Home > Consumer Reviews > Coby MP-C885 1 GB Flash MP3 Player with FM Tuner and Direct USB Drive (Black)

Being a dinosaur in the download world, I was surprised at how easy it is to work this thing. Had tried my son's iPod and got lost. This was simple. I downloaded from my favorite CD's and have 174 songs on there right now with room for more.

With the 1 GB memory capacity of my Coby MP3 player I've had just enough to put all my favorites songs and play them over and over. The size of this MP3 player is such that it is quite easy to hide it away, in case you want to enjoy it while attending important ceremonies. And if you want more variety, you can always put your favorite radio station on it. You can also record your own messages to use it as the best way to help you remember things you may otherwise forget (such as getting milk on your way home).

Works great but one problem. The manufacturer forgot to add a charger. You need to keep replacing the battery.

I thought I had finally found a reasonably priced, simple reliable 1 GB mp3 player I could also use as a flash drive. I bought it for 29.99 at circuit city 5/26, everything was great until the main power switch stopped working yesterday, 6/11. I checked it out and saw that the switch had been sheared off of the printed circuit board by the force of pushing the button. Now it is junk as far as being a music player, 16 days after I bought it. If I feel like hassling with trying to return it, I will update this review to say how that went. Mfr's warranty says I can mail it back with $6 for warranty service . I'm not sure if its worth $6 for a new one because the design looks really weak and it would probably break again. For now I'll go back to using my old indestructible 128mb Coby mp3 player that I paid $15 for; too bad it only holds 2 hours of music.

Edit (6/16/07): Ok so I went back to store and got a hassle-free exchange for a new one, and I'm perfectly satisfied with product for now as long as it doesn't break again. I opened up the first one when it broke, and I saw the switch just snaps on to 2 plastic pins on the circuit board and is soldered in place. They probably should have used a drop of superglue or epoxy or something to make sure the switch can't come loose. If I hadn't had that problem I would have given it 3 or 4 stars. All I want from this thing is to be simple, cheap and reliable. Its simple enough (though I'd rate the ease of navigation as only fair), and it was the first one that was cheap enough that I would buy it (I commend the marketers of mp3 players for selling so many of them for so much for so long- I thought they'd be a lot cheaper by now. The shelf price on the one I exchanged for my broken was 49.99, which I would never have considered paying for this thing when Amazon has it for 30.99). Now the reliability has to be seen.

As long as it doesn't break its about as good a deal as is out there right now as far as I'm concerned. I don't think there's any point in going for a top of the line mp3 player since you don't normally listen to them in an environment where you could tell any slight differences in sound quality anyway. I listen to it with earphones while I'm working outside and I'll also plug it into a good old stereo receiver at my house with a nice pair of speakers and it sounds just great to me. 512MB would have been plenty of music storage capacity, thats over 8 hours worth and I can swap it out with other music in my music library on the computer any day of the week if I want. I wanted the 1GB capacity for use as a flash drive.

If you like to fiddle with or admire your mp3 player you might want to
pay more for something that you like the way the buttons go better or is more prestigious and will make your friends think you have money to burn but if you just enjoy hearing music this should make you happy if it doesn't break.

I should also add that this thing has directions for synching it up with Windows media Player and it supposedly plays WMA files as well as mp3s and works with all the DRM stuff that comes with music you buy online. I have no opinion on any of that since I don't waste my time with Windows Media Player except to rip CDs and I don't collect copy-protected files or anything other than 128 kps mp3s. Most all my mp3s are ripped from my CD collection or recorded with the computer from LPs and cassettes. The few things I've bought online I rerecorded as mp3s without all the DRM stuff because the mp3 player before this one didn't play WMAs.

USB interface failed within 30 days. (Tested on two computers.) Technically not dead, but practically so.

Edit: I tried the reset option of removing the battery. I also failed to mention the poor LCD display. Not what you would find on a cell phone, for example.

I don't know if there is an ideal player, all seem to have a fair number of complaints save the iPOD suffle. But no LCD display? Battery needs to be charged via the USB port? A major reason I purchased my MP3 was to avoid running my computer just to hear public radio archives. And it appears you either have to send the iPOD in to replace the battery or buy a $30 kit to do it yourself. You also can buy a dedicated USB charger. Makes this reviewer wonder why the iPOD ranking is so high.

So far, I'm happy with the SanDisk sansa M250. You can forward or reverse within an audio file, which the Coby MP-c885 could not. Perhaps not an issue if you only listen to music versus NPR or audio books. I'm not finding it readily in the manual, but I see an online program to reset the device. Perhaps if the Coby had this, I would still own it.