Great little MP3 player
Written: Jan 20 '05
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Pros: compact, expandable with SD Card
Cons: buttons a little too stiff
The Bottom Line: This little mp3 player(it's one of the smallest I've seen with a display) is really cool
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| electrosonic's Full Review: RCA Lyra RD1021 (64 MB) MP3 Player |
This little mp3 player(it's one of the smallest I've seen with a display) is really cool. I'm very pleased with the sound quality. It offers several DSP settings for tonal quality adjustment (i.e. Rock, Jazz, Pop etc.)The ear clips that are included are quite nice. Sound is really quite good -plenty of bass for such small earphones -although I don't know if I should be refering to them as earphones or headphones, since they are rather like the mini "walkman" type headphones but without the headband. They have these earclips instead -similar to what you see on eyeglasses.
They're very comfortable, so much that you mostly forget that you have them on, and only after many hours of wearing them that you will want to give your ears a break. Kudos to RCA for the design -I absolutely hate ear buds!
Back to the player... this thing is mindboggling when it comes to battery life -The unit is powered from a single "AAA" alkaline battery. I can't tell you from my experience what the battery life is, because it's still operating with the battery included in the box. The manual I believe states about 20 hours of play time, but I'm sure I've already gone beyond that, and the battery life indicator still shows full like when I first put installed the battery -amazing. The display is ID3 compatable, and the unit supports both MP3 & WMA (Windows Media)audio files. In a pinch, I've even used the player to store other files like those USB Flash drives since the Lyra shows up in My Computer as a removable storage device, and even though it's an MP3 player, the computer doesn't care -put excel files on it. Most likely the best selling feature for myself was the SD Flash card slot -unlimited memory. Because of this the measley 64MB of internal memory wasn't an issue. In fact, in my case, my Toshiba notebook happens to have an SD slot built-in. The lyra doesn't seem to care about how the files are loaded to the SD card -just drag & drop from windows on to the removable device in my computer. Note: If you use the included USB cable to connect the Lyra to your computer and have a SD card installed, there will be two separate removable devices showing in 'My Computer' -one for the Lyra's internal 64MB, and another for the SD card (512MB in my case.
This is cool since plugging in the SD card does not disable the internal 64 MB ram.
Also, the internal 64MB will always be primary storage. This means that if you want favourite songs to be first in the playlist, make sure that you store them to the internal memory instead. Of course the song order is adjustable within the player itself, I find it a little cumbersome to do so I usually setup the order before I send them to the Lyra or SD card. The Lyra has several play mode options as well such as random, repeat etc. Now for the drawbacks... I have almost nothing that I would tell the designers of the Lyra other than the buttons are a little too stiff, and require quite a firm push to operate. This may be due to the fact that they have attempted to "Weatherize" the unit as all these buttons are covered in a rubber covering -obviously to prevent moisture from entering. So that being said, I can live with the stiff buttons. The only other item for the wishlist is backlighting for the LCD display -There isn't any. I understand though, that if there was, kiss the battery life goodbye. Also, it may no longer be possible without the adding more batteries to up the required voltage for the backlighting -this would equate to bigger & heavier, so forget I even mentioned it. Oh ya, the Lyra comes with a nice padded nylon case with an attached wide elastic armband for those who jog or run.
What else can I say... I love this thing. I even use it in the car with one of those cassette adapters. I just wish that RCA offered an FM stereo transmitter accessory like the ones used for the multidisc CD car players. The cassette adapter sounds really great but wireless would be nicer.
Final note:
The model I purchased differs slightly from the picture on this site, although I believe that the functions & features are the same. The main difference is that my unit has no buttons on the front of the unit. -just four buttons on each side, a stereo mini jack and SD flash slot on the top, and a key lockout switch, and usb jack (for micro USB cable)on the rear. Check the Lyra web site for the details.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 49
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies
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Epinions.com ID:
electrosonic
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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