Customer Reviews

Gateway DMP-310 256 MB Digital Music MP3 Player

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just got this 256MB Gateway mp3 player today, and put into excercise for half of the day!

First of all, let's talk about design. I love it! What a snap! It is a USB plug and play interface, no cable required between the PC and the player itself. The body seems easy to break, but gateway is very thoughtful to include a very nice leather belt case, designed specifically for this player! The size? With in the case, It is a little bit smaller and shorter than the new tiny erricsson t616 cellphone, conveniently fits into regular size or tiny pocket! The weight? Very light!! I placed it on my palm, and i could barely feel any weight at all! Gateway also includes a thoughtful neck-strap, which you can wear the player, and make it likes a biotech-pendant! Gateway also includes a nice designed earphone, curving around the earlob, preventing from falling for active music lisiners. Well, i guess we all are, aren't we? Then, you might ask what about the sound quality?

Secondly, the sound quality is impressively good, considering how small and compact the unit is! There is no background noice detected other than the smooth beautiful music that i freshly recorded. Navigation is quite at ease, but somewhat limited. I am not able to change the song order, so whatever order you recorded, that's what you got! Display area is nice, wide with background light, make it easy to navigate. Alright, what about FM radio and voice recording feature?

Thirdly, let's talk about FM radio. It is impressively great, considering the size of the device! The same goes for the sound quality! It has 10 pre-set stations!
The first time you start the FM radio, it will automatically detect for channels, and set itself! Very impressively easy!

Fouthly, the cretical feature of this device is voice recording, at least cretical to me( (i don't know about you!) Recorded voice quality is digitally good, with clear recorded voice. There is no background noice like the tape recorder of yours! How long can you record voice? Well, don't quote me, but generally, i would say about 18hrs with the full of 256mb-free. Remember, there is only 256mb in the player to spare. Precisely, there is only 250MB for you to play around because the device itself uses up 6MB. So, the more music files you have, the less time you have for voice recording! Get it? What about the battery? How long could it last for voice recording? Well, i use the battery that gateway includes. And, i tested the voice recording for 5hr and 30minutes. For this period, the battery signal begins to flickering, meaning low! I would say roughly 6 hours for the typical AAA type of battery. However, i believe there are different kind of battery out there, that could last longer, and rechargable too! Highly recommend to look for those type if you are a voice recording audiance like me!

Overall, this is a fairly good mp3 player, designed by the well-known Gateway brand. It is nicely impact 4 in 1 features, easy USB plug and play, and very thoughful accessaries included in one package deal. However, nothing is perfect in this planet, is it? As professional as it looks, I think the body or case of the unit should be made off a better material including the buttons, so that it's not look like a dummy model or toys! The sound quality should be louder i think! How much louder? You can argue how much louder i want to have for this little device? I don't know! That's why i use the word "should", but it might be loud enough for you! Finally, i would have given 6 stars out of 5 if it is SD-memory expandable! But, it is not! You've got 256MB, and that is it!

Thanks for your time to read my review. I hope it's helpful, so that you can make your decision, just a little bit wiser!

By: Sorithea
December 24,2003

The CONs:
- it does drain a battery. I feel like I have to change it often, but its a AAA to thats probably why
- the navigation button doesnt always work as well as it should. I feel like its difficult to skip to the next song...forget this if at all if you are working out doing something high impact....you need a steady hand to do it and several attempts
- volume level doesnt go that high
- radio doesnt pick up stations and its not easy to set them
- cant do your own playlist in the the order you want. It sorts it alphabetically. You can do random but sometimes w hen working out i want to put songs in a certain order

PRO's:
- so small and lightweight!!! this is a great feature.
- i have the 256 mb capcity and sometimes i fit 90 songs on it.
- its really easy to plug and play into a computer!
- great for a commuter

I got this as a gift and as its my first one I have to say overall I love it as its much smaller and easier than a cd player when working out and commutting. However when I really think about it when I do get another one I probably will be checking out other ones unless they improve the navigation buttons and battery life. But seeing as how I have no experience with other MP3 players I dont know if this is a norm or not.

I received my DMP-310 for Christmas, and it lives up to everything it claims:

Navigation through its MP3 mode, Voice Recorder, and FM Radio mode is simple. The music quality and voice quality of recordings is great.

The design is very compact and attractive. You can either clip it to your belt or wear it around your neck.

I am completely satisfied with my DMP-310. I hope my review helps you. :-)

~Kris

The DMP-310 really has only one viable function: playback of MP3's, for which it works very well for the price.

The problems unfold from there: the control wheel is extremely difficult to use (believe it or not) and has a very slow response to touch.

The radio function is useless, as it picks up barely any stations and mysteriously begins recording if one hits the control wheel in a wrong fashion. The Gateway website attributes this to hitting the "Next" button on the control wheel...which is how you change the channel in the first place.

The voice recording function is just plain bad, picking up a multitude of fuzz and static on even the calmest recording.

USB connectivity was nice--it connects directly to the computer so it's very simple to use and then drag-and-drop songs onto it.

The earphones are of extremely low quality. Upon adjustment to fit my ear, the right earphone actually broke on the first use.

