Customer Reviews

Motorola m500 5GB Digital Audio Player with FM/Clock/Stopwatch

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ok here it goes. First things first, my first impression of this mp3 player upon removing it from the box was pure delight. It's small, compact, has a very modern design, and also looks and feels solid. I charged it for about twelve hours, downloaded the firmware update (very important) installed that and began my in depth scrutiny of the little gadget.

-PROS-

Great overall physical design-looks and feels well made.
Awesome sound- plays clean pure music and has excellent equalizer control.
Software is simple yet gets the job done.
Has removable replaceable cell phone battery- lasts around 30 hours!
Joystick is easy to use- Some people don't like it (C/NET) but I really enjoy how simple and compact the control is.
The screen is a bit small but crisp and well lit- fits nicely with overall design and helps conserve battery.
Cannot beat the price per gigabyte.

-CONS-

Has a few physical production design flaws- The back removable cover does not set perfectly aligned and moves a bit if pressed in any direction. Also when the backlight is on light shines through the frame of the screen where its not supposed to. Not a huge deal but rather annoying and could have easily been fixed prior to production.

The volume button is rather difficult to press because of its close proximity to the headphone jack. Easily fixed by using a volume control on your headphones.

No case is included with the product and its next to impossible to find one for it. I ended up going with a case logic minidisc armband case that has not arrived yet.

I've had this player for a couple weeks now and overall I've been very pleased with it. It's very compact and easily used for exercising. It performs well and looks good doing it. I'll report back in a few months and tell you how everything is going. Thats the true test. I bought this because I read a review from someone who had been using this player for six months and it was perfect. I like to read that. I would rate this a 4.5 if given the option but will round down to a four given the annoying design flaws. But hey Im a perfectionist.

At first I had some problems with the m500 freezing up but I called motorola and was told to download a firmware update .After I downloaded the firmware update this mp3 player worked like a charm. It has an FM player and more memory for less money than the ipod mini. I would reccomend it to anyone.

I bought this for my wife. She is techno-phobic. I set up the player and downloaded the music into the player. She now loves it and has no problem navigating the machine. We think that it is an excellent device with some caveats. Like the Mikeypsychee review, my player went dead after I put the new firmware on it. I called Motorola and they told me to re-set the player by putting the end of a paper-clip on a tiny hole on the player for 30 seconds. I did that and the thing woke up again. I am not sure if that's what happened with the previous reviewer, but my problem was fixed.

This player gives you:
1. 5 GB. (lots!)
2. The longest lasting (25 hours), easily replaceable battery on the market.
3. FM tuner and recorder that works.
4. The M500 will show up as a drive letter in Windows XP
You do not need special software to run it. In fact,
I did not used the included software. I just used WMP. I did not want to learn a redundant new system, if the old one worked just fine. My computer recognized it immediately.
5. Works as a mass storage device. Easily up loads and downloads data, music, etc.
6. Pretty small and light, compared to other 5 GB or greater players.
7. Excellent price. I got it for $140 including delivery. you can get it for $130 at some places.
8. Audible.com works on it.
9. Warranty for one year with Motorola, if I recall correctly.

A note about technical support. I called 3 times. I was assisted quickly once. Once I had to call back because they kept me on hold and once I waited about 7-10 minutes.

THE BAD
1. No carrying case. It has a belt clip, but it looks flimsy and I would not trust the player in it.
2. Reformatting firmware issue. You may need some patience.
3. NO voice recording.
4. We've owned if for a couple of weeks only. I can not comment on reliability yet.

One can listen to music based on genre, artist, album, etc. This is helpful when you have over 1200 songs in it.
The sound is very good, but the ear buds are poor.

Why is it so cheap then? In my opinion, it is because of the firmware snafu. If you do not upgrade the firmware, the thing freezes up after listening to the radio. This angered many buyers and this gave the M500 a bad rep. Also the color is not everyone's favorite. Other high storage players are also cool, including the CREATIVE 4GB NOMAD MUVO MP3, but the M500 has a better battery, one more GB, and was cheaper at the time of purchase.
In summary, I like it so much, I might just get one for myself.

This was totally worth every penny I spent on it. There arent any other players that I could find with the same amount of space on it that was anywhere near this price. I only had one problem with it but it was easily fixed with a firmware upgrade off of the Motorola website.

I could care less about a color screen or a scroll wheel. I wanted a good player that has a small form-factor and good battery life. Even with a good pair of earbuds - I got the Sony MDR-EX71SL Fontopia Headphones, it was within my budget. I couldn't have made a better choice.

I upgraded the firmware like all other reviewers. Has worked since without any problems. The software crashes on all the machines that I have tried - I was not expecting too much from Motorola software :)

The FM tuning/working is not too great. Works well if its grounded. So for good reception, you've to carry it in your palm.

The only thing I've seen wrong is you have to plug it into the wall for a split second after transfering songs to get it to turn on. That's it , and maybe a more user friendly music manager computer program. Those are little things though. This product is well worth the money.

I've had the Motorola M500 for two weeks now. Overall, this is a great player. Very user friendly, very good audio quality, FM tuner, 5GB capacity, and the best battery life of any player I've seen in this catagory. (Mine went over 28 hours on a charge.) I opened an Amazon credit account, and got $30 off the price; making the total cost under $110. The only negative is the rather small screen.

Good MP3 player. Quality music with very good navigation and control. I liked it all.

After reading mixed reviews about this mp3 player I decided to go ahead and try it based on the excellent price. I was not dissapointed at all. The player fits well in my pocket, holds almost all my mp3's and plays for hours and hours without a battery recharge. I read reviews that many people didn't like the joystick interface but I found it very easy and intuitive to use. The color is somewhat different but it actually grows on you over time and is pretty cool. My only complaint is that while the search engine and song selector is adequate it still missing some features like I would like to be able to play all my songs in some kind of random order or alpabetically by song title instead of alpabetically by artist. The sound quality is great but I just would like to be able to turn it up a little louder.

First the good:
-Had very long battery life. After the initial full charge, this unit lasted 28 hours without charging.
-Was easy to use. Motorola decided to use modified Rio software for this player. Menus were clear and easily understandable.
-FM Radio. The fact that it has one is a plus. It also had strong reception.
-Volume. The volume was more than adequate. The sound was also good with decent headphones.

Now the bad:
-Had to immediately upgrade the firmware because of a bug which caused the player to freeze on the FM tuner. After the upgrade, this was fine.
-Froze up or shut itself down occasionally for no reason when playing music (mp3) in shuffle mode.
-Had slight hard drive access noise/interference in headphones.
-Headphones were tinny sounding, with good quality headphones the sound was great.
-Software. Rebranded Rio Music Manager software does not seem to be updated along with Rio new releases. Rio software will not recognize the player either.

Overall this player would have gotten a 3 or 4 stars rating but you'll notice the review written in past tense. After a month of use (never dropped or jolted) the player stopped working. When I tried to power it up, the unit started beeping. After a few seconds the screen showed a message which read "UPGRADER". A call to Motorola customer support was unsuccessful in fixing the problem and they will be sending me a replacement. Support gave me no problems and were very helpful.
After a Google search for "M500 UPGRADER", I realize I am not alone with these problems. I hope the new unit does not have the same problems and Motorola has worked out the bugs with this player.