Aigo A203 1 GB

Author's product rating:   

Sound Quality	Good
Ease of Use	Average
Look & Design	Excellent
Range of Features	Average
Value for Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	It's PINK !  very smart !
Disadvantages:	No proper organisation of tracks, trawling through lots of tracks is a bit annoying .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I am mad about anything pink, it doesn't matter what it is I will have it if it's pink. When I saw this MP3 player my jaw dropped. I didn't care that I already had four MP3 players sitting at home I wanted this one!

I didn't really care about the quality of the product or the features, I didn't really care how much it cost I just had to have it. Now a review based on just the appearance would not really be helpful.

AIGO
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Aigo were established in 1993. They produce high tech gadgets such as removable storage and audio equipment. The first time I heard Aigo was on the side of a racing car on Formula 1 racing. The company however is very good and is getting a better reputation with consumers. They put a lot of time and commitment into research and marketing and many of their products are well suited to their market.

APPEARANCE
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The MP3 player is small in size and is easy to fit in the hand. It is quite lightweight. Due to my love of pink I loved the appearance of this however if you are not fond of pink there is another model in black. It has a small ring at the top to place on a key-ring or lanyard. I have mine on a lanyard so that I do not lose it. The USB connection is covered with a pink lid/cap so that the MP3 player looks smooth and professional. he main buttons such as stop, forward, back, play and stop are positioned along the side of the MP3 player. It is easy to use and after a while you don't have to look at the MP3 player to change a track as you can familiarise the buttons.

VOICE RECORDER
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The feature that appealed most to me at the time was the voice recorder. Whilst doing research for my undergraduate dissertation I found it very useful at recording interviews. A voice recorder is very useful for remembering things and the playback quality is great.

SOUND QUALITY
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There is an equaliser which adds to the overall sound quality. I tend to have mine on normal so that I don't have to change it all the time however the bass, rock, jazz, pop and classic modes are all very useful.

EASE OF USE
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The MP3 player is very easy to use. It just needs to be plugged into the computer and using a drag and drop method the tracks copied across. The MP3 player has a blue backlight so it is easy to use in the dark. In fact the blue light goes very well with the pink fascia.

Unfortunately the music files are not arranged in folders so you do have to trawl through lots of tracks to find the one you want. Mine are arranged in alphabetical order and this I not necessarily the order I would like to play it in. my other MP3 players have playlists so I can select the type of music I want to listen to.

FORMATS AND SPACE
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The MP3 player can play a range of formats such as MP3, WMA and WAV. When I use WMA files I can fit a lot more files onto the player. The files are easily changed by using a programme such as Window Media Player, there is a version of this on the software provided. I usually use a mixture of MP3 and WMA tracks. At the moment I have 278 songs and still have plenty of space, in fact I can't see me filling it as I don't like that many songs. I could put my whole music collection on there but as I cant organise them into folders most would be annoying.

DURABILITY
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As much as I love this MP3 player I must admit that I have dropped it a few times and it still works perfectly. I have a couple of scratches but that just shows that it has been loved and well used. I have never managed to break the MP3 player and it has been stood on, sat on and out in the rain, it still works as good as new.

POWER SUPPLY
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The MP3 player takes one AAA battery. I tend to use a rechargeable battery and one of these lasts about 5-8 hours with continuous play, the battery life is a little shorter when turning on and off regularly. There is a battery included to get you started. I have found however that if the power cuts out whilst uploading tracks they will not record properly so it is best to check the power before starting upload.

PRICE
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I managed to get this MP3 player for £29.99 from a local store but am annoyed to see if going as cheap as £12 online but that is for the black model. On Amazon you can get the pink model for £29.99. The black one does seem cheaper (between £12 and £25) compared to the pink one (between £25 and £40).

OVERALL
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Overall this MP3 player served its purpose and whilst I would happily give it 5 stars on the colour alone this is a consumer review and therefore it needs to take into account important features such sound quality and ease of use. I thought the sound quality was good however the lack of any organisation let it down. There was no way I could select a certain genre of music e.g. indie, dance or pop like my other MP3 players and I couldn't select a certain artist. I can see this being a major problem for people with 500+ tracks on their player. Overall because of this lack of feature I can only give the player a rating of 3 stars.