06.25.01
MP3 player notes
I bought a cheap ($50) MP3 player about a month ago. I did this mostly to find out what I like and don’t like about MP3 players. Here’s what I want my next MP3 player to have, above the one I’ve got:
Need longer battery life: This one only has about 5 hours. 10 is a minimum, 40 ought to be standard. Amy’s got a portable CD player that will go for weeks on a single pair of AA’s.
The ability to delete tracks: I’d love to be able to remove tracks from the device without having to hook the thing into a PC.
Volume control needs a higher top end: This machine barely gets up to audible by 80, and tops off at comfortable in a chatty room at 100. Wanna be out on the street or riding a bus? Nyhuh-uh.
Built-in headphones that wind up or a built-in speaker: It makes sense that a portable device like this would be listened to with headphones 90% of the time. I bought a pair of headphones that have the wire wind up into the headphone itself. I really think that the device could do that as well. Or at least have a speaker that could be activated.
No hiss when not playing a file: It’s the strangest thing. There’s a hiss whenever the machine is on, event when a track isn’t playing. It seems like the audio circuits should be dead if the player isn’t playing. Maybe this is related to the battery drain? At the very least, if the MP3 player is playing a silent part of a track, I don’t want to hear hiss. (And no, it’s not the headphones.)
Remember what track and mode is set: Between sessions would it be all that hard to remember that you’re in ‘Random mode’? or on Track 6? No.
Bass boost: It seems that a bass boost feature would be nice.
Ability to read track name is nice: The tiny display that I’ve got could use a scrolling line of text, but it’s not a real issue at this point.
Built-in minimum memory: The 16 MB of built-in memory is a really good thing.
Wireless download or cradle download: It sure would be nice to have a non-wired way of downloading music. Wireless would be cool mostly for show off things.