and microphone attachable to the MP-3-player
- A Multi Media Card-reader and writer
- CD-ROM with installation software and drivers
- Plastic-hook to which the headset may be attached when not in use
- One 32 MB Multi Media Card (MMC)
As should be obvious from the above, you actually get three products in one when purchasing the HPM-10 kit: First and foremost, of course, is the MP3-player itself; second, you get a hands-free headset complete with microphone, which will enable you to use your SonyEricsson handset without having to hold it close to your head; third, you actually get a Multi Media Card reader and writer, which can be used as a generic removable storage drive independent of it having been included with the MP3 player.
2. Installation
First of all, I turned off my laptop and attached the MMC reader/writer to it. The unit has two connectors - a parallel port and a traditional PS/2 keyboard connector, which must both be attached to the corresponding outlets in your computer. The unit uses a so-called "daisy chain" to allow you to connect other units to the same ports. Of course, in these days this method of connecting a peripheral to your computer is considered stone-age technology, replaced by the much more convenient USB standard.
The next step was turning on my computer and installing the software from the cd-rom. Unfortunately, the installation procedure kept aborting when it was about to install the relevant drivers on my Windows 2000 platform, so I ended up visiting www.sandisk.com to download the latest version of the drivers. There are drivers available for Windows versions 95 through 2000. Apparently, there are no drivers available for Windows XP, Mac or Linux platforms. Other reviewers have however used the W2K drivers for XP with some success. I can neither confirm nor deny this claim.
After restarting my computer, I plugged the MP3-player unit into the interface at the bottom of my T39m handset. The included headset is connected to the player through a 2.5 mm jack. Today's dominant standard for headset jacks is 3.5 mm, but fortunately I had an adaptor lying around from when I purchased an Olympus Pearlcorder a while ago. Such a converter should be readily available from most electronics shops at a price of roughly 1 - 2 euros. I was fortunate enough to also own an adaptor cable (from jack to phono) that enables me to connect my MP3-player to my amplifier. You may want to consider buying such a cable also.
The final step was for me to insert the 32 MB MMC card into the MMC reader/writer in order for me to try creating MP3-files from my collection of compact discs and transfer them across to the MMC card.
3. Software
The HPM-10 kit comes with a bit of software to facilitate the process of converting your old compact discs into MP3-tracks and transferring them to the MMC card.
For the purpose of CD -> MP3-conversion, Ericsson has bundled a dumbed down version of MusicMatch Jukebox, which works pretty much the same way as RealMedia's Jukebox in the sense that it will read your discs, display the names of tracks on it, enable you to create playlists and convert tracks into MP3-files at a bitrate (i.e. quality setting) of your own choosing. I found the process of conversion to be straightforward and devoid of complications: The program was able to convert tracks while spinning my cd-rom drive at 4x speed, which meant that a 4 minute song could be converted in one minute. I was able to use other applications while running MusicMatch Jukebox in the background.
Transferring files
Having installed the latest drivers for the Sandisk MMC reader/writer, the unit will appear as a removable drive on your Windows desktop. You can thus use the familiar Windows drag and drop-interface to interact with the unit. Copying a file lays claim to a significant portion of CPU time and I/O resources apparently, as I found other applications to be slowing down somewhat when performing the copying operation. Also, since copying is done using the parallel port, the transfer is not as fast as it could be. I estimate that filling up 32 MB (typically corresponding to between six and eight tracks, depending on quality) would take roughly 10 minutes.
4. Sound Quality
In one word: Excellent. While not experienced with what you can expect from portable MP3-players, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of this unit. The controls allow you to adjust volume, bass and treble. Setting these to their maximum values will result in an output that is sufficient to drown out the background noise that you experience on a commuter train. No audible distortion is introduced. The bass is not exceptionally strong, but sufficiently clear to make the sound output credible and not toy-like.
The first track that I listened to was Vaughan Williams' "Lark Ascending" as performed by an acquaintance of mine, and this particular composition certainly lends itself to an evaluation of the definition of each of the instruments playing. I was clearly able to distinguish each instrument ranging from those playing in the lower frequencies to the violin playing a high note. Perhaps the brass section was slightly blurred, but I put this down to the quality of the recording for the piece in question.
