Digitalway MPIO FL100 128 MB MP3 Player

Rating:
Summary: MPIO review
Review: Anyone who left a positive review for this item did so within the first weak of purchase. Yes, it is a great player: it has a sleek finish, a nice lcd screen, and plays music. After a few months the only nice thing about it is the look. The software always crashes and I have not been able to add or remove songs whatsoever. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!

Rating:
Summary: Good but difficult and fragile
Review: This is a great little player. I've had it for about a year now and I love it. It does everything that you'd want it to do and has some very great features. I would recommend getting the 128mb version because the SD memory cards are so easy to swap out if you want to change music. I've got the built in memory of things I always listen to and then 2 cards that I just periodically swap out. It's really not necessary to pay for the extra built in memory.

Some drawbacks are that if you want to keep it in good working order you have to keep it in the case all the time. The face scratchs and will break if you arn't always careful. Also all the little doors and movable parts are very fragile so you have to be very careful if you open them a lot (ex. the memory card slot)

Another thing to keep in mind is the manual is for the most part completely useless and the customer support services could be much better.

Overall this is a great player and worth your money as long as your carefull with it.

Rating:
Summary: Good player, Great value
Review: I bought this MP3 player for my teenage son for his birthday. He loves it. I researched and looked at many different MP3 players before deciding to buy this one. I liked the fact that it had expandable memory with SD or MMC slot,(I believe a feature only on the FL100 128MB model, but check the others to be sure). None of the other MP3's I looked at had this feature, thus limiting you to only what the internal memory offers. It is very small, compact, making it easy for my son to carry it in his pocket & listen to his music. It is a very sleek, attractive looking device, which my son likes alot. I helped my son purchase some songs from MSN music, Windows Media music store & Musicmatch, but since the music downloads that you purchase are WMA files, they did not download into the MPIO too easily even though it is supposed to be WMA compatible. I did not like this especially since they were music purchases. We eventually managed to get them downloaded into the device, but it did take some work & patience. This is why I can not give this 5 stars. Otherwise I don't think that you can beat the features for the price. Overall, my son is very pleased with it as am I.

Rating:
Summary: Good for the money, good for a while
Review: I bought the Digitalway MPIO FL100 128 MB MP3 Player in about 8 months ago. The software used to upload mp3s (MPIO Manager) would occasionally carsh and I'd have to reformat the flash memory. It used to crash maybe once a week. Then it started crashing a few times a week. About 5 days ago, it began crashing every other time I tried uploading mp3s and eventually started crashing while reformating the memory.

It's pretty much dead now and I've had to buy a new mp3 player. The replacement is *not* a Digitalway MPIO mp3 player. Lesson learned.

Also, the headphones were a bit uncomfortable.

I would not recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Works great!
Review: The unit is ideal -- perfect size and everything. I love the controls. You don't have to use the software at all, just install the driver and drag n drop your MP3s onto the player just like an extra hard drive. It was easy enough to use, you have to have a sub-normal IQ to not have figured it out.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful little player! (But in case you didn't know...)
Review: With nearly 200 reviews of the MPIO FL100 on this site, why write another? Because after using the unit for a few months, there are a few things I've learned about it that shoppers might want to consider before they purchase, and I have yet to see them mentioned in the existing reviews.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the player. It fits easily in my pocket, and the hold key makes sure that no matter what I bump into, my music won't be interrupted. The controls are so easy to use, and the design of the little ratcheting joystick is pure genius. But there are a few things you may want to think about before buying this item:

1) Need a lot of memory? Do you plan on changing the tracks loaded onto your mp3 player fairly frequently? Then do yourself a favor and pick up the 256 MB version instead of the 128. Yes, they both have expandable SD slots and the 128MB version is cheaper, but what nobody seems to mention is that it takes far longer to load tracks onto the card memory than it does to the built-in memory (I estimate maybe 4-5 times as long). You might want to leave the SD memory for tracks you can't live without, and put all the temporary stuff in flash.

