Home > Consumer Reviews > Coby 4 GB Flash Video MP3 Player with FM Radio (Black)

The day this item was received it broke...very disappointed. Was excited to receive item, opened package and plugged it into my computer to charge, after 6 hours, unplugged it from computer and the back cover popped off - returned item for full refund - I had never heard of the Coby Brand, from now on, I will only purchase well-known brands. Purchase cheap, get cheap.

I wanted to give myself time to get used to this mp3 player and allow it to really become part of my daily routine, and after a month's use I feel comfortable sharing my opinion about it. What first attracted me to this player were two things: the price tag and the fact that it is capable of using playlists. Right now, I can't make myself fork over the money for a higher end player like an iPod or one of the more expensive models the other brands have released. I just want something that will keep me motivated while I'm at work, so I don't need anything fancy; just want to listen to my favorite music.

So, as I said, the price is pleasing, especially when you consider that many mid-range mp3 players like this do not support the importing of playlists from Windows Media Player. Unfortunately, there is a tradeoff, which is that the device has an almost unfathomable system of file organization. You can view your tracks by artist, by album, and by genre, but the categories do not interconnect. In other words, if you look at tracks by artist, you will see a simple alphabetical list of that artists' tracks. If you look by album, the tracks are still in alphabetical order. It simply does not take into account the original track order, which is really a glaring flaw in my opinion. There is a file browser, that shows all the music from a folder, and it will be in the original order; if you don't ever mess with the album, that is. You see, the player itself does not sort the folders, the music is simply added to an unchanging list. So, say for some reason you put tracks 1, 2, and 4 on the player. If you later add track 3, you will probably find it before 1 on the list. It's really odd.

Another negative aspect is that the random play, or shuffle, functionality is almost completely useless. I can't tell you how many times it plays the same songs without going through the entire list of music. It may as well not have random play, as far as I'm concerned.

I apologize if my review has seemed harsh to this point, because if I didn't like the player I sure wouldn't have given it a 4 star rating. Honestly, if this thing cost another $30 or so, I probably would lower the rating about 1.5 stars; but, for this price I think the sleek interface, the playlist capabilities, and the FM tuner almost completely overshadow the other things I discussed. It's simple enough to just drop the albums I want to hear onto a playlist, and then I'm good to go for several hours of music in the exact order I want.

Here's the crux of the matter: If you're on any sort of budget, and you want a simple mp3 player with a few nice extra features, I highly recommend the Coby 4gb. Just don't be disappointed that it doesn't do everything the more expensive options are able to achieve.

I bought it for my son for Christmas. He loves it. We just didnt like the site that gives the free 50 songs on it. Not much to choose from and they want a subscription. Would rather pay for the songs with all the trouble we had on that site finding songs.
Besides all that. Love it.

I bought this for my boyfriend for Christmas and I was super excited when I received it. I wrapped it up and finally gave it to him, and it wouldn't work. We only got a white screen so we charged it overnight and tried again with no luck. When it finally loaded the screen, as we moved through the menu, the image would shake and warp. We tried resetting it but that didn't help. I'm extremely disappointed with the product and have returned it for a refund. I won't purchase another Coby MP3 player any time soon.

I received this mp3 player for christmas and I instantly fell in love with the features. I love the touch sensors and the bright interface. It was difficult at fisrt to add video to it, but once I figured it out it was great.