Originally posted by: forcesho
how are these puppy ?? im thinking of giving one to my co worker for x-mas instead of the ipod mini.. at double the price..
The battery life alone should be incentive to buy one instead of an iPod mini (8+ hour battery life rating for the iPod vs. 16+ hour battery life VERIFIED for the Muvo2). The sound quality is very good, even with cheap headphones. It's extremely light, very comfortable in a pocket. Plays mp3s at any bit rate, wmas, and even wavs, and supports standard m3u playlist format.
Navigation is both hit and miss for the Muvo2. You can't browse individual songs while the unit is playing (it skips to each song, standard "Next" function), but you can browse folders and playlists. Accessing the functions of the unit is extremely easy, though, some of which are the play mode functions (shuffle, repeat, normal, repeat shuffle, etc.), controls for the hardware (LCD contrast, backlight light-up time, HDD idle time before powering down, etc.), and a simple equalizer. You can also quickly delete a song through the interface.
The LCD is also hit and miss. It's small, too small for a track list, next/previous song listing, etc. It is, however, well laid out, with all the relevant information clearly displayed, and easily readable from 18" away (depending on your eyesight, of course). Blue backlight, in case you're wondering. mp3s are displayed according to their ID3 tag information, scrolled across the display, and it displays the elapsed time for the song (which is my only real complaint about this player, as i prefer a countdown to the end of the song).
Playback is handled via a 64MB RAM cache built into the unit, which both preserves the HDD and keeps it snappy. There's no pause between songs (and i mean NO pause), even in shuffle mode (tested on mine with 770 songs for the unit to sort through). There is a slight pause if you start scrolling through songs, as that overrides the cached list and forces it to read directly from the HDD, but regular playback performance is superb.
The control pad, however, could definitely be larger, and a little less "sloppy". It's not stiff, so it's not difficult to work, but it is a little too loose on the rocker action, and it's a little smaller than an average man's thumbnail, so you have to use the tips of your fingers/thumbs to work it. This isn't much of a problem for me, as I don't trim my nails all the way down to the quick, but a nail-biter or someone with large digits might find it less than comfortable to use.
And going back to the battery, if it ever should happen to completely die on you, you can replace it without voiding your warranty. I haven't researched the iPod mini's, so I don't know if they changed that little problem, but the Muvo2 battery is designed to be end-user accessible.
The software shipped with the unit is fair, but it also installs a couple of useless services, which aren't even associated with any of the functions of the Muvo2. If you're a WMP 7+ user, just stick with that for creating playlists, but if not, you either have to use the Creative software, create a playlist in a text editor, or try to do it in Winamp (which requires editing, because Winamp adds drive paths to playlist entries).
The Muvo2 also works perfectly as a removable storage drive, with no drivers required for Win2k/XP, and can be scanned/formatted with the standard OS tools. Battery charging can be done either with the external AC adapter included in the package, or via the USB cable (just right-click on the Muvo2 in My Computer, and select "Eject". it automatically starts using the USB current to charge), and is quick enough that you can have it fully charged in 3 hours or less.
USB 2.0 transfers are as quick as you'd expect, with a typical 128kbps 3.5 minute song taking a second or two to transfer. I transferred a full 770 mp3s, bit rates varying between 64 and 320kbps, in just over 12 minutes.
And now, my personal commentary: I bought, and use, this mp3 player specifically for work. I work the night shift, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. (sometimes 4-6 a.m.), and needed something to get me all the way through, including the drives to and from work. I already had a CD/mp3 player, but the limitations there were just too much. A single CD-R wasn't enough to go all the way through the night if I stayed late, bad burns occasionally resulted in cut off songs that I couldn't simply replace, I couldn't change the songs without burning new discs (which i had to do at home)... The player itself was very cheap, and badly designed. Shuffle mode would start repeating songs after the first 12-16, it was bulky, and because it ate batteries like candy, I had to keep it plugged into an AC adapter, so I couldn't take it with me when I had to leave my desk (which is twice an hour, minimum). I knew it was a low-end player when I bought it, and given that I only paid $20 for it, it was satisfactory. But I needed something better.
Now that I have this Muvo2, I honestly have to say... I don't know how I lived without it. Seriously. Every last thing I wanted in a portable mp3 player, every desire, has been answered by this one. I turn it on, drop it in my pocket, and leave for work. I don't HAVE to touch it again until I come home, and it's playing music every second between departure and return. Bad mp3? No problem, delete the sucker right then and there and the player automatically skips to the next song. Tired of one set of songs? Load a new playlist or folder, or put it in shuffle mode. And I don't even notice it in my pocket when I'm moving around. The sound quality is so much better than the CD/mp3 player, even better than any home stereo I've listened to, or my TBSC/Z540 setup on my main computer. I plug it into the charger when I get home, and it's ready to go for another 16-17 hours before I even go to bed.
All told, the only three complaints
I have about this mp3 player are that it's only 4GB (which i was well aware of when i bought it, and even that isn't really a problem, as it holds more music than i can listen to even if i work a double-shift), that I prefer a countdown time to the elapsed time and have no option to change it, and that the earphones it ships with are painfully large (easily replaced, but i did read somewhere (can't for the LIFE of me remember where) that 'phones with an impedance at or below 16 0hms is recommended or it'll shorten the battery life). Other than those minor issues, I'm quite literally thrilled with it. I love it.