Customer Reviews

Rca M4002 Opal Series Mp3 Player With 1.5-Inch Oled (2 Gb)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

OK, this little MP3 player has a lot of pro's and con's. Bad news first...

In order for this device to work properly for you, the user must be someone who "takes good care of their things". Its firmware is rather delicate and prone to several different types of failures. RCA does however have a website where you can download for free a good firmware update. When you load the new firmware though, it essentially formats the OPAL which will allow you to reload the player with music, pictures, videos or soundbytes. If you did the update correctly, the OPAL will perform like a champion. Loading up songs and videos is SSSLLLOOOWWW with this device, but once their in there, the sound quality goes toe to toe with the best players on the market. The battery system is probably the biggest issue I have with the OPAL. SSSLLLOOOWWW charging through the USB port (8 hours minimum charge time) that gives you about 6 hours of playback time. To add to the battery issue, it's internal to the unit, so when it ultimately craps out on you it will NOT be an easy fix. You can however extend the life of your rechargeable battery if you adhere to the owners manual and charge the unit for 3 hours minimum before using it (something that I failed to do). Personaly I would recommend charging the battery to its fullest capacity before using even if it goes on for over three hours. This is because its a little known fact that rechargeable batteries become "set" in their capacity after the first few charges. If you charge fully in the beginning, the capacity gets "set" high. If you charge short, the future storage capacity of a rechargeable battery becomes severly affected.

Now the good news. I use a Windows XP system with my OPAL and it works great. I pull music down from NAPSTER, ZUNE and my own ripped CD's, and all of them load onto the OPAL just fine. The unit is small, lightweight, thin and very easy to operate. Signal push is nothing short of spectacular when using powered PC speakers or headphones. Earbuds? Yeah it comes with a pair, and they work just fine, but with a real set of studio quality headphones this little player will absolutly surprise you with its delivery. Signal push through a home stereo system however seems to be "labor intensive" for the OPAL. You generally have to have the home system on 75% volume or more and the OPAL on full blast to get a reasonably robust level of sound out of the speakers. Menu navigation is simple, direct and easy to read. The LCD display is remarkably sharp and clear for such a tiny screen, but using the LCD a lot does pull a good bit more power out of the battery.

Overall, I really like my OPAL, but its not a device for someone who can't "baby" it. To sucessfully own and operate an OPAL, you should be the type of person who regularly changes the oil in your car, the filters in your AC unit and vaccuum, and takes the time out to keep virus' and clutter programs off of your computer. In other words; you just care for your things well. Take proper care of your OPAL and it will serve you well. I've had mine for almost a year now, and its still going strong.

I love it because it's my favorite color, blue! Plus it holds uber lots of songs. The ear buds fit perfectly in my small ears. The tips fell of easily and I lost one, though. I like how it shows the artist, song and even the album cover. My old Mp3 player couldn't do that. I really like how you can change the color settings for the screen. I wasn't to happy that it didn't come with many accesories, or any accesories at that. I would rather have the Nano, but this is a great alternative for anyone on a budget. I still haven't got the picture and video to work though, since downloading the converter messed up our computer and deleted temporary files. I give it 2 thumbs up and 4 stars though!

Ok I have had this mp3 player for four years and am surprised at the neg. feed back. Mine is still working and I have not been gentle with it by any means. I have dropped it, left it on the charger way too long, even got it wet once...and it is as dependable today as when I first bought it. That being said the battery after the third year only holds a charge for about four hours. I imagin batteries don't last forever so this seems fair to me...I would buy another one...and am happy amazon carries it, because the store I bought the last one from...no longer has this model. If you want an MP3 player that can take a beating...and keep playing, this is the one...no fancy bells and whistles...just music!

Thank you RCA...your still dependable!!!!

RCA does not stand behind is product! I bought an MP3 that they admit is DEFFECTIVE but they will charge me $62 for a replacement when I paid $59 for it at a local store! And no there products are NOT Vista compatible. They don't have any other alternative drivers or software for vista at this point. But I found a way around that to find out that the Mp3 player itself is deffective. Spent an hour on the phone with customer service and she told me I should send it back but I would have to pay more to replace it than I paid for it new! There customer service also informed me I wasn't the only one with these problems! STAY AWAY FROM RCA!!!! I had a similar thing happen some years ago with an rca VCR!

