TDK gets it right with the Mojo 620
Written: Jan 03 '03
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Pros: Flexible unit, great remote, easy to learn & use, fairly robust design
Cons: Not designed for album playback, some minor "buggy" behavior, a bit bulky
The Bottom Line: A very good, relatively low end solution for MP3 CD playback. You can do better, but not at this price.
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| jargent's Full Review: TDK MOJO Personal CD Player |
Simply put, this is a great little unit. It's not something you'll build your home stereo around, but it's excellent for morning commutes, long drives and plane flights.
I'm picky with my music, and like to have a big selection. With this unit, I've been able to increase the music I carry with me by a factor of 15, and I haven't been able to notice any real drop in sound quality.
The specs are nice: plays standard Audio CD, CD-R, CD-RW (12 cm and 8 cm sizes), regular CDs and MP3 CDs. It's got good skip protection (8 minutes for MP3, 45 seconds for CD Audio), though I've had a few skips so far. I haven't determined if it's the mp3 encoding or the unit, so the jury is out. But my old unit skipped like a banshee all during my commute while this one has no major problems.
The specs claim 10 hours of battery life, but so far I've found it's closer to 5-7 hours. It does have some power saving features (it stops spinning when playing read ahead MP3s), but on the whole, I'd like some extra battery time. At the same time, how expensive are AA's at Costco? So it's a minor inconvenience, but no biggie. If you're listening at home, it's got a AC adaptor, but portability is what I suspect most folks will use it for. It's also got a stereo line out for home use.
My biggest beef, which I was able to work around, was the native sorting of files. TDK, through the use of it's included software, likes you to set up things in their FIF format, which incorporates Artist, Track Name and Genre. Unfortunately, track number isn't included there, so by default, you listen to tracks on an album alphabetically. This just sucks. However, the unit also reads ID3 tags, but not in a fully compliant way. So, if you name your files outside of the FIF standard such that they sort in order (01 - Track 1.mp3, 02 - Track 2.mp3), you can hear it in order, and the system can pick up the ID3 tags to give you artist and track name. But, it only does this once the track begins, so finding tracks can be a wee bit annoying, and you don't get to use some of the native sorting features like artist, genre, and album that SHOULD get picked up in the ID3 tag.
The big upshot of that beef is that if you have a collection of MP3s already set up, you're not going to be able to just burn your favorite albums onto CD and listen to them in album order. You'll have to do some editing of filenames. (I recommend SDLRename, a shareware renaming program, for this bulk renaming.) It would also be nice if the unit were m3u compliant. As is, it's got one big playlist that looks like it's annoying to work with. (I haven't really tried.) The random/shuffle functionality works through this big playlist, which isn't all that cool.
Onto more positive stuff, the remote is excellent. It's got a clip on, and has all of the functionality of the controls. The ONLY negative there is that there's no readout on the remote, so you can't always tell what's going on. A few times, I've inadvertantly hit myself onto a menu and not been able to tell, so the remote controls didn't respond as I'd expected. The hold functionality has also gone buggy a few times, keeping me from using the unit. (There are separate holds on the unit and the remote, each must be "Off" for the controls to function. I like this a lot.)
So, on the whole. Great little beast. It's small enough to fit in my bag, and pretty light, about 10 ounces. I'd like it a wee bit smaller, but it's ok, and the readout is nice and big, so it balances nicely.
With rebate, I got it for around $45, so it was a great deal. I didn't like the headphones it came with, but that was no biggie.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 45
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Epinions.com ID:
jargent
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Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
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