Home > Consumer Reviews > Coby MP305-4G MP3 Player with 4 GB Flash Memory FM Radio, USB Drive and LCD - Black

This little thing does everything it's supposed to. It's easy to load with music via drag & drop. I found the easiest way to transfer music was to leave it in MTP mode, format the drive, and just drag and drop my music onto it. There are some files on it from the factory, some podcast program also, I don't need that stuff so a format worked the best for me. MTP mode lets you just pull it out and go, without having to do the "safely remove hardware" method. (windows XP)

The battery life is what it is. I used it for about 13hrs before needing to change batteries. I will be looking into a rechargeable battery for it soon.

It's not as smooth and slick looking as the image shown here. It looks a little cheaper and bulkier in person. There is no mic either, as shown in this image. It has a little hole for it, but no mic.

The FM tuner worked just fine, and has a lot of available presets (31).

Instructions are very detailed and easy to understand.

The included earphones are not comfortable, they are the hard disc type.

I bought this with the Coby CVE92 Isolation Stereo Earphones Isolation Stereo Earphones which together make for a great inexpensive MP3 player.

EDIT: I'm sorry to say that this has died after only 3 months of light use. The display started giving a garbled, completely random look, and none of the buttons worked. I was able to connect it to the PC and get all my music from it, but it was useless as an MP3/FM player. I returned it (after the 3 month limit) and lost $8 for a "restocking fee". I can't find anything similar in size and function, so I ordered another one to try again. The price went down $8+ since the original order, so I actually spent less this time than on the first order. We'll see how long the new one lasts....

I purchased this MP3 player for its price. I normally listen to audiobooks while workingout in the gym so I am not that concerned about sound quality. I was disappointed by this player. It continued to glitch and lock up on my while playing tracks. I tried to re-copy files and nothing seemed to work. I decided to return this player and find another brand. I give it two stars for ease of use and size.

Good:
- cheap
- excellent sound quality (for my untrained ear, at least)
- plays by folder, simple drag-and-drop interface. Just drag the folder with MP3s onto the player and the folder's name will be listed in the player's menu
- ability to delete files on the player itself
- FM radio
- pretty small
- AAA battery source - no need for a charger
- standard USB connector
- standard male-female USB extender cable included
- serves as a USB thumb drive

Bad:
- in a folder mode in order to switch to a diffrent folder you have to scroll through all files one by one to go to the top, you can not just jump to the top in one keystroke. So do not put a lot of music files in one folder.
- cheap plastic body
- no silicone case available
- removable cap will in all probability be lost
- only 8 hours battery life, so rechargeable AAA batteries might need to be used
- only 4GB and no extension memory slot
- headphones probably would not satisfy most users
- tuner is not the best
- COBY products do not have a bullet-proof reliability record

Can not provide any info on tag IDs, I-Tune compatibility. etc. Specifically was looking for a player without all this nonsense, just with simple drag-and-drop interface. This is one of very few. I do not think you can find a cheaper 4GB player with all these features. Price is so low so it makes it almost disposable. Loss would not put an owner in the poor house.

I bought this a few days ago, and its been awesome. I'm gonna go through some features then advice:

pros---1.only 4Gb player less thatn $30 that I've ever seen
2.looks sleek
3. plays very fast; my brother has a $100 rca opal that takes literally 5 minutes to "build database" every time it is turned on, but this player takes about 2 seconds.
4. I got a 50 songs and 1 audiobook free from Coby, and another 50 from Amazon
5. The earphones do sound just a little tinny, but overall they're great. They fall out my ears, but all earphones fall out of my ears so that might just be something that has to do with me.
6. Comes with a 3-foot-long usb extension cable, a battery that's lasted about 8 hours, and the earphones as I said earlier
7. The sound quality is GREAT: even on low volume I can distinctively hear the music with no distortion whatsoever
8. The radio is great, I even pick up stations that I didn't know were there, 18 in total, and they sound CRYSTAL CLEAR. I live in houston btw
9. I got free shipping, and it only took 2 days to get here instead of the estimated 4 days.
10. It holds 1000 mp3s at the standard 128kbps and 2000 wmas at 64kbps
11. It doubles as a flash drive
12. It syncs about 20 songs/minute

cons--
1. Although its cleverly designed visually, the box is annoying to open
2. If you just sync it with your library on Windows Media Player, it arranges the folders according to artist, then album and likes to group the artist's songs together; there's no real order Also, the artists aren't even in alphabetical order so its very hard to navigate.
3. Battery life is relatively low-8 hours.

Overall, this thing is excellent in general, especially for $30. When you add music, I recommend that you open the folder where your songs are, make some folders by genre and artist on your mp3 player, and then just transfer the songs that way. Be careful because after you transfer the files you can't put it in alphabetical order so do that first. Hold "shift" or "ctrl" to select multiple files at a time.

We were so excited by this product, it worked very well for a while and suddenly stopped working. I did not want to go through the hassle of getting it fixed because of the price I got it. I probably would have wasted a lot of time to get it fixed.
Conclusion: that was unfortunate but I would not by another one of the same type.