Aigo MP3 Player A208 512 MB

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	Direct USB interface .  Cheap as chips .
Disadvantages:	Short battery life .  Scratches easy .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I have had a few mp3 players in my time, and the Aigo A208 is the latest (and current) mp3 player. There is a lot to please here and there is also a lot that needs improving. I have no major quibbles abut this player but there are a few minor improvements that they could make (and as far as I am aware, have made) in later versions of the Aigo mp3 player.

Why did I buy it?
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Well, you may be aware that the Aigo mp3 players are available form Argos at a relatively reasonable price. My previous mp3 player was the Alba 128mb that I have reviewed earlier. Alba is not celebrated for its excellent quality, and over time through wear and tear the player reached the end of its life (within the warranty) Argos decided they could not replace it, so they refunded me with Argos vouchers. I decided I needed a new mp3 player with a touch more capacity for my growing music collection. I chose this player on a recommendation from a friend, who had had one of these players before me. I remembered the advice, the relatively clean looks, and the great price (£39.99) at the time swung the buying decision for me?

Would I buy it again?
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Electronics without a doubt are the most rapidly devaluing items you can buy, as technology progresses so rapidly. The player that cost me £40 a year a ago, now would cost around twenty pounds today. I would not buy this specific mp3 player again, for several reasons.

1. The capacity has now become obsolete compared to my digital music collection.

2. I think I want a change form the few annoying little habits the Aigo does have.

3. I don't particularly like the controls layout with this mp3.

However I may consider buying one of the new updated Aigo mp3 players. They have greater capacity for about the same price I paid. They have what looks like different controls. And, they are still available at Argos for the knocked down prices.

How easy was it to get going?
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There were absolutely no problems with the mp3 player first of all to do with installation etc. The instructions that came with the player did help me to get to know how to use the item and provided a much needed simple walk through of all the features.

Some of the features of the mp3 player have to be found via navigating through an on-board menu, not the easiest thing to do when you are totally new to the mp3 player. For example. To reach the folder menu you have to do this:

1. Press and hold and release menu
2. Scroll down to "NAVIGATION"
3. Press play to enter the folder view
4. Scroll across to the folder you want
5. Press play to open the folder.
6. Scroll along to a file.
7. Press play to open.

Long winded, don't you think?

I would have much preferred if the player had an easy to find shuffle function which would have saved me the hassle of getting to know the player inside out before I could successfully use it

How easy is it to use?
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The volume, hold, play/pause, stop buttons, next and previous buttons are all clearly labelled. I.e.: you can tell what the do just by looking at them. And they all do just what you would expect. I have no quibble with the buttons labelling but with the layout, the volume buttons are in an awkward place (on the top) compared to the others (on the face) which can make it a two-hand operation if you aren't happening to hold the player in the perfect position.

The menu is a problem initially but you soon get used to it. (I can now perform the key sequence with my eyes closed)

Transferring music and deleting music form the unit is so easy. If you are not already familiar with the process involved with putting files on a standard removable drive there is a simple walk through included in the instructions with the mp3 player.

What are the annoying little problems?
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Ther e are not many. But as the mp3 player serves its purpose in every other way there has to be something. The only worthwhile mentioning thing is the time it takes to switch on. It takes up to 10 seconds. Time increases with the amount of files you have stored on the player.

One other thing ...The mp3 player is far too big to just insert into the USB port in the rear of the computer, it would almost certainly block the adjoining ports. Luckily the player comes with an extension cable so you can easily do so.

The looks?
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I am not too bothered with the looks of the mp3 player. But I definitely could not live with something that completely ignored all rules of basic aesthetics. Could you? Well this player does its best. The size itself could be reduced a little. I have had to open the player up before to retrieve an annoying rattling object from inside it. And there is a lot of airspace that could be cut down on The chipset and battery take up about ½ of the space inside the case. The paint does scratch easily. Especially the buttons which suffer wear and tear. And the silver paint on the bottom and sides. Hmm, wear and tear. It will be the death of this player.

Wear and tear issues?
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Well after a year of heavy use, the player is suffering. I am yet to find something that will put up with my levels of use. Paint has come of on all of the buttons, there are scratches on the screen and the silver back and sides, the rubber/plastic material that the player is made out of is putting up well with the strain of the years. And it doesn't look too bad considering the amount of abuse I give it.

What has gone wrong is the buttons they take a real hard press now to get them to do their thing. They never respond with a light touch any more, and they have lost their 'clicky' feel, they now feel dead, lifeless. : (

The last problem is the headphone jack. The headphone jack was tight to begin with but because the headphone jack is simply some metal contacts, in the player, no substantial metal casing or anything (it's quite hard to explain, but let's just say the headphone jack is sub standard.) I have had a look many times because one of the contacts does not work, and I had to solder a wire form one contact to the other to get sound on both channels, even if now the sound I get is only mono. It still works. And is not yet on its last legs.

What else can it do?
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There are a lot of things you can do with this player, including the amount of time the back light stays on for, whether it comes on at all. You can record voice to good quality WAV files. And any delete files from your mp3 player, view the amount of space left on the player And change the sound balance. The player also displays a lot of useful and pointless things such as how many files you have on your player, and which file number it is. Song information, which scrolls along the screen painfully slowly and of course battery life.

Overall
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Overall, I was very pleased with this buy, it works well all round, and would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a player that can hold around 200 mp3 songs. The range of features is excellent and the player itself is well worth the money. The not well-known brand name should not be a deterrent. Aigo deserves a good reputation for quality and reliability; it just doesn't have it yet. I highly recommend this mp3 player.