Rating: Summary: wow! a product made for everyone but people in America! Review: You will undoubtedly want an MP3 player some day. If and when this day comes, you will undoubtedly be taken by the size and beauty of the MPIO players from Digitalway. Hopefully, at this point, you realize you will some day want to purchase mp3 music to place inside your new mp3 player. Unfortunately, you will not be able to find any music that the MPIO will play, as nthe music on apple's hugely successful itunes cannot be read by this mp3 player. When you go to the website to request a firmware upgrade be written for your new MPIO, you will realize without much effort that the company, in Denmark or somewhere, has no idea what you're talking about. You will then undoubtedly heave this hunk of wasted technology and by an ipod.
Rating: Summary: Good Sound Quality but BEWARE Review: I bought this MP3 player for a friend. It has great sound quality, easy set up, easy use, and it's great for working out. However, after only three weeks of use the face plate on it cracked. It was not due to dropping or mistreatment - it just cracked after a workout! It still plays music but you have to work a little harder at the buttons. I would recommend buying the extended warranty for it.
Rating: Summary: Quite simply, the best MP3 player on the market. Review: This player met all of my qualifications: #1. It's very small. Inside the included belt clip it looks exactly like a pager. You could easily keep it in your pocket or wear it around your neck with the include strap. For me the IPOD wasn't even an option because I wanted my MP3 player to be pocket-sized. #2 There's no hard drive. The FL100 uses flash memory so there's no chance of skipping during exercise, etc. I don't care what the Mac folks say- if it has a hard drive it CAN skip. #3 The FL100 has lots of memory. In researching this product, it seems that 512MB is about as big as you can get in flash memory. Sure, the IPOD has more, but I normally don't have more than about 5 or 6 CDs in regular rotation. However, if you need more you can always expand memory using the SD/MMC memory card slot. I haven't shopped around very much for memory cards, but I know that the capacity goes up to at least 512 MB, meaning you could at the very least double your memory to over a Gig. I use the included Real One software to rip CDS at a variable bit rate (128 average). With better headphones I might notice degradation in quality, but so far I have no complaints. Even classical sounds great! Real One seems to be drawing from a better internet database than others (like MediaPlayer). I have yet to find a CD on which it can't find title/track info. Files are extracted into folders: Artist > Album > Track # and Title. You then use the MPIO manager software to download these folders directly to the device. The architecture of the FL100 is superb. Browse through titles while listening, display titles or MP3 tag IDs, set repeats, delete tracks directly from the device, display 1 of 2 different peak meters while track plays, and so on. The graphic EQ presets are not very good unfortunately. But you can manually set the EQ to your liking. The voice recorder is fun, but even better is the ability to record FM radio. I'm a talk radio fanatic so this is something I use frequently. You can choose high or low quality recording. With only about 40MB free, I recorded about 3 hours of talk on low quality. I do wish this device had the ability to function like a thumb drive in explorer. Unfortunately all data must be uploaded/downloaded through MPIO manager. Perhaps this could be changed in a future firmware update- I don't know. Lastly, I would recommend picking up some AAA rechargeable batteries. I use my player all day and burn through about 1 battery a day.
Rating: Summary: Great little player Review: After doing some research on all the available portable mp3 players that were around I decided on the Digitalway FL100. Things that were I considered important. 1. Needed to be small and light (I use for working out) 2. Wanted to spend around $175 3. Needed to have memory expansion...preferably Secure Digital (I already have SD cards for digital camera) 4. Needed minimum 256MB of storage. (The more the better) 5. Needed to have FM Tuner. 6. Needed to use standard batteries (didn't want to be stranded waiting for expensive NiMH battery to recharge). 7. Needed to be solid state. (did not want hard drive device). I looked at Iriver, Verge, Rio, RCA and Yepp. All offered similar features but only the DigitalWay met them all and did it for &179.00. The Verge was only $119 but had a NimH rechargeable battery and no expansion slot, The Iriver had no expansion slot and was $199.00. So far the ML100 seems like a great choice. The display is great for it's size and scrolls for long filenames and ID3 MP3 tags. The unit is packed with features like equalizer presets and an open user setting. Voice recording and FM recording are also neat features. Sound quality is excellent and battery life is great. Technology has come a long way since the introduction of the Walkman. I wouldn't hesitate to buy this device.
