Get one!
Written: Feb 03 '05
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Pros: Small, great sound, 16 hr battery life
Cons: Not as small as the IPOD but stop crying, it's not an anvil!
The Bottom Line: Good for all users I think. Might be too much space for those without big collections but a great player!
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| richco's Full Review: Dell DJ (15 GB) MP3 Player |
I had been thinking about a portable MP3 player for some time, but I wasn’t about to shell out 300 bucks plus for an Ipod, no matter how pretty they are. I went to school for audio production so fidelity is important to me. Personally I don’t really like MP3s because on the high end they tend to get a little “swirly” sounding. Like the organ in the intro to “Gimmie Some Lovin” by the Spencer Davis Group. You know what I mean, stop denying it. I never understood the whole phenomenon of Napster and downloading albums you should be paying for. It’s not that MP3s are not useful, not at all. My band (koff-koff www.yourfavorieteband.com koff—koff…Ahem, oh, sorry, shameless plug in my throat) has free ones up so people can get an idea of what we sound like. I just never found them to be the be all and end all.
That said, I thought it would be neat to have the bulk of my music collection at my fingertips at any given moment. It’s a very Star Trek concept, really. So when I was approached by someone to take this unit off their hands for a small fee, I thought, “Ah, what the heck?” and dove into the digital music revolution with both feet.
The Dell Digital Jukebox (Hereafter referred to as the DJ) is a snazzy looking piece of gear. It’s not a thin as the Ipod (lord knows if you turn those new ones sideways, you might lose them!) measuring 3 ½” long, 2 ¼” wide and about half an inch thick. It has a metal chassis that seems really sturdy. It is definitely heavier, no doubt about that, but to me the ‘pod feels like a toy anyhow. The interface is pretty good, and I especially like the scrolling wheel in the middle, sort of like the ones you would see on your computer mouse. The “home and back buttons are slightly counter-intuitive for me although I can’t figure out why. The layout is as follows:
SCREEN
Back one menu button-----Scroll Wheel-------Home button
Rewind/previous track------Play------FF/Next track
Pretty simple layout, right? There’s some more buttons, don’t worry. On the top is a lock button that keeps you from turning it on/off or mucking with what’s playing while it’s in the case or your pocket. The side has a power button, volume up/down and a button to activate the voice recording mode. This button is slightly recessed, which is god because otherwise you would be recording “Ode to My Coat Pocket” or “The Secret Inner Workings of My Backpack.” I haven’t really used it yet, but I tested it feature and it’s pretty clear. I’d like to try recording music in a live setting with it.
The screen is pretty big and has a pleasing blue backlight. In fact all the buttons on the face glow really nice when you make a change or advance a track or raise or lower the volume. It’s like having your own little Automan (WHOA! Gratuitous 80’s TV reference!) with you.
I know what you’re asking, and that is, how does it sound? Well I encode my music at 128kpbs and it sounds remarkably good. Much better, in fact, than I initially expected. It’s not CD quality, but you’re carrying around like 5,000 songs, what do you want, a cookie too? It should be good enough for all but the most discriminating of listeners. There’s a large amount of preset EQ modes, as well as a customizable one. I go back and forth between the presets depending on the artist or the format (music or voice), and really haven’t needed the custom. I really would have liked a “loudness” on the player though. In the car sometimes I need to really crank my stereo to get the proper sound level. That is more than likely a fault of my car stereo, than the player, because at home and the office (and through the included headphones) it sounds great. Oh it will also play WMA files if’n you are so inclined.
I should also mention the AWESOME 16 hour battery life! So there, I mentioned it.
You can search by artist or album, or you can pull up one of your custom playlists. I’m a full album kind of dude so I generally don’t make playlists. You won’t really want to scroll around much while driving, so pick an album and stick to it! I use this for Old Time Radio shows. Many of these are encoded 32 kpbs and the player handles them well. I had some at 16kpbs and man alive the player plays them in slow motion. Either that or all the old Charlie Chan radio shows were performed by enormously fat people on ludes. It was a long time ago, it could have happened that way, you don’t know…
Now that you know how easy it is to use, and how nice it sounds, let’s talk about the software. You get two pieces of software, Dell’s Jukebox Explorer, and (shudder) Music Match. Let me tell you about Music Match for a second. MM is crap, pure and simple. Shortly after installing it my PC experienced lock ups and I was unable to rip CDs or transfer anything to the Jukebox. I then became unable to hear any sound on the pc. All sound began skipping. Even after I uninstalled it, problems continued. This seems to be a problem with XP and Music Match according to accounts I have read of other people who had the same trouble. I have since switched to Windows Media Player 10 for ripping.
The Dell DJ Explorer on the other hand is a fine piece of software. Drag and drop songs or files (as you can use the DJ as an external hard drive for storage only. You can’t access anything directly form the data folder of the player) and rename and edit genres and album names until your heart’s content.
Again I state DO NOT INSTALL THE MUSIC MATCH SOFTWARE, IT WILL CAUSE YOU NOTING BUT HEARACHE AND MUCH GNASHING OF TEETH! YOU DON’T NEED IT!
The Unit comes with an ac adapter, USB cable, a leather case, ear bud earphones, and the aforementioned software. That’s pretty much that. Enjoy!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
Recommended for: Music Lovers - High Capacity Storage for an Entire Album Collection
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Epinions.com ID:
richco
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Location: nj
Reviews written: 80
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
It's another great review from your Uncle Rich!
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