Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The smallest MP3 player; very well designed., September 17, 2001
By A Customer
After about a week of researching about 25 mp3 players I finally settled on the RCA Kazoo. I wanted the smallest mp3 player possible, but didnt want to sacrifice great sound. My Kazoo delivers for only $... After much research I decided I needed a unit that had: lock (so buttons dont get pushed accidentally), bass boost/ equalizer, digital volume control, big clear display, & fast transfer rate (2.4Mb/sec). You'd be supprised many more expensive units dont have all of these features. I also didnt care about other formats since mp3 is the standard & all formats can be converted to mp3 via software. The included software Music Match & Real Jukebox are excellent. I just dragged & dropped my mp3 files from explorer into real Jukebox. Real Jukebox lets you set the bit rate you would like and automatically lowers bitrate on files to bitrate you choose to save memory/size. This brigs me to the 1 of 2 drawbacks. ALthough 32 mb is common w/ mp3 players it isnt enough (at 128k bit rate). I plan on ordering a 64 MB MM card (dont pay more than $1/mb if you decide to buy memory). I did find out that at 56k the sound was still awesome & I can hold about 75 minutes of music w/o extra memory. The second drawback doesnt apply to me but I read in one review that this doesnt support Mac. If you are a windows user you will be very satisfied!! I can't see why anyone could buy a player w/ a slower transfer rate; USB is the way to go.
One last note: The display is large & easy to read. It shows track, time, bit rate, volume, battery, & dsp. It does not show the name of the current song that is playing the way larger mp3 players do.
Hope this helps & good luck in your search.
|
|
|
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is righteous stuff!, August 28, 2001
I bought this for one reason, and one reason only: size. Many of the other mp3 players out there were larger and clunkier. I own a Handspring Visor Deluxe and was going to use that as an mp3 player because of the aforementioned clunky sizes of other players. "Why spend money for something that's not much smaller?" I thought. Then, I stumbled across this baby... I read the specs and was admittedly not too impressed. 32 megs is not much, especially if you're going for full stereophonic 128 kbps sound. At that rate you could only get about half an hour of music - enough to go to the store, but not much more. Of course, there was always the option of a memory card but those added to the cost. It looked like I was going to pass this player by until I saw one on sale at an un-named competitor of this fine site. At the price I saw it for, I had to take the chance... Twenty four hours later, I'm still in awe. To begin with, just seeing the darn thing gives you a swell feeling. It's tiny, I mean tiny. It made my wife proclaim it to be "cute." In such a small package I was expecting so-so sound at best. Not true. It is super duper. The built-in equalizer is servicable enough, and it takes a quick press o' the button to change settings. So I was hooked on the sound and size, there was only the capacity issue to consider... Then I rememberd my good friend db PowerAmp Music Converter (search for it on the web). This sweet program lets you convert current mp3's to lame or blade mp3's with a smaller bit rate. Smaller bit rate means smaller size. Smaller size means less space on the 32 meg memory, which translates into more sound. Lovely. Some will decry encoding anything to less than cd (128 kbps) sound, but pah I say. I was born and raised on analog and a little less crispness in my music is actually preferred. The human ear can barely discern the difference between 80 and 128 kbps recordings anyway, so why bother? At 80 kbps I can squeeze about 50 minutes or so of music into that 32 megs. Not bad. Not bad at all. After I buy a 64 or 96 meg card, I'll be waltzing back and forth to work with only my tiny kazoo as my companion. Beautiful. If you are reading this and thinking either "What in hades is he talking about?" or "That is way to much bother for listening to some music!" please reconsider! It takes only a few minutes (even for you 56 k types) to download db PowerAmp and a few more to convert the mp3's to lower bitrates. Trouble? Nah. At least not for the payoff. Sweet music for a sweet price. Did I mention it's tiny and cute? Buy this mp3 player and be a happy camper. It's a wonder.
|
|
|
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice and Easy - Great 1st MP3 Player, July 7, 2002
I've had my K@zoo for a few months now, and I'm glad to say that it was a great purchase. I use it when I ride my mountain bike and walking to and from work, and for those purposes it absolutely does the job well. I usually sample at 64k and get about an hours worth of tunes on it, but I am thinking about buying a memory card for it eventually.Sound quality is pretty robust, and the headphones that come with it are pretty darn clear sounding. Controls are simple and there's a lock mode that will keep you from bumping the buttons and chaning songs when you don't mean to. The DSP modes don't really seem to do much, but that'd be splitting hairs in such an already nice sounding player. It's got basic play modes: random, repeat all, and that's about it. It's a budget minded player with just the right essentials and not much more, but people tend to buy more than they need when it comes to electronics. If you just want to take some MP3s on the go, then this is a great player.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
