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85 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
You exercise -- this player is for you., October 9, 2001
By A Customer
Pros: =====* This player is extremely light. This makes it fantastic for exercising. This is by far its best feature. * Fast USB connection. * Good LCD for a player this small. * Battery indicator is fairly accurate. * Sounds great at 128, good at 96, terrible at 64 bit rate. * Handles Variable Bit Rate (VBR) which will save you some space and still have superior sound. * EQ fairly good. * Battery connections seem to be no noncorrosive -- so far no sign of corrosion from sweat on battery connections. Cons: ===== * No holder to snap onto your belt or shorts. Easily solved -- the player is about the same size as a beeper so use a beeper holder. * Even at max volume not loud enough. * The headphone cord is somewhat long for jogging. * The battery runs out quickly. About 45min for a normal. rechargable AAA, about 3Hrs 45min with a brand new Duracel. This is at full volume. * No memory expansion possible. * Software included is ok but not great. Update on 1/25/02 -- Solution for battery! ========================================== I have now been using this player for quite some time. I have dropped it twice on a concrete floor in the garage and it survived it without problems -- maybe got lucky but seems to hold up well. Apple's iPod is definitely the coolest player out there but all that weight and size makes it no competition for this player in terms of serious exercising like running a marathon and at a 1/3 the cost. It is so light and easily concealed I am still impressed with it. With 64MB you can fit about 80min on it long enough for most runs. The big issue if you have read most of he reviews is the drainage of batteries. It is true it does drain a regular alkaline AAA pretty quickly BUT this is easily solved. For [a reasonable price] you can get 4 rechargeable AAA NiMH batteries. Good for a little less than 16 hours of music! So one battery lasts almost 4 hours and they can be recharged between a 100 and 1000 times so I think it boils down to like 1 or 2 cents of battery cost per hour. NiMH have no memory effect which is important -- note the NiMH is important (don't go with NiCad they don't last long and most have a memory effect). I think these NIMH batteries are better than brand new alkalines.... Sounds technical but really easy solution.
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