A truly brilliant piece of technology
Written: Feb 09 '04
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Pros: Great recording features, Good FM reception/sound quality.
Cons: No port for standard voice microphones.
The Bottom Line: I love this little gadget. Every bit as well-made, fun and useful as my Husqvarna chainsaw. High praise indeed!
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| chiapas's Full Review: iRiver iFP-380T (128 MB) MP3 Player |
This is my first mp3 player and some of the things that I like about it may be common to all, but I have marveled many times at all of its features and how well they function. After months of reading reviews and trying to decide between hard drive/flash memory, 128 mb, 256 mb. etc, I finally settled on the 380 when it went on sale at the local best buy for $100 (after rebate). I was most interested in the voice recording capabilities and the fact that it had a line-in input which I (somewhat mistakenly) assumed could be used with an external microphone. As it turns out, a standard microphone does not work unless the sound is passed through some an external amplifier on its way to the recorder. A "preamplified" microphone solves this problem but most of them are more expensive than the player/recorder itself. Fortunately, the internal Mic is surprisingly good. At a recent conference I laid the 380 on the table to snickers and remarks about "james bond" technology but the built-in mic did a fine job of recording 9 separate speakers from various points at the table.
Another unexpected plus was the surprising ability of the fm receiver to hang on to a signal (much better than walkman type radios that i have used in the past). I also appreciate being able to record the radio broadcast to mp3 for later use.
I did encounter a problem or two with connections to my computer early on but once I learned the trick of turning the 380 on before connecting it to the USB port and making sure that the USB was shoved all the way in, this problem seemed to disappear. Finally, as others have noted, sound quality is top notch.
To summarize: if you are thinking about a player/recorder you can buy this one with a high expectation of happiness.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 100
Recommended for: Audio Book Listeners - Download Audio Books and Radio Programs
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Epinions.com ID:
chiapas
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