I’ve had this for 3 years now, and it still sounds perfect. Prior to purchasing this I’d had 6 mp3 players in the space of 3 years – I broke every single one of them, mainly cause I was always dropping them, i.e going to slip it into my back pocket and missing, followed by a bang of the floor! (this generally meant they stopped working after a while) I can honestly say I have dropped this in excess of a hundred times, if I’m not missing my pocket it falling of my desk at work!
When I bough it it was for the sole reason I read that you could drop it from a meter and it wouldn’t even jump track (can’t remember if this was a review or a manufacture guarantee but believe me I’ve tested it!) it has admitantly got a variety of scratches etc but it still looks cool, al be it slightly dated.
Sound quality is amazing, noticeably better than an i-pod although it does come with the sound limited o stop people deafening themselves. This does mean its to quite, however a quick seach on the internet will give you the instructions to turn of his safety feature so you can deafen your self till your hearts content.
The batter life is 40 hrs, turning of the sound limiter and turning the volume up does reduce this, but I still get around 30+ hours even after 3 years constant use.
The only thing I’ve noticed is the screen seems to have whit specks in it, although this might be chalk, I quite often wear it when I’m out climbing and possibly its got chalk in it some how. (again I’ve fallen with this in my pocket and it hasn’t broke, whilst I’ve broken 3 mobile phone falling in the same way).
Basically the things indestructible!! Despite it being dated I’m tempted to buy another one just in case I ever break this one, but I can’t see that ever happening.
Although given the abuse this has taken I will be buying Sony mp3 player in future, although I love this one that much I can’t see that being for a while.
Easy of use – pretty standard scroll menus, good selection of playback options, Sony also has an Artac 3 format which is more compact than mp3 format – roughly about half the size so you could technically get the equivalent of 40gb mp3 format of tracks on 20gb on Artac format. I have roughly half mp3 and half Artac and use really good headphone but really can’t notice the difference in quality – If I had more time I’d change it all to Artac but could never be bothered…
The software was worse than pish when I first got it but I’ve downloaded a few software updates since then and its now works fine, no problems with it crashing (at first it always did) reasonably easy to figure it out as well.
To sum up really good sound quality as far as mp3 players go, and its completely indestructible, a road roller wouldn’t damage this thing….
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
sounds like quite a good piece of hardware...even if it is dated, if my current MP3 acts like a right fool like it is at the moment...I might get one of these
:)
great review!
Advantages: Small, massive battery life, decent buttons, looks great and great sound Disadvantages: low resolution screen, softwares a bit iffy at times
Jun 10th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
