Portable CD/MP3 players...

[Paddy]

I had a chat with SteveC yesterday about getting a portable CD player which could read MP3s. Seemed the ideal solution as it would get around that crappy 64Mb limit you get with a propper mp3 player.

After some browsing, Steve suggested this. Unfortunately the unit is very unresponsive to the buttons and quite considerable force is required in order for any button presses to register.

The MP3 playback frequently stutters, especially when using the controls and not all of the controls work.

There also appears to be some static whenever there is a change in track.
I also have a feeling that the product has been used before as the remote is scratched and the lithium battery on the player was fully charged!

I am currently fighting with Dabs to get a replacement, but if it turns out that all the models are liek this (because its cheap ) then they can have it back!

Does anyone know of a cheap MP3 solution.

• I cant afford much over £100
• needs to go in my car, so a portable one with a car kit seems ideal.
• I dont mind a tacky feel as long as it works

Any ideas?

[Paddy]

Yikes, for some reason the url didn't work to here it is in full

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-in...&quicklinx=RV0

[impact]

Er, Expanium (www.expanium.com)from Phillips? I heard it's pretty good, but I am not sure about the price.

[SteveC]

Sorry to hear about that Patrick....

The only other one we talked about was the cack looking Goodmans one from Maplins...

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Paddy]

The Expanium is 179USD which would be ok if i could find one!

The Goodmans is cack (i had a look - no antishock)

I have sent the NAPA one back (well courier pending!)

[Indiana]

I have the Philips Expaniuim and it's quite OK for sound-quality. Nothing too spectacular, but OK (which is already much for a MP3-device, I believe).
On the plus side there is:
- Yes, finally! 10hours sound on one CD
- it accepted EVERY, even the cheapest CDR and CDRW I've thrown at it so far, it also accepts non-finalized CDR/CDRW.
- it accepted EVERY mp3-File I've thrown at it so far, regardless of bitrates (112,128,160,...,VBR) or stereo- / joint-stereo-mode.
- well working anti-shock
- sound-quality is quite good, no static or hiss (at least none additional the one included in the mp3)
- good bass-boost (enough boost for most low-price speakers / headphones, but not that exaggereated as in some other devices)
- can use folders
- random-play resume-function, although with flaws, which leads to:

Minus:
- Resume function "forgets" random-play, so it's not possible to really use random-play in a car when you drive half an hour, turn the device off, start it again -> random play is disabled, you can turn it on again but then it won't know the titles it has played earlier. This is IMHO the most annoying thing about the Expanium
- You can't do fast-forward / rewind in a mp3-title (it does work on 'normal' audio-CDs, though).
- It doesn't know the mp3 ID-tags, so it doesn't show the title/artist of the currently played mp3 in the display (would be quite easy to do, don't you think?)
- VERY low contrast LCD display, it's hard to read sometimes.


Overall I'm quite satisfied with the Expanium, this is one thing I've searched for a long time. But it's nowhere near perfect and there's still some way to go. One thing I don't know of is if the Expanium will play back VQF and WMA files as well, but I don't think so.

If you've got the money I'd severely think of getting Creative's 6.3GB mp3-player, though

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 04 February 2001).]

[Pneumatic]

I'm not real good with the money conversion, but you can have the Nomad Jukebox for $429.00 USD.
It stores 6 GIG of music. No need to carry CD's at all! No skipping or any of the other problems with the cd players either. Another cool thing is that it has speaker outputs on the back that will allow you to hard wire it into your car stereo (kinda like a CD changer, I've heard).
This is definately my next portable purchase. Unfortunately I bought the Rio 500 about 2 weeks before the Jukebox came out so I can't bring myself to putting it on a shelf for the next big thing already. Technology just moves too darned fast!
http://www.nomadworld.com/products/jukebox/

[This message has been edited by Kindness! (edited 04 February 2001).]

[agallag]

I managed to get a Jukebox for a measly $89.99 canadian dollars thanks to a website screwup in november. It's an awesome unit, but I don't think I would've paid full price for one (over $700 canadian). I think the two best mp3 cd players available now are the Rio Volt and the Pine D'Music. Both have full ID3 display of song names, which the expanium does not have. Anyhoo, more stuffs to ponder...

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Andrew
Carpe Cerevisi