2) The folks at MPIO have a plug-in that integrates into Windows Media Player. If you buy music downloads off the net, Windows Media Player will handle the digital rights management and the transfer of your downloaded music onto the MPIO in playable form. (If you try to do this with the MPIO software and the mp3s require a licence, they won't play). I've been using mp3s downloaded through Music Match's service and using Windows Media Player to add them to the unit. Works like a charm.

3) Digitalway (the makers of the MPIO line) frequently offers firmware upgrades for their units, so your unit will be able to keep up with the latest mp3 formats and features.

All in all, the MPIO FL100 is a fantastic player. I highly recommend picking one up.



Rating:
Summary: NO PROBLEMS, ALL SMOOTH SAILING
Review: I just had to defend this fine electronic piece, being I own it and love it. Any reviewers below who are complaining that it is hard to use and faulty...well, they must be doing something wrong, or their computer sucks. Because I've had no problems with this bad boy whatsoever. As the title says, purely smooth sailing. Easy to use, self-explanatory buttons/menus (i never even looked at the manual), and quick transfers onto it and everything. Don't let the bad reviews deter you from buying it because I've had it since December 25th, 2003 (nice Christmas gift...told my parents to get this one specifically after research), and have had no problems with it whatsoever. The ice blue display is hot too. So take it from this 23 year old that it shouldn't give you any problems if you're using it right. Hollla.

Rating:
Summary: Decent Looking, very slow transfer rates
Review: While this player looks great and the functions are decent, the software backend leaves a lot to be desired.

Pros:
*Slick looking
*Nice interface (on player)
*Uses 1 AAA battery (lasts about 10 hours constant use)
*Bright readable display (in sunlight or total darkness)
*FM radio
*Very light
*Uses Secure Digital (SD) or MMC media
*Digital audio recorder (has microphone)
*Wearable as armband or necklace
*Excellent audio quality
*Equalizer
*Solid state (no risk of damaging a hard drive through impact)

Cons:
*MPIO Manager 2 (bad/unreliable software)
*USB 1.0 support only (read very very very slow)
*Proprietary FAT formatting (if you don't format and copy songs through MPIO Manager 2, songs won't resume and the player will sometimes crash or display garbage)
*Can't copy songs back off of the player (with MPIO Manager 2)
*No playlist support (at least that I've found)
*No song queuing (can't select next song to play while one is playing that I've found)
*No longer supported by mpio.com
*Last firmware release was 1.32 on web site, but some recent players are shipping with 1.33 which is not available on the web.
*No lyric support (i.e., no karaoke features)

Physically, all the buttons work well except for the three way rocker (combo forward, back and menu) button. This button, while conceptually decent, doesn't really function that well. When you push it in, it sometimes gets stuck or feels sticky. You have to push this button almost straight in. If you push down at an angle, it almost never works correctly. The left/right movement works well with this toggle button, though. Occasionally the volume button will get stuck under the case and turn the volume all the way down. If you press the volume button correctly, this won't happen.

The real problem with this player is lack of company support. This unit was promised to have native filesystem support and doesn't (i.e., plug the unit in and have direct access to the filesystem like most other USB memory devices). You can format external cards with an external USB 2 unit and place music on them, but the unit doesn't treat the cards the same way as if you had formatted them through MPIO Manager 2 (i.e., formatted externally you cannot resume playing songs on power up).

The size is great, the weight is great, the battery life is excellent and the unit works well (once you have music on it). But, getting the music onto it can be a chore. If you must purchase this unit, go out and buy Sveta Portable audio interface and driver for FL100 from www.dbpoweramp.com to replace MPIO Manager 2. Sveta doesn't speed up the transfer, but the software is at least more reliable, is supported and much more feature rich. There is also a functionally limited software interface for Linux at mpio.sourceforge.net.

There is not likely to be any more firmware releases for this unit, so I would suggest that you purchase another unit if you really want up-to-date firmware and a better supported unit. You might want to skip all Digit@lway MPIO MP3 players if you actually want good hardware and software support.