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Audio Quality
The audio quality of this player is superior to many of the players I've reviewed. It is equal to the quality of the Rio500. The audio is crystal clear with almost no "hissing" in the background. The range of sound and low distortion, even at high levels of bass, makes this an ideal player for the audiophile. The full range of sound (20-20,000Hz) means that this player is equal to the rest in specs but the quality seems much better an this player is capable of going much louder than the rest of the pack. The levels of bass this player can also achieve is incredible but you will get a lot of distortion when you crank both bass and volume up. The earbuds that come with this player aren't the best I've seen but they're better than most, but I would always opt for Sony earbuds as they are very good in quality and sound.
Software
The software that comes with the player is also very easy to use, unlike some **cough** Rio Manager **cough** others. Its very simple, there are 2 columns, one has a directory tree from your computer, the other has the songs on the player, to get songs onto the player, open the directory tree to the music folder, select the songs, and hit copy and that's all you need to do, the cool thing about this player is that you can browse for more songs as you transfer a song in the background, it doesn't open a separate dialog showing the progress of one song while freezing everything else like most other players. This is great because it is a very fast way for you to transfer songs. Although I like this method, I find that just dragging and dropping the songs onto the player's list is much faster, dragging songs from the desktop to the player is instant transferring. Also, this player is compatible with the newest version of Windows Media Player and I use that now since it is even better for transferring songs and that means one less program for me to install. Along with this software comes Real Jukebox that no one really uses and the faceplate manager program that helps you design your own faceplates for this device.
Transfer speeds/Battery Power/Expansion
USB transfer rates are much better than parallel port or serial port transfer rates, since this is a USB player; it transferred songs at a clocked speed of around 20-30 seconds for a standard 4-5MB mp3 file. This is average speed for a USB player and I wasn't disappointed in the transfer progress either. Also, this unit is powered by one AA battery. Since it doesn't have a backlight or use battery power to transfer songs, I've found that I could go as long as 8 hours on the battery on a standard Duracell battery if I don't use a flash card to upgrade the memory. Adding a memory card might decrease battery life by just a bit. If I were to use the new Titanium batteries by Energizer or E3 by Duracell, I might've been able to squeeze a few more hours into the player. The battery lasts a satisfying amount of time. As for expansion, this player uses a MMC (Multimedia Card) to expand it's memory. MMC cards are flash memory that is the size of a postage stamp. A 64MB MMC card at newegg.com averages around the $50 mark so it's not a backbreaker to upgrade to more memory. Although it is not as cheap as Smartmedia, it's a good alternative in the sense that it takes up a lot less space and power. Potentially, this player could hold up to 128MB of memory for under a total cost of $200.
>> Durability
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