I wish to apologise that I couldnt find the Creative Mp3 players in the categories, so I deemed it fit to include it here.
You can have a look at the player here..
https://creative.com/products/product.asp?category=213&subcategory=215&product=10737
Mp3 players have been around for some time now and are only getting better each day. This fact sadly, experts feel that could mean the end of the good old walkman, both cassette and the cd variant.
Why an mp3 player ? Good question ! Lets dwell into a few technical details. First of all the storage capacity. Mp3 player memories are of two types, flash based and hard drive based. The flash based players arent much different from your thumb drive, and the the hard drive based players are just what their names suggest, hard drives. Flash based players have (as of now) a maximum capacity of 1 GB and hdd based players have capacities reaching 60 GB enough to rival the hard drive on your computer.
Compared to walkmans, an mp3 player has virtually no moving parts, the tape wont get stuck, much smaller in dimensions and thus lighter, large storage capacities, no depreciation in sound quality over time as the tape doesnt ’’fade away’’. Furthermore, they double as portable storage devices, store data from your computer and transfer it to another.
Creative MuVo N200 (1 GB):
The size is the deceiving factor here. First glance would not reveal that it is an mp3 player to the untrained eye. Dimensions: 3.35cm x 6.65cm x 1.3cm
Contrastingly, the flash based memory of this model is 1 Gb, well 991.6 mb to be exact. Now that would account for an approximate 210 songs or more, which depends on the individual song size. The N200 recognises only mp3 and wma formats as audio files.
The player has only four buttons, the power button, two buttons for volume increase and decrease, and the ’’scroller’’, which actually is a wheel, which apart from being scrolled in the two opposite directions can also be pressed, just like a button.
Plug this player to the computer with the supplied USB cable, and this player appears as a removable hard disk in windows xp. You can drag and drop your music files to and from this drive. Of course, you can throw in your ’’all important presentation’’ to transfer from home to your office. Transfer of large amounts of data, be it songs or other data takes a considerable amount of time. You can also delete a audio file directly in the player and this also extends to voice recordings and FM recordings.
Sound clarity is amazing, of course, this is from creative. You get a pair of great earphones, color matched to the main unit. Hang on to these ! The volume goes upto a maximum value of 25, sustained hearing at which will result in complete loss of hearing.
It has a small LED display of blue color, which shows yo, u the track being played, the time elapsed, the preset enabled the status of the repeat or the shuffle function. Being a two line display this can get irritating at times, the first line will show you the icon and the second line will show you the function associated with the icon. Work your way deep into the sub-menus, and coming back to the previous menu can pose a problem.
Now on to the one of the main features of this player which is FM recording. But wait, it gets better ! You can also record FM ! What more could you want. The number of presets that you can store ? Sorry, I dont know, I stored only three. I think you can squeeze in a few more, that should take the number upto five. Use the Autoscan feature in this player to get all the channels available or manually search for the frequency, save it and even delete it later. FM is recorded in the quality you receive it, keep moving erratically and this should contribute to a fair amount of static.
It also doubles as a voice recorder. There is a tiny microphone adjacent to the display and you can record your voice through this. Clarity of the sound also depends on the surrounding ambience and I should say, this player doesnt score bad on this function. A voice recorder isnt supposed to be kept at one end of the room while you sit at the other end, practising your nursery rhymes, expecting the player to record with crystal clear quality !
Now the most striking feature, is the mp3 encoding, which according to the manual is only available on MuVo N200 players only. Maybe other firms offer this feature, I dont know. Mp3 encoding is sometimes called direct in line encoding. Suppose you have an old classic cassette and you dont have it on mp3. Connect the supplied Line in jack to the headphone output of the walkman( since the old classic is on a cassette) and connect the other end to the line in end of the player. Select mp3 encoding from the menu options, press the power up/down button to start recording and then press the play button on the walkman. The track from the cassette is directlt converted into an mp3 track in the mp3 player. There is no need to transfer it to the computer in a wave format, then convert it to mp3 and then transfer it to the player. It can be done directly. Also, tracks from audio cds can also be ’’ripped’’ directly to the player. But beware, the quality on the source will be the resultant quality on the destination.
The CD supplied allows you to register your player online, but is not necessary for music to be transferred. Creative MediaSource Organizer, on the CD is much like a audio player on the computer, winamp or iTunes would be better.
The unit runs on a single AAA battery. The catalogue showed a very optimistic 15hrs of battery life, but I could squeeze out approximately 10, give or take a few minutes.
I got this as a gift, so I dont know the price of this player.
Features at a glance:
--Dimensions: 3.35cm x 6.65cm x 1.3cm
--Flash based memory stated to be 1 Gb (Skip free)
--Excellent quality earphones.
--Doubles as a thumb drive
--FM listening and also recording
--Voice recording
--Mp3 encoding
--Plays mp3 and wma formats
--Good battery life
--Easy compatibility with PC, no drivers necessary, windows xp recommended
--Wide range of colors available
--Reversible LCD for left or right handed operation
--Weight 22.7g without battery
Thanks for reading. Do rate it honestly and leave your valuable comments.
Spartan8677