Customer Reviews

Eiger Labs F20 EigerMan MP3 Player

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

If you're wondering which product to buy, it really depends on your needs. The Rio has convenient controls, which unfortunately, the EigerMan does not, but then again the EigerMan has an incredible bass boost, which knocks the socks off of Rio's equalizer system (Rock, Pop, Jazz settings, etc). This is not that important if you're jogging or playing sports outdoors where there is too much outside noise to be able to hear the difference. The EigerMan does not feature a belt clip as the Rio does, but this is not important unless you're wearing those wierd pants with no pockets. The EigerMan makes the most of the slow paralell port connection: it downloads information from your PC a bit faster than Rio. The earphones supplied with the EigerMan certainly outweigh those of the Rio, and all the better; it makes the experience more enjoyable. The real kick, though, is that the EigerMan not only serves as a great Mp3 player, but also as a really nifty portable drive, letting you download onto and upload off of your Mp3 player several kinds of files, like other types of audio, documents, and even images. Another advantage is that the EigerMan uses standard SmartMedia Flash Cards to upgrade the memory, which can be traded between players, which cannot be done with Rio's own flash system. (If you think 2 hours of music, 64 mb, is not enough, hold tight. In a few years, they'll be making 2GB flash cards, which provide over 12 hours of near cd quality sound.) One thing I have to mention is the solid-state skip free design, which is a major advantage over CD's and even MiniDiscs. The EigerMan has wonderful battery life- just one AA battery lasts over 12 hours. Though the EigerMan software is a pain to get working, and it definitely didn't spend as much time on the drawing board as Rio, the EigerMan definitely pulls out on top.

This is a real review - not a plant by some Eiger Labs company hack. Don't waste your money on this product. It is a real piece of junk. I can't get mine installed despite repeated attempts. The documentation provided with the product is a joke. It is literally a photocopied 4 page piece of paper. I have called the support number for a week straight and never gotten a live person. Everytime they email me in response to my inquiry they send the same automatic response message. Lastly the software provided is horrible. It is a bunch of clippings from 3rd party web sites. I obviously can't tell you how this thing sounds since I've never gotten it working. Please save yourself the hassle - stay away from this product. Eiger Labs doesn't care about servicing its customers.

Setting up the F20V was extremely simple. I set my printer port to ECP/EPP mode, plugged the cable in, rebooted into win 95, plugged in my F20V, hit the stop button to turn it on and ran the included EigerMan manager. That's all it took.

I also purchased a 32MB Smartmedia card which I also installed in the F20V, and after formatting it with the EigerMan manager the card was immediately recognized.

The included carry case is nice, but for some reason does not allow access to the battery door or the data port. Of course anyone handy with an Exacto blade can make the necessary holes, but it seems to be an oversight on Eiger's part.

The included ear-bud headphones were decent sound-wise, but very uncomfortable to wear. They kept on popping out of my ears, which was a pain. I picked up a pair of Sony headphones, and that solved the problem nicely.

Transfer speed was averaging 170KB per second on a pokey P166 vectra PC. I presume that it will be a bit quicker on my PII 400 workstation when I connect it there eventually. USB is faster, but transfer speeds seem to be reasonably fast.

Although the included Eigerman software does the job, you can also use a GPL'ed F20 manager if you wish. It is free but currently in BETA, so caveat emptor. I used it, and it works, but it doesn't support any SmartMedia cards yet.

All in all, the F20V is a good buy. If you need an ISP and can stomach using Juno for 12 months, then you can receive a $120.00 rebate making your cost FREE. They require mandatory credit card billing, and will charge you a $50 cancellation fee and the $120 rebate if you drop them before 12 months so beware.

Let me start by saying that I'd never seen or heard of Eigerman before. I don't think it's commonly available in Australia. I bought it new through a technology "trash & treasure".

I'd been shopping around for a MP3 Player a while, and had come across Diamond Rio, Creative Nomad, Samsung, Voxson, D'Music, MPZoo, LG, JazPiper,etc,etc.

However, Eigerman is by far the cheapest (paid $175AUD=$98US). Nearest rival in terms of cost was $295AUD=$165US. The highly desirable Sony Memory Stick Walkman is expected to sell for around $750AUD=$420US when released here.

