 At first
glance you think, "It's a portable CD player." You'd be right, but you'd
be missing some key details. This thing has a built-in rechargeable
battery (pretty cool), a USB 1.1/2.0 interface (pretty cool, but what
for?), plays MP3 data CDs (nice), and, when connected to your PC via USB
(ah ha) plays DVDs, has a Memory Stick slot, and, finally, is a CD burner!
All of this fits in a 5.37"x0.87"x6.26" package that weighs 12.36 oz. I
got to play with one of these for three weeks and I was pretty impressed
... and a little disappointed.
I burned about
30 discs in the three weeks I played with it. I'm sorry to report that 5
of those failed, very near completion of the burning process, giving a
"Sense code" error. It's my very limited understanding that this error
code has everything to do with the hardware you're using to burn, not your
buffers or anything related to your host computer. I tried three different
applications (B's Recorder Gold--provided with the drive, Prassi Primo,
and Toast on Mac OS X) on the drive, and all had the same issue.
Music playback is great, though. The sound quality is very good,
and the remote control that comes with the unit is fantastic. The MPD also
has several equalizer presets that work pretty well. Sure, it'd be nice to
have a graphic equalizer that you could set however you like, but the 10
or so presets in the device will cover most needs. MP3 playback was good,
too, though I did have several songs that were not recognized by the
device (though they'll play in my in-dash MP3 CD player). The MPD simply
skips them. |