I have subsequently listened to rythmical music and found the qualities of the sound reproduction to be similar. The crispness and lucidity of this player is satisfactory, and I have not been able to detect any significant degree of white noise or distortion in the audio output. Being able to connect the MP3-player to my hi-fi amplifier was of great assistance in confirming the overall quality of the audio output, which was practically indistinguishable from what I get from my hi-fi CD player.
5. User Interface and Ergonomics
The player itself weighs not much - less than 20 grams would be my assessment. It needs to be plugged into your SonyEricsson handset, so the weight of this must be added to get the total weight of the unit. Usually this will result in a combined weight of 100 - 150 grams. Add to this the fact that the method of attachment is somewhat vulnerable to sudden movements in that it may break loose, and one quickly concludes that this is hardly the kind of player that is ideally suited for bringing along while running. However, you may be able to find a spot on your hip that is sufficiently motionless while running that you may attach your handset to your belt safely at this spot. I have however not yet bothered trying this.
The headset is of the ear bud variety, which I never much liked. The ear buds seem to be dropping out of my ears every time I turn my head unless I stick them really hard into my inner ear, which usually produces a feeling of ear wax being jammed into my skull. When I have finally managed to insert them into my ears, I am normally very reluctant to make sudden movements of my head, something I really should not have to worry about. I have therefore made it a short term project for me to find a replacement set of headphones for the unit facilitating my 2.5 mm -> 3.5 mm jack adaptor. Unfortunately, this means I will lose the extra functionality of the headset that allows me hands-free operation of the phone. I guess the jury is still out on the question of replacement. Maybe it is a question of getting used to those stupid ear buds. In any case I wish SonyEricsson would have furnished us with something a bit more useful than those annoying ear buds.
The user interface of the player is very basic. The display of your handset is used to bring up a menu, which gives you the opportunity to play random tracks, specific tracks or all of the tracks. Furthermore, you can adjust volume, treble and bass; and choose to skip and pause tracks by using various buttons on the phone's keypad. Unfortunately, you cannot perform other operations on the phone while playing, but if you receive a call, the player will fade out the music in order to enable conversation. After your call terminates, the music will continue.
The display only shows the first twenty characters of the song title, unfortunately. However, this should be enough for purposes of identification.
The playing time of this unit corresponds to the talk time of your handset as the player draws its power from the battery of that unit. I have gotten over four hours of playing time with this unit on a single charge.
6. Durability
There is not really much to say about this unit's durability. As it contains no moving parts there are not really any areas where it is seriously subjected to wear and tear. Its various connectors seem to be sturdy enough, and I expect that they will be able to plug into handsets and headset jacks several thousands of times before being worn out.
However, if you use this player with a flip cover phone like the T39m, I expect that the use of the HPM-10 will cause the flip cover of the phone to be subjected to extra wear and tear since you have to flip the handset open in order to operate the player. Whether this will cause any problems or not remains to be seen.
7. Lacking Functionality
First of all, you will very soon want to replace the 32 MB Multi Media Card. It stores between six and eight tracks only, which quickly gets boring. You will therefore want to acquire more MMCs. Fortunately, you can insert and replace MMCs into the player at the push of a button, which means that in practice the MMCs will take the place of compact discs, mini discs and other media that you may have used in the past. SonyEricsson states that they guarantee the player to work with 64 MB MMCs but other reviewers have succesfully managed to get the HPM-10 to work with 128 MB cards. I am unable to confirm this, as I chose to buy two 64 MB cards instead.
Some other nice features that SonyEricsson could have integrated into this unit would be the ability to listen to the music through the regular earpiece - i.e. the speaker that has already been integrated into the handset; preferably, the unit should have also been able to record conversations onto the MMC.
Conclusion
All in all, I strongly recommend the HPM-10 MP3 Player to any owner of a SonyEricsson handset, who considers getting himself a portable audio solution. At a price of 40 euros, it's a steal.
Links
Sandisk Drivers for the MMC reader/writer - http://www.sandisk.com/tech/11.asp
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
knilaus
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Member: Kristoffer Nilaus Olsen
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Reviews written: 22
Trusted by: 35 members
About Me:
Just out of temporal stasis.
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