Another thing that really bothered me was the "feel" of the product. It is made of very lightweight plastic--it doesn't feel very sturdy and I was afraid it would crack easily upon dropping.

I bought this as an upgrade to a 128 MB player, and thus far, don't mind it. It holds a lot of music (110+ songs in MP3Pro format, use MusicMatch to convert for free). The screen is big enough and shows all the nessisary info, though for some reason, the song time is messed up occasionally. Though, for example, it is a 4 minute song, the display says 2 minutes, and every second on the countup timer takes 2 seconds. Strange, but not really a crisis.

It's dirt easy to transfer songs, too; just plug the player into a USB port and drag and drop in Windows Explorer. Windows 2000, ME, and XP have the USB driver built in, too.

I like the size; not too big or too small. I wouldn't mind it being a sliver smaller, but oh well. I like the earphones that come with it too; nice and small, yet comfortable. The belt clip and neckstrap are nice, too.

I havent used the FM tuner much, but when I did, it picked up the popular stations well, but none of the weaker stations. The voice recorder is great for recording notes to yourself, but too weak to make recordings of a lecture. You can record from the radio, too, which is cool, if not kinda pointless.

The navigation button is frustrating at times -it pauses when I try to skip forward, or it doesn't do anything when I press forward- but I usually get it. It doesn't have a browse feature, either, so you must manually go through all the songs to get to the one you want. One thing I hate is the battery life; it seems that every few hours I must change it. It's probably more like 6, but still.

The customer service is great, too. My first one had a loose wire and kinda melted (kool to look at, anyhow) and I called them and it was replaced within 10 days, free of charge.

PROS
-Cost: only $125 now
-Size: about the size of two of my fingers (I'm a big guy though)
-Capasity: Over 4hrs/110 songs w/ MP3Pro.
-4 in 1: Works great as voice recorder, FM tuner (for strong stations), and thumbdrive.
-Included Accesories (Belt clip, neckstrap, USB extention cable)
-Great customer support.

CONS
-Buttons don't always work.
-FM tuner bad on weaker signals.
-Battery life: 5-6 hrs.

As an MP3 Player, it works well. However I've had some problems with it: Occassionally the computers it's attached to don't recognize it - or even delete all content off of it (not fun), also I've just had a button break. On the whole it's good functionally - but doesn't appear to be of high-quality construction.

I got this player for my birthday. It has been the best that i have used.

Pros: everything pretty much

Cons: the only thing that i dont like is the radio function.

I am basically satisfied with DMP-310. It does what it says. Only one problem, it does not allow you to arrange your own play list. It doesn't support m3u. Even you group the mp3 files into different folders, this player will sort all the files according to the file names. So you can't jump between different albums. Hope gateway can fix this by upgrading firmware.

I purchased Gateway's 256mb MP3/WMA player, model DMP-300, which is similar to the DMP-310, but without the radio.

Connection to my computer is provided via a USB cable, (included in the purchased package), and downloading an MP3 music file is a simple drag and drop function, from my computer to the MP3 player. For me, that's great. I want to listen to music, not reengineer the technology.

Sound quality was a great surprise. It is very clear, given the size of the headphones that come with the player.

The DMP-300 is a 3-1 device that gives you the ability to listen to music, store data files, or use as a voice recorder.

Dimentions: 1.53" x 3.39" x .52" and weight: (without the AAA battery) is 1.13 oz. Very compact and light! And the number one reason I chose this Gateway MP3 player.

Capacity of the model DMP-300 is 256mb, and I've been able to store about 52 of my favorite songs. Can't say for sure how much time total that is... but it's nearly 3 1/2 hours.

Menu functions are straight forward. Some of my favorites are the ability to set the player to repeat all, or as much of a song that you want to hear. There's also the Random play, which mixes up the listening order, and an intro feature that plays the first 10 seconds of each track. There is also a feature that allows you to adjust the units 10-band equalizer to your preference.

Buttons are easy. Play, stop, Rewind/Previous, FFwd/Next.
Two obvious volume control buttons, + and -.

I wish the unit allowed programed play, but it does play the songs in the order that they are recorded. A little forethought, programed play is easily accomplised in the order I record my music.

The unit has adjustable contrast for the disply. A blue backlight is also provided and can be turned off, or the duration of backlighting can be set for a shorter or longer period, depending on your preference.

It's just a great unit. The sound is clear with no background noise. Simple and straight forward to use, with some features that make playing your music a pleasure. Not a task.

I bought this as a replacement for my Nomad Muvo which just died after about a year of use. I really like that it is a flash MP3 players and that there are no internal moving parts, so it won't skip like hard drive based MP3 players. The radio tuner, recorder and display are nice features. Note that these features make the unit slightly larger than the Muvo. The worst thing about Gateway's DMP-310 is its sound quality. It's dismal! I am comparing it to the Muvo which pretty much is built and works in the same way. I expected similar sound quality but it's considerably less even using other headphones (the ones that came with the Muvo). While it may be good for running (no skiping) it's not that good for running on a treadmill (not a loud treadmill at least).