RCA RD1000 Kazoo 32 MB MP3 Player
See it at Amazon.com for $99.95Average Customer Rating
(4.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(5 out of 5)The smallest MP3 player; very well designed.
After about a week of researching about 25 mp3 players I finally settled on the RCA Kazoo. I wanted the smallest mp3 player possible, but didnt want to sacrifice great sound. My Kazoo delivers for only $... After much research I decided I needed a unit that had: lock (so buttons dont get pushed accidentally), bass boost/ equalizer, digital volume control, big clear display, & fast transfer rate (2.4Mb/sec). You'd be supprised many more expensive units dont have all of these features. I also didnt care about other formats since mp3 is the standard & all formats can be converted to mp3 via software. The included software Music Match & Real Jukebox are excellent. I just dragged & dropped my mp3 files from explorer into real Jukebox. Real Jukebox lets you set the bit rate you would like and automatically lowers bitrate on files to bitrate you choose to save memory/size. This brigs me to the 1 of 2 drawbacks. ALthough 32 mb is common w/ mp3 players it isnt enough (at 128k bit rate). I plan on ordering a 64 MB MM card (dont pay more than $1/mb if you decide to buy memory). I did find out that at 56k the sound was still awesome & I can hold about 75 minutes of music w/o extra memory. The second drawback doesnt apply to me but I read in one review that this doesnt support Mac. If you are a windows user you will be very satisfied!! I can't see why anyone could buy a player w/ a slower transfer rate; USB is the way to go.
One last note: The display is large & easy to read. It shows track, time, bit rate, volume, battery, & dsp. It does not show the name of the current song that is playing the way larger mp3 players do.
Hope this helps & good luck in your search.
(5 out of 5)This is righteous stuff!
I bought this for one reason, and one reason only: size. Many of the other mp3 players out there were larger and clunkier. I own a Handspring Visor Deluxe and was going to use that as an mp3 player because of the aforementioned clunky sizes of other players. "Why spend money for something that's not much smaller?" I thought. Then, I stumbled across this baby... I read the specs and was admittedly not too impressed. 32 megs is not much, especially if you're going for full stereophonic 128 kbps sound. At that rate you could only get about half an hour of music - enough to go to the store, but not much more. Of course, there was always the option of a memory card but those added to the cost. It looked like I was going to pass this player by until I saw one on sale at an un-named competitor of this fine site. At the price I saw it for, I had to take the chance... Twenty four hours later, I'm still in awe. To begin with, just seeing the darn thing gives you a swell feeling. It's tiny, I mean tiny. It made my wife proclaim it to be "cute." In such a small package I was expecting so-so sound at best. Not true. It is super duper. The built-in equalizer is servicable enough, and it takes a quick press o' the button to change settings. So I was hooked on the sound and size, there was only the capacity issue to consider... Then I rememberd my good friend db PowerAmp Music Converter (search for it on the web). This sweet program lets you convert current mp3's to lame or blade mp3's with a smaller bit rate. Smaller bit rate means smaller size. Smaller size means less space on the 32 meg memory, which translates into more sound. Lovely. Some will decry encoding anything to less than cd (128 kbps) sound, but pah I say. I was born and raised on analog and a little less crispness in my music is actually preferred. The human ear can barely discern the difference between 80 and 128 kbps recordings anyway, so why bother? At 80 kbps I can squeeze about 50 minutes or so of music into that 32 megs. Not bad. Not bad at all. After I buy a 64 or 96 meg card, I'll be waltzing back and forth to work with only my tiny kazoo as my companion. Beautiful. If you are reading this and thinking either "What in hades is he talking about?" or "That is way to much bother for listening to some music!" please reconsider! It takes only a few minutes (even for you 56 k types) to download db PowerAmp and a few more to convert the mp3's to lower bitrates. Trouble? Nah. At least not for the payoff. Sweet music for a sweet price. Did I mention it's tiny and cute? Buy this mp3 player and be a happy camper. It's a wonder.
(1 out of 5)Not for XP users
I bought this device and brought it home with great expectations. I was disappointed. First off, the company does not make XP drivers, and the only drivers you can get for it work with Music Match Jukebox. That's OK, if, like me, you use Music Match. However, the drivers are Beta versions, and they are not approved for use with XP. Not only that, whenever I turned off my computer and plugged the device back in to reload MP3s, the computer forced me to reinstall the drivers. I was willing to live with that, but I was not willing to live with the problems that I had once the files were downloaded. Everything seemed flawless, until I started playing my music back. It seems as though parts of the song don't make the trip and the music seems to skip. Very annoying and frustrating. This problem happened on both of my computers at home which use XP Pro. However, when I used it with my computer at work, running Win 2K, everything worked great. SO the bottom line is, if you don't use XP and you never will, this is a great purchase. If you do use XP, this little thing with give you big trouble.
(5 out of 5)Nice and Easy - Great 1st MP3 Player
I've had my K@zoo for a few months now, and I'm glad to say that it was a great purchase. I use it when I ride my mountain bike and walking to and from work, and for those purposes it absolutely does the job well. I usually sample at 64k and get about an hours worth of tunes on it, but I am thinking about buying a memory card for it eventually.
Sound quality is pretty robust, and the headphones that come with it are pretty darn clear sounding. Controls are simple and there's a lock mode that will keep you from bumping the buttons and chaning songs when you don't mean to. The DSP modes don't really seem to do much, but that'd be splitting hairs in such an already nice sounding player.
It's got basic play modes: random, repeat all, and that's about it. It's a budget minded player with just the right essentials and not much more, but people tend to buy more than they need when it comes to electronics. If you just want to take some MP3s on the go, then this is a great player.
(5 out of 5)Cheap, Strong, and SMALL MP3 Player.
This is a very cool MP3 player! After finally killing my cd player, I decided on getting an mp3 player. I love no skipping!!
I bought this one because at the time it seemed like the cheapest and the best deal I could find. I believe it is. It's a very small player, u can easily conceal it.
I've had mine for a couple of months now (almost a year I believe), and it still works!
As an avid bus rider, it's great for me because I'm always on the go to work, or school, or on errands. I can't go anywhere without listening to music!
The headphones weren't that great so I got rid of those right away and bought another pair, but the player is really good.
It holds 32MB. It's not a whole lot of space for me, so I bought a viking 64mb Multimedia Card.
This player is very durable. I can't tell u the number of times I've dropped it, the batteries went flying, and I just picked it up, popped the batteries back in, and began listening to my music as if nothing had happened.
I'm very klutzy, and I tend to drop it often. It still works, and it's not that scratched up either! Did I forget to mention I dropped it once, it hit the cement, then fell into the gutter filled with water? I'd swear this little device is waterproof.
The LOCK feature is very cool. When the lock is on, pushing any buttons won't have any affect. It's really helpful for me when I throw it into my backpack and don't want it to accidently turn on and waste the batteries. I recommend buying some rechargeable batteries if U intend to listen to it all day, such as I do.
This is a really neat gadget. I love it when people are impressed by it. Showing it off is fun. When people ask about the memory; I just pop out the Flash card, show it to them, and the music that's on the player will continue playing exactly where it was. Unless it was on the card I took out, in that case the next song on the built in memory will play. It's very cool!!
I totally recommend buying one of these. If u can afford it, perhaps try the newer version with the 64mb built it. But if you're always short on cash like me, I recommend this MP3 Player.
~Mari