Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
robust & long battery life but ..., 5 Nov 2008
I've had this for nearly a year now so it's reliable if nothing else, but it's a frustrating mixture of quality and could-do-better.
Good things:
Decent sound;
Several preset EQ settings plus a custom one you can change;
Long battery life, which has shown no sign of diminishing even though I regularly partially top it up from the USB - however, fully charging from a USB port takes many hours - they recommend 16 hours when new, which is hardly very eco-friendly given the power use of a PC - and don't even think about trying to fully charge it with the dynamo - your arm will fall off before it's a quarter full;
Solid build with a rubber outer casing - I doubt dropping it on the pavement would hurt the player, though I guess it might damage the dynamo;
The screen guard has stayed on for nearly a year now;
Memory upgrade slot for an SD card - I was a bit concerned because the card sticks out slightly (a millimetre or 2) but this has never been a problem, even in a jeans pocket;
Simple drag & drop file addition (though if you have an SD slot in your PC you'll find adding directly to a card that way rather than to the main memory in the player itself is far faster);
Works fine with the memory stuffed full;
Effective lock button;
Small and quite bright torch which at the very least is good for finding the keyhole if you haven't left the outside light on ... and which you can't leave on and drain the battery, you have to hold down a button.
Not so good things:
Size - there can't be many larger MP3 players. It will go in a pocket, but preferably quite a large one. With its rather retro controls it looks more like a cassette walkman than an MP3 player, though thankfully nowhere near as heavy or quite as big. Far thicker than any IPod though.
The claimed 40 minutes playing time for 1 minute of winding is dubious - you're only going to manage this if you're very fit, you'll need to wind very fast and it is surprisingly hard work - no pain no gain. I'd say you're doing well if you get 30 mins out of it, 20 is more likely. It's surprisingly noisy too, and perhaps the biggest problem is finding a suitable way to hold it while winding, given the need to keep the holding hand out of the way of the crank handle. Now if you could attach it to a bicycle dynamo ... But frankly unless you take it on a long holiday with no access to a usb (there's no charger, natch) you're not going to run out of juice and have to wind it up unless you're careless. In theory you could charge a mobile phone with it too (assuming the supplied adaptors include one that fits your phone) but I'm sure this would only be used in dire emergency as the same stricture applies and I suspect it would take a lot of winding to get more than a few minutes call time out of it.
The supplied earphones are little in-ear jobbies which I personally can't stand - I'm currently using iPod ones my partner can't get on with, all a matter of personal taste and ear build. Obviously better phones will make a huge difference, there's nothing wrong with the sound on this player.
Bad things:
The impatient (hesitate a few seconds and it'll default back to the song you were playing) menu system can be incredibly frustrating - and then when you press a button you start wondering if you pressed it hard enough because it takes ages to respond. I strongly recommend against having more than 2 layers of folders - i.e. the main folders in the player and the SD card and the next layer below that - because navigating between folders can be a nightmare, especially moving up a layer - sometimes you get back to the folder menu and it won't let you move to a different one.
The random play has a tendency to develop favourites and will sometimes repeat a song quite close to the last play or even consecutively, even in a large folder (e.g. 200+songs). It stays within a single folder (which is OK, though it'd be nice if you could set it to choose randomly from the entire contents) and as long as you stay in a particular folder, every time you switch it on the second track it plays (after the one you stopped on) will be the same tune.
Occasionally it freezes, however pressing the menu button and on-off button simultaneously reliably frees it up.
Other features I haven't used:
Microphone/MP3 sound recorder. No idea what sort of quality this is but it would be a doddle to upload the resulting files to a pc, just drag & drop. At the very least it would make an effective dictaphone, which I think is what this feature's primarily intended for.
Video (the screen is quite small for the size of the player)
Photo storage and viewing (ditto)
Radio.
So while it's a solid and reliable player with good battery life, the menu is annoying, random play is anything but, it's big and it's not very good value for the memory size.
Maybe a good choice if you are likely to be away from mains electricity & a pc for a week plus regularly, otherwise you can do better for less money.
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great camping accessory, 24 April 2009
I've had the player for a little over a year and it's been really, really useful when cycle touring/camping. And, to be honest, I think that's where its strength lies. What I really like about it is the little external speaker, just loud enough to fill my tent with music. Very cosy. There's something very pleasant about having your favourite tunes with you when you're traveling.
The only other feature of this product I've used is the torch, which again is useful when you're camping.
I'm dubious about the word 'Eco' being attached to any consumables and this is no exception. It was made in China for a start, so it's carbon debt at one year of age is already worse than mine. Also, a conventional mp3 player charged by solar panel is no doubt just as 'green' as this product.
But, if you ignore its slightly silly name and, more importantly, you want a reliable source of entertainment when on the move, which you can easily charge (the dynamo is good), then this isn't a bad option. I like it.
|
|
|
|