This product meets all my needs. This is a upgrade from the hand me down shuffle I recieved from my daughter. I wanted something simple to use and show the songs that where playing at that time. Every thing worked fine when downloaded from the c/d and all the songs I've downloaded from MP3 Rocket and Amazon have downloaded without problems. This is a simple MP3 player not a Zune or high end MP3 player. But has done what I've wanted it to do. I have not used the video or jpg yet. But I'm very satisfied with how it works now. So if it fails in the near future I'll buy another mp3 player. But now this one works just fine for me.

There is a reason ipods are more expensive. You really do get what you pay for. Unless you absolutely can't afford it, do yourself a favor and don't go cheap like we did and buy a device like this. Do it right and get an ipod. You won't regret the extra money for the ipod, but you will regret buying this little pain in the butt!

I'm just not impressed with this unit at all. It is NOT convenient to use, unless you have at least an hour or so to waste every time you want to add or delete songs from it, or charge the darn thing (which takes even longer than that.)

When you plug this into the computer, it takes WAY TOO LONG for it to read the songs from the device. I haven't seen a device and software this SLOW since the Commodore 64, honestly! It's just ridiculous! I've also had trouble deleting the songs directly from the device using uploading software, instead, I've had to make ONE playlist for this device (it doesn't recognize multiple lists) and I've had to delete the ENTIRE LIST and start over from scratch every time I want to make any adjustments to the songs on the player. I've tried many other ways, reading the operation manual, etc, and this is the only way that doesn't come up with error messages, or even worse, crash the whole computer...which has happened several times, and I've only owned the device for 1 day!! This takes a considerable amount of time...and if you're an active adult with a busy lifestyle, well, you'll be cursing this thing out in no time flat.

If you're new to mp3 players and are looking for something entry level, please pass this one up. Techno-jargon aside, it's just not user friendly. It would be VERY difficult for someone who is just beginning with a portable mp3 device, as the entire thing, the hardware, the software...everything, is just, flat out, a pain to use.

The only thing good about this is the sound, but by the time you've wasted 3 hours wrestling with it to put music on it, you'll want to throw it out the window rather than listen to it!

Once this thing wears out, I will never buy anything but an ipod again!

If you are going to buy this, don't expect a nano. The lcd is very weak for any sort of video, but handy as a menu screen. My chief complaints revolve around how long it takes to charge (hours on my dual core pc) and the fact that it sometimes is on when you think it's not, and the result is a dead battery when you think it's charged. Sound quality is good, no beef there. All in all, for $70, I suppose it's a good buy, but I also haven't experienced anything close to the battery life claimed.

..because that's what this product is. A major disaster. Where to start? Well first off, IT DOESN'T WORK WITH ALL NEWER COMPUTERS! Yes...that's correct. It doesn't. I have an older computer (about 3 to 4 years), but it's not ancient! It has Windows xp with all the updates (even the RCA ones), etc yet I still have problems connecting to this device. So pretty much I'm stuck with the same music all the time because it almost never connects! When it does (if I'm lucky) it takes FOREVER! to put music in it! Not only that, the apparent "random" isn't even random. It plays the same song (when I turn off or charge the battery)when I turn it on!!! About the only "good" think about this player is the headphones and sound, but when you struggle to put music it on it, there is NO sound! If I could, I would return this piece of junk to the store, unfortunately for me, I lost the receipt..so remember...if you ever purchase or receive this for a gift whatever, KEEP your receipt!...trust me you'll be returning this item.

Update: Well, I was able to get it to work through making it run in msc mode, but it still was a big disappointment. After about a few weeks of not using it died. Completely dead, nothing, won't reset and turn on, hold is off, etc. NOTHING! So, therefore, my original post still stands. This is a horrible product. I will NEVER buy another RCA mp3 player EVER! In fact I wish amazon would give us a 0 rating for those of us that are really disappointed in a product. In fact I'd give this thing a -5 for complete failure if I could.

A lot of reviewers are saying that this won't work with vista; I didn't have any problems using mine with vista. I think its comparable to a sansa c250 player, same quality and features and so far no bugs.

I bought this little player when we were in the process of moving across country. I wanted an MP3 player to use in the car since I would be driving it solo. It worked fine for about 11 months. Then one afternoon at the gym it winked off and would never turn on again. I did nothing to it to cause a failure. I charged it as the manual stated but it gave out with no warning.

I would not waste my money on an RCA product like this. While I felt it was inexpensive I didn't expect an RCA product to be cheap and shoddy. That's just what this player is - cheap. If you're looking for something that is going to last more than a year, save up your money and invest in a quality MP3 product. This is definitely a case of you get what you pay for and for this player that's very little.