Rating: 
Summary: Good balance of price, storage & size...
Review: There are tons of portable mp3 players out there - ranging from solid state players, to hybrid MP3/CD players to fancy hard drive based players. Of these Apple's iPOD is hands down the perfect player. It's only problem? The darn thing is expensive as heck... and one good drop on the sidewalk will break it's delecate internal hard drive. Still, here in town I see lots of people on the bus and around the city with iPODs. For me though I don't think I could stomach carrying around a $300-400 dollar piece of equipment that I could easily break, have stolen or leave in a bar.Solid state players are certainly sturdy, and although entry level players can be bought for less than $100 bucks, if you want any type of realistic storage (256 megabytes) your price point will get very close to an entry level iPOD. At the bottom of the portable MP3 player bucket though are the mp3/CD hybrid players. These are essentially standard cd players that happen to play burned mp3 disks like a standard audio cd. As far as raw mp3 storage goes they are the bargain of the century - some models can be had for as little as $30 bucks. And the media (a CDR or CDR/W disc) is nearly disposable. Unfortunately a cd player sized object is way bigger than what I'm looking for. Sony has had an interesting player on the market for sometime now - it's NetMD line are essentially compact mini-disc players that also play mp3s. The catch is again price point. So I had pretty much been relying on my Palm Tungsten for mp3 playback - which has the side of effect of really sucking the battery down - when I happened across Philips' 8cm expanium disc player on Amazon. It works almost exactly like the mp3/cd hybrid players, except it uses small, 8cm CDR/W discs... what that means is that it's cheap storage with a small footprint. And best of all is the price. I've only had it for about a day, but so far it works great, slips easily into my jacket pocket and if I loose or break it I won't feel that bad. The 8cm discs are cheap and available just about anywhere regular CDR media is sold - they hold 210mb which is enough to fit 2-4 cds worth of mp3s on depending on the bit rate at which they were encoded in - and because they are so small they won't weigh you down like full size discs. Battery consumption might be an issue for some folks - but a pack of AA batteries are cheap enough at discount stores and is a small price given this player's initial low cost of ownership. (This player comes with an AC adapter too - so if you use it at home or the office you can always just plug it into the wall.) Also - battery life can be nearly doubled by disabling the shock control - which you should only use if you're running or doing some other jarring activity, not sitting on a bus or train. The sound is great - I tested with mp3s that were encoded at 320kbs and it sounded nearly cd perfect. The player also sports 2 levels of bass enhancement. The navigation buttons aren't that complex, but it does allow you to fast forward a track & skip to the next album (folder on the disc) - two basic features that I wasn't really expecting.
Rating:
Summary: Great mp3 player , bad battery life
Review: This product is a great "poor man's mp3 player" Giving the perfect balance between price, portability, mp3 storage, and quality. the only problem I have like some other people here have had is battery life. Just like one of the other reviewers here said, my unit drains batteries even if it isn't turned on also. A great product though, if you don't mind using the ac adapter.
Rating:
Summary: Great mp3 player , bad battery life
Review: This product is a great "poor man's mp3 player" Giving the perfect balance between price, portability, mp3 storage, and quality. the only problem I have like some other people here have had is battery life. Just like one of the other reviewers here said, my unit drains batteries even if it isn't turned on also. A great product though, if you don't mind using the ac adapter.
Rating:
Summary: Great mp3 player , bad battery life
Review: This product is a great "poor man's mp3 player" Giving the perfect balance between price, portability, mp3 storage, and quality. the only problem I have like some other people here have had is battery life. Just like one of the other reviewers here said, my unit drains batteries even if it isn't turned on also. A great product though, if you don't mind using the ac adapter.
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