Sacrifices for a small player
Written: Sep 07 '02 (Updated May 22 '03)
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Pros: Small, lightweight, functional design
Cons: Broke
The Bottom Line: Great for exercising with small size and light weight. I'm a bit sour from it breaking and the clunky upload software.
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| aaron_d's Full Review: RCA Kazoo RD1060 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
I've had this player for 3 months now. Overall I am pleased with the product. I use it primarily as a distraction from my out of shape body while slogging through a half hour on the tread mill three times a week.
When starting to consider a MP3 player I started reading some of the product literature which touts "Skip free playing"... well my portable cassette player does that, "S/N ratio ~ 75db"... yep I get about that from my tape player plus the ability to swap out cheap recordable media. Sizes for most of the MP3 players I saw weren't any smaller than my tape player, then I saw the kazoo. The main attraction being it's small size.
What I like:
1) Small size and light weight is perfect for exercising.
2) DSP modes and random play modes.
3) Comfortable headphones sound good and stay on when bouncing around.
4) Plenty of room for music (with a 128 exp. card)
What I don't like
1) It broke after a month of use. The display went dead and stopped responding to the buttons. This may have had something to do with the fact I was wearing it inside my shirt using the neckloop while sweating like a pig. I was able to exchange it easily from Best Buy and have been more careful with keeping the player away from my gnast blast. I haven't had any problems with my second one.
2) The 128MB card had 120MB available for music the first time I used it. Since then I only see 98MB available even after I format it. Not sure if this is a player or memory card / software problem.
3) Originally I liked the idea of the wristband. I found this is a terrible place to wear it when swinging your arms around. The plastic case appears cheap and doesn't give me much confidence that the player won't go flying across the room unexpectedly. I would be much happier with an upper arm band.
4) Musicmatch is a clunky piece of crap. I completely agree with rtansley's comment here. Also another annoyance is that every time you close the software a window pops up asking you if you want to buy the expanded version. Haven't found a way to get rid of it yet.
I got the 128MB expansion card from MemoryGalaxy for $80.
Rough estimates of battery life are somewhere around 4 hours continuous and 8 hours through intermittent use.
Despite my rants, I like the player and take the bad with the good.
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Update 5/22/03
Well, it finally croaked. I could not get Music Match to see the player on the USB port no matter what I did. I have returned the unit (still under warranty) and RCA sent me a Lyra player free of charge. I like it much better!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
aaron_d
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Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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