MSI P-640 hard drive MP3 player

High Capacity. Really small. Really cheap. Where’s the problem?

If you can’t see the benefit in forking out big bucks for a small, low capacity flash-based MP3 player, but still want one, we have something that might tempt you. In the tradition of the IBM Microdrive comes the 8GB hard drive-based MSI P-640. It’s about one and a half iPod Nano’s thick.

The interface is the same as the MSI P-610 (the one we liked, not the other one) that we reviewed earlier. It’s still got the voice recorder with inbuilt microphone, a line input without level monitoring or volume control, an FM Radio (that you can record from), A-B repeat, JPEG photo viewer and MJPEG video playback. It will also display text files if you want it to.

Plug in the P-640 and it will show up as, and work like, an external drive. Music (and for that matter, video, pictures and text) are all ready to be played once you’ve copied them. If you’re too lazy to organise your songs on a case-by-case basis, it can sync with Windows Media Player and keep itself up to date. It only plays back MP3, WMA and WAV files though. We haven’t been able to make it apologise to the FLAC, OGG and AAC evangelists yet.

The sound quality is substandard, although it will please most listeners. We tested with a wide range of styles and the P640 delivered a solid and bassy sound. A peaky treble response overshadows what the bass doesn’t, leaving the sound overly bright and drowning out the rest of the music.

The EQ presets (Pop’, ‘Rock’ ‘Classical’, etc) are all of the grossly over-accentuated Japanese variety. Completely useless. They won’t do any poor quality sound files any favors by making them sound better. The only option is to leave it on ‘Normal’, which didn’t impress us as much as it should have.

Button, switch and connector layout have all changed slightly, but using it feels as though it’s evolved in leaps and bounds. Both the audio and USB connections are at the top of the unit, along with the A-B repeat button. Everything else is on the front facia, except the hold slider, which is on the right. It looks a lot like Creative’s layout, with the only problem being that the track navigation buttons are at the base of the player instead of the middle. It makes using it a little cumbersome.

It takes a few seconds too long to start up and the music quality isn’t what it should be. Other than that, we like the design, the drag and drop file management and we love the price. It’s the same as a 2GB Nano, but with 8GB. Spend what you saved on a good set of headphones (ditch the included ones) and you’ve got a winner.