You can pick up a 64MB MP3 player for fairly cheap these days. You can then down sample your MP3s so you can fit more than a handful onto the player and listen to the alright, but hardly groove-shattering tunes.
You can pick up a 64MB MP3 player for fairly cheap these days. You can then down sample your MP3s so you can fit more than a handful onto the player and listen to the alright, but hardly groove-shattering tunes. However, if you want an MP3 player that will store your entire MP3 collection then the only option is a hard drive-based unit.
The Mambo X P353SD is such a unit. With 20GB and 30GB models available, it functions not only as an MP3 player but also as a portable USB 2.0 hard drive, digital voice recorder and SD and MMC card reader. It plays MP3 and WMA audio files and supports variable bit-rate MP3s. Rather than use some sort of unwieldy and low functioned audio software to get music on and off the player, you simply copy the files over the USB 2.0 cable to the hard drive and then use the controls and backlit EL display to surf through the directories to the files you want to hear. It also supports user-created playlists.
It’s incredibly easy to use and the sound quality is solid, competitive with other units on the market but not quite at iPod level. We were particularly impressed by the digital voice recorder function; after you’ve tried to discern meaning from hissy audiotape, 160Kb/s MP3 voice is a thing of beauty. And with so much storage space available there is capacity for around 1,000 hours of lower quality voice recording on the 30GB model.
Unfortunately the unit is quite bulky when compared to the sleek models coming from Apple and Creative. It doesn’t weigh much, but the chunkiness is annoying.
If you’re looking for the specific range of functionality delivered by the Mambo X P353SD then it is a gift from heaven. If on the other hand you’re just after an MP3 player with a hard drive, then the slightly more expensive iPod from Apple is still the compelling choice. It’s one of the better MP3 players that we’ve seen, but for $799 it needs to be.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012