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modern music listening

August 28th, 2006 | tech, music, general

Just this week I finally got an mp3 player! It was quite cheap…OK, it was free as someone gave it to me. But, they got it free too. It was a fundraiser prize–if a person collected a certain amount of donation money they got a small gift or prize. In short, I ended up with a free mp3 player.

The mp3 player came in a small, clear plastic re-sealable bag with a USB cable, cheap looking earbud headphones, and a mini CD which was a driver for Win98/SE users and also had the user manual on it. I never got the user manual document to open, but I didn’t even need it.

There isn’t a brand name anywhere on the mp3 player. It’s 128mb and plays mp3 and wma files and it’s also a voice recorder. It’s black with a rubber-like texture, much like my laptop and the Motorola PEBL mobile phone. It requires one AAA battery.

Finally tonight I couldn’t resist anymore and finally searched for it online, hoping to find the company that makes it. Within a minute I found what looked like a match on Amazon, albeit with slightly different text on the player (mine doesn’t have a brand name). That finding led me to the Nextar site. I had never heard of Nextar before to be honest. At least I found a downloadable manual…which I didn’t need, but I wanted to see what it said.

Since I’ve never owned an MP3 player before this small toy is quite exciting. I can load a whole album from my computer to the toy in 5-10 seconds. Currently I have an Elastica album, a few random songs, and 3 or 4 BBC Radio podcasts loaded on it.

Now even though it was free it’s only fair that I mention the things I don’t like about it. First off, the display is small and hard to read. Second, I don’t like shuffle control…it’s slow and not very precise. Finally, sound quality isn’t top notch. The player has 7 preset EQ selections: Natural, Rock, Pop, Classic, Soft, Jazz, and DBB. Rock seems to be the best, but I’m not overly thrilled with any of them. I’d like be in control of my own EQ settings and not have to choose from someone else’s 7 presets. Of course I don’t know if this is how all mp3 players work or what…I’m new to this game.

The earbud headphones aren’t bad at all. I actually kind of like them. I still have yet to use the mp3 player with my big Sony DJ headphones. Maybe the EQ choices won’t bother me as much while using “real” headphones.

In any case, one of the real reasons I’m using this mp3 player is to see if I like the concept of mp3 player and if I’d like a nice one, like an iPod or such. I can see where they would be great for people who live in a big city and travel 20-30 minutes by bus or train to work everyday. But, I always like hearing surrounding sounds when out in public…I want to know what’s going on, and so for this reason I wondered how people could stand listening to music and not hear anyone around them. I found out that with the earbud headphones I’m able to listen, but yet hear what’s happening around me easier than regular headphones. I like it.

The main benefit of the mp3 player for me was being able to download half-hour/hour long podcasts and not have to sit in front of the computer to listen to them. Sitting in front of the computer gets boring after a while, even if you’re listening to something fun.

To sum it up, it’s a nice little player, and since it was free I don’t have to worry about it breaking and losing my money. I love it for listening to podcasts…I never bothered with the things before, but now I like them. So what about buying a big mp3 player and loading my CD collection on it? Maybe, as long as I can find one that has EQ settings I like.

1 Comment

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    August 28th, 2006 at 1:23 am

    Elastica is the best band ever.

    Free stuff is awesome, no matter if it is the prefect solution or not. Though I suppose it can just end up provoking you to spend money you wouldn’t otherwise spend. Like all those free mp3’s that make me want to buy albums.

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