Rating: Summary: Great Buy Review: This is worth every penny. I never owned an mp3 player before this one, but I am very impressed with it. The size alone is worth it. Also it holds over 50 of my favorite songs, and if I ever get tired of my songs, I can tune to my favorite radio stations. This is perfect for my workouts and when I travel. I recommend this to anyone
Rating: Summary: Absolutely gorgeous BUT . . . . Review: The pros: - Looks great - Very nice and shiny - Feels good in the hand - Sounds good - Small - Solid - Light - Splashy start-up and shut down graphics - Expandable - Has a loyal following that will help you with advice at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MPIO/ The cons: - Abysmal ergonomics - controls are awkwardly located relative to the screen which reads at 90 degrees to the way you want to hold it and are either to soft or to hard. - Unfathomable interface - I am not a member of MENSA, but neither is 99.999% of the population. Perhaps thats why I couldn't fathom its illogical and inconsistent structure. - On start-up it does not return to the last state it was in, so you have to go through that confusing interface every time you start up and want to listen to the radio or the mp3 you were previously listening to. - The manual is a hilarious joke - unless you want to learn how to use this thing. It reads as if someone was trying to do the worst possible translation from Korean to English they possibly could. I think even AltaVista's Babel Fish Translation Service would have done a better job. Additionally mayor areas are omitted - like navigation between folders and songs and what the cryptic on-screen messages mean. - That gorgeous high gloss shiny front surface instantly attracts oil and dirt so it always looks grubby. - USB Mass Storage Device is not supported. This means that the Mpio can only be accessed through dedicated software rather than it showing up on your desktop. - USB 1.1 is slow. Loading songs onto the Mpio is slow. 2.0 has been out for several years, as has firewire. There is no excuse to stick to this outdated standard that is best suited to keyboards and mice. - The new AAC (mp4) format is not supported, so forget playing those great sounding small file sized songs you downloaded with iTunes. (In fairness rumor has it that this may be fixed in a firmware update, but who knows when). - Reception on the radio is spotty. Turn your head one way and its nice and clear, turn it the other and all you hear is static. Perhaps I am this critical because I spent 5 minutes playing with an iPod in the store and instantly got it. The interface is simple, consistent and intuitive. Controls are laid out logically and the screen is large enough to read and uses real language, not computerese. The fact that it also has basic PIM functions and doubles as a portable drive is icing on the cake. (Yes I have iPod envy. No I don't have one.)
Rating: Summary: mpio FL100 player rocks Review: After spending an awful lot of time on researching for flash based mp3 players, I finally nailed down to two players.One from iriver(IFP-190T) and one from digitalway(FL100.) After a thorough comparison one thing which stood out for FL100 was,it was expandable with an external SDcard.I have been using it for a week now and it holds app~70 songs. Also the FM tuner works great and I can listen to my favourite npr station. Buy:Strongly Recommend Note:If you do not want additional capacity go for iriver IFP-190T
Rating: Summary: Easy to use and great sound Review: I've been holding off getting a small and lightweight MP3 player for use at the gym and riding my bike (not in traffic). After looking at the reviews and at this unit in a store. It is everything said. It is a much more solid case and button arrangement than most of the other brands. It feels solid, yet still light weight. The sound is great. The earbuds are fair. I did some more critical listening with my Sony MDR-V6 headphones and the sound is really good on this unit, very low noise and good crisp sound. 128MB puts about two or 2.5 typical CDs ripped to 128K MP3 format. Enough for a typical workout for me. Takes about 90 to 120 seconds to download a full load of 128M music to the device. FM is really good, pulls in lots of stations compared to my other portable FM radios. Just about as good as my car radio at this job. I haven't tried to record anything (voice or radio) yet nor have I used the memory expansion slot for MMC or SD cards. I think the only question you should ask is do I want a bit more storage, if so get another card to put in it or go right to the 256M model. Enjoy!
Rating: Summary: Looked like a nice player but too bad it didn't work. Review: I have to give this player 1 star. There is NO REASON an electronics item that costs as much as this one does, has a problem working right out of the box. The USB connection from the player to the computer would not stay active, indicating either a bad USB cable or a bad USB connection on the player (my USB hub works just fine with all the other devices plugged into it).. these guys need to learn English! The manual's a joke, good for a laugh. The menus were cool, the radio worked fine, the sound was decent enough, but what good is any of that if you can't trust the player to work a week from now?
Rating: Summary: Questionable Reliablility, NO Customer Service Review: The player itself is a fine product. However, through normal use, the player wouldn't play through the left speaker/headphone!!! Furthermore, contacting Digitalway is so painful (perhaps purposely?) that it doesn't seem like its worth the time. After 5 letters and e-mails, I just gave up. This makes the warranty useless. Afterall, how can you use it if the company won't even respond? So, buying this product is somewhat a gamble, and at $125, you might want to search for other products by other companies. Of course, if you have the cash to blow, you can just buy an iPod. At least the people at Apple are not crooks!
|