9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Best sounds, longest battery, most formats
Date of Review: Jan 13, 2008
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended for tech-types who like to tinker, have their music organized, and who like to be in control. Audio quality and format support are the best available.
This is an incredible player. It has a few quirks, but it didn't take me long to make the adjustment. I didn't buy the unit for video, and don't plan to watch video on the device. The screen is too small to be effective, and files must be converted to play on the device, which is too much hassle for me to deal with.
I love this player's audio quality and multiple audio format support. Because I ripped many of my most treasured CD's to FLAC, I'm happy to now have a player that will play that format natively, and the quality is fantastic. When played back through a hi-fi amp, one can't tell the difference from a CD.
The audio customizing is really good too... parametric EQ sound enhancer, mp3 enhancer... one can tweak endlessly. I find myself using some of the enhancements with cheap headphones and turning everything off through a stereo.
The folder-based playback, with "boundaries" including All, Folder, and Subfolder, makes it really easy to put the player on random and hear music randomly, but in the way I have it's folder-based organization. I'm meticulous about tagging and organizing music, so to be able to playback folder-based is really important. It also allows easy separation of podcasts and audio books into a separate folder.
The swingtouch interface is effective, but the controls are a little too sensitive. It's extremely easy to change settings or skip tracks just by handling the device. I ended up finding the the "low" sensitivity setting worked the best, but I still have to use the HOLD button (which still allows volume up/down and play/pause control from the top buttons)or it will change settings and jump tracks inside a pocket or case.
The battery life is astounding at 60 hours (rated). I usually go a week or more between charges, listening all day.
There's a sleep timer, recording timer, audio and line-in recording (limited to 128KB WMA files), which all work really easily. The FM radio does well with an average signal, but is not sensitive enough to pull in a weak signal.
Charging the device by USB is easy and USB chargers are easy to find.
Also, drag and drop file loading via UMS (device shows up as a drive) is easy and my preferred method, though it can be synched as a MTP device.
In Folder mode, startup is quick with 7GB of files loaded. In Music Mode the unit took some time to boot up as it had to read and index all the files on the device. Because I'm organized with my music folder mode just works better for me anyway.
The device is not hindered by any DRM system, and is not locked into any particular store or software as the most popular players on the market are.
Overall it's a great player, and the quirks of the interface are easy to deal with if you remember the hold button.
This player won't disappoint....
