Category Archives: mp3 Players

Creative Zen X-Fi : Not One With The Universe

Posted on by
1

Creative has had its signature X-Fi technology in the sound blaster series of speakers and sound cards. Now it has decided to move this to it’s range of PMPs, with the Creative Zen X-Fi being one of them. We received the and we see here if it lives up to its name.

The X-Fi has a silver faux metallic back plate. The from of this PMP is piano black with the 2.5 inch screen towards the left, while all other controls are on the right side of the device. The Power and the Lock sliders are located on the back, the top is where you find the microphone and the SD Card slot.

Creative Zen X-Fi

Creative Zen X-Fi

Many PMPs don’t come with the memory expansion slots; but, since this one has only 8GB capacity, the expansion slot is a good idea. One side has the microUSB port and 3.5mm jack and next to that is a small LED light which acts as a battery indicator and along the same side is a reset button. This PMP is also comes with an inbuilt speaker which is located at the bottom.

The button on this device are somewhat unusual and unlike other PMPs, the X-Fi comes with nine buttons, an Options button and a Shortcut button. The later can be customized to give you quick access to a particular menu of your choice. There are additional features and menus that have been added to this player.

The Creative EP-830 earphones are good to use as they fin in the ear, thereby reducing the the level of external noise that is heard. While listening to our test tracks, with the supplied earphone we found that this PMP will be enjoyed by bass lovers as its heavy on the lows; the mids are fine, but the highs need to be cleaner.

Movies need to be converted by the software provided. The viewing angles for the left, right, bottom are great, but the top angle is bad. If you tilt the player towards you, then the appearance of the screen washes out.

Overall, priced at $249, we feel the X-Fi is a good PMP for audio, although the screen is still too tiny to enjoy videos on it, it will do for occasional viewing.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Zebronics Air Gear Headphones

Posted on by
2

Zebronics has come up with an MP3 solution for wire free music as the Air gear MP3 player is the headset itself.

The Zebronice Air gear is worn behind the neck.These headphones look like Bluetooth headphones, and in fact,are the MP3 player itself.There is no device that needs to be plugged in to play music.The only time you need to connect the headphones to a wire is for charging or transferring music through the mini USB port located on the earphone.All the controls are located on the right earphone.The power on/off and the play and pause buttons are all combined into one button,whereas the volume controls and the next/previous buttons are also combined into two buttons.This is not very easy to use and takes a while to get used to.We faced a frequent problem between switching songs and controlling the volume.
Zebronics Air Gear Headphones
It is very delicate as the plastic neck band that holds the whole device together looks very likely to break if not handled with care.This device will not survive a trip in your bag, if you intend to travel a crowded train or bus during peak hours.

There is no management in transferring music, as you can directly drag and drop the songs you want into the removable disk folder. there is no shuffle or repeat feature available with this player, which means you have to be very selective of the songs you want to listen to, or it will be a cumbersome task to look for that one particular song you feel like hearing.

Priced at $49, it’s not the best of MP3 players. If the neck band was sturdier with a slight improvement in the sound quality, we would recommend it to users who don’t like wires, or to those who like listening to music while they exercise. So until an improved version of this wire free MP3 player comes out, we wouldn’t suggest you buy it.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 : iPods On The Move

Posted on by
1

Altec Lansing inMotion iM600 is an iPod dock that doubles as a radio and speaker for your PC or any other MP3 player. The dock itself is stylish and compact, and is a small rectangular block but can be unfolded on a table. All the iPod models can be docked, including latest ipod touch. You can charge your iPod or synchronize your music as well.

Altec Lansing inMotion iM600
There are controls for volume adjustment at the base of dock and the track switching buttons on the top. The volume control buttons are hard and tacky, whereas the smaller track controlling buttons are very soft and tiny. There dose not seem to be any button for pausing or stopping tracks. Other then that, the dock is simple to use and comes with an inbuilt display on the front, which shows the source of track and volume control. There’s also a compact little remote control, like those found on many of there desktop speakers sets.

The iM600 has good music quality, but it lacks bass in the tracks due to its flat design. It loud though, and there is little or distortion with the volume set to maximum. The SFX button doesn’t really do a whole lot other then making the sound slightly better. The dock comes with an auxiliary connector, which means you can connect any other ipod MP3 player to it, or even your computer for that matter. You also can use it an FM radio, and the antenna comes well tucked in to the back of the dock. One of the biggest plus points of this product is the inbuilt chargeable Liion battery that charges itself when powered on. This dock is then mobile but docking an ipod in a moving vehicle might not be good idea-the base plug could damage itself or the ipod connector from the vibrations.
The Altec Lansing iM600 is priced at $190. It’s a tad costlier then we’d like it to be, but the functionality, flexibility and performance that it offers is hard to come by in such a product, especially in the iPod’s Accessories market.

Popularity: 18% [?]