The Upside:

1. Fault-free installation - I downloaded the latest MP Manager Ver3.0 from the EigerLabs website and it worked perfectly with the EigerMan. I also use the second parallel port attached to my external Zip drive for music download and have had no problems.

2. Stylish and well constructed case, basic black with velvety finish (looks better up close than some other expensive ones I've seen).

3. Everything works as advertised; Play, FF, FR, prev, next, repeat, shuffle, volume and hold via chrome finish push buttons.

4. Really impressive Bass (at Max)with 3 settings; Norm, Mid, Max.

The Downside:

1. The smallest LCD screen I'd ever seen on any current MP3 player. Just large enough to show track no., elapsed time, battery meter, volume and bit rate. Forget about song title, artist name, and other good stuff.

2. Basic model with 32MB is only just enough for 30 minutes music (i.e. appx. 5-7 songs). My first upgrade was to slot in a 32MB SmartMedia card in the single available slot to bring it to a max 64MB. By the way - it doesn't support 64MB cards - I tried.

3. Snug vinyl black case (with belt clip) has no access for the parallel interface slot or battery hatch. You have to slide it off to use either (minor gripe!).

To my untrained ear - MP3 sounds just as good as CD and the EigerMan highlights this to it's advantage.

Overall on price and basic functionality it's impressed me enough to chip in this user review. I read all the other user comments on Amazon before making the decision to buy mine.

I just bought EigerLabs F-20V. It is amazing. I would first like to say the sound is better then most CD players. It has great Bass. The earphones supplied are excellent. The F-20V has a lot of room. I can fit as many as 12 songs without a memory card. Over all it is a great buy.

The EigerMan F20v is an EXCELLENT Mp3 Player. The bass boost is outstanding, and the sound quality is excellent. I received mine about a week ago, and I was worried after reading all the bad reveiws that it might not work. It did work. It worked GREAT.

The reason these people are writing such bad reveiws is because they did not look at the requirements before they bought it. Before you buy anything similar to this, make sure to check the requirements. For the F20v, DO NOT BUY IT UNLESS: Your parallel port supports ECP mode (the f20 works ONLY on ECP mode), you have Windows 95, or 98 and your Parallel port can work on a 0378 I/O address.

The only problem I had with the EigerMan F20 was the headphones. the headphones that come with it are trash. If you want to have good quality sound, get another pair of phones, the earbuds that come with it sound tinny, and the bass boost does little on them. The carrying case is really nice, but there's no holes for the battery, parallel port, or smartmedia slots.

The 32 megabytes that come with the player are good for a while, but I would recommend buying a few more cards if you plan on having a lot of music. With the ability to swap smartmedia cards, you can make mixes on different cards and change them depending on what you feel like.

All in all, if the eigerman will work on your computer, I definately recommend buying it. It is a great player, and I think you will enjoy it very much.

I purchased an F20 a while ago. Maybe I have a pre-production unit or something. The unit eats batteries even when it's not turned on. I'm also having problems getting the thing to operate properly (buttons don't always work). I've emailed Eiger Labs customer support with no response. When I can get it to work, it sounds great (when I can get it working).

I purchased The Eiger F20 about a month ago and I love it. The best thing about it is the unlimited amount of music that you can get online for free. It is smaller than a CD player and you don't have to buy CDs that have one song you like. If you listen to music a lot I definitely reccomend getting this instead of buying new CDs all the time. It is a lot better than a RIO since you can swap out the Smartmedia cards. The only thing that it lacks is an equalizer (like the RIO) and an LCD screen that you can program to include the name of the track and the artist. Also, if you're going to buy this, buy some new headphones. Earbuds are fine for jogging and stuff, but if you want good sound quality get some good headphones. Overall I love this product.

I was a bit apprehensive before buying this product due to a few reviews I had read in these columns, however I decided to take the risk because of a low budget and I have no regrets. Unlike many who'll claim that this player is hard to set up, I had no problems, other than on an old notebook. The quality of sound is great and the file transfer rate is really fast. So, if you want a cheap, good player.. this is the one. Feel free to contact if you got any doubts regarding this product.

Okay, so I'm bitter. But after jumping through two hours' worth of hoops trying to configure my system, the MPMan F20 still refuses to be recognized by the software it came with. Seems like poor design. I'm giving it an average star rating until their tech support gets back to me - after that, even if it works there's no way it deserves a 5. Too much frustration.