Hyun Won RockBOX 128MB MP3 Player
Average Customer Rating
(5.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(4 out of 5)Great compact music player
The Good:
The player is a lot smaller than I expected, it's actually smaller than cigarette packet (and a lot less likely to kill you).
The music quality is very clear (but only as good as the quality of the mp3 file, obviously).
The 128MB doesn't seem like much when compared to, say, the iPod, but for this price it's adequate, and you can always buy extra memory cards (which continue to get cheaper by the day).
The player comes with everything you need to get started: the file transfer software (very easy to use), headphones, batteries, a USB cable, and an audio cable.
The RockBox has a direct encoding feature, where you can connect it to the headphone socket (using the supplied cable) of a stereo system/CD player/radio/whatever and record mp3s straight onto the player, as opposed to recording them on your PC and downloading (however, I have yet to try this function so can't comment on the quality of the recorded tracks).
The voice recorder is very easy and simple to use.
The backlit LCD display shows a lot of information and the scrolling song title is quite nice.
The Bad:
The appearance isn't the best around, and the main function button looks a bit plasticky (and feels a bit weak in use).
There is an audible crackle/hiss when the volume is down *very* low or when the music is quiet. Other than this the music is crystal clear, but the hiss is annoying at the beginning and end of tracks.
While the backlight is very effective, some of the characters on the LCD display are pretty small and most are tricky to read without activating the backlight and/or looking quite closely.
The manual translation to English is not great in some parts, but never so bad that you can't tell what it means.
Although the transfer software is fine, the one problem I have is that you cannot reorder the files in the "to be uploaded" list before you upload them. You simply have to add the files to the list in the order you want them to played.
Overall, it may look like the RockBox has a lot of faults, but it does the thing that it's meant to do - store and play music - very well, and the only problem that bugs me enough to prevent me giving it 5 stars is the hiss at the beginning of tracks.
(5 out of 5)Excellent Mp3 Player, Great Value For Money!
This Player is one of the best in its price category. Hyun Won isnt a very well known company, but the quality of their products makes up for this! Here are my reasons for giving it a 5/5:
* It looks rather bulky on the screen, but in fact it is a lot smaller and more compact.
* It has a lot of Storace Space. 128mb is quite a lot for such an inexpensive player!
* The Music is crystal clear and there are no skips or jumps!
* It comes with a lot of accessories. Transfer Software, USB cable, headphones and more!
* Its Direct Recording Feature allows you to hook it up to the headphone socket of a stereo system a radio or a cd player and record straight onto the player.
* It has a voice recording feature that will allow you to record over 8 hours of voice on the 128mb card.
* It has support for playing WMA files as well as playing MP3. WMA files are a lot smaller, so it will hold more WMA files than MP3's.
* My Girlfried is from Japan, and she finds the Multi Language Support brilliant. The Translation is very good (Except for a few words here and there)
* This Player can act as a small hard disk. You can store computer files on it and transport them to another computer easily and quickly. (No more Floppy Disks)
So if you are thinking about buying this player, then make the right choice. Im sure you know what that is! BUY IT NOW!!
(4 out of 5)Surprising Value
OK, it's not sleek and sexy-looking, and you've probably never heard of the manufacturer. But if you're looking for something to take to the gym or listen to whilst commuting, this convenient little (no bigger than the palm of my hand) gadget holds close to 3 hours of music. I take mine everywhere--it's sturdy, uncomplicated, and unobtrusive. If all you want is a simple device for portable music you can change easily, don't overspend on a 5G (or more) hard drive.
(5 out of 5)fantastic easy to use bit of kit
Wow, this is the business for those of you out there who want to buy something plug it in and have it doing the job without the pain and hassle of some MP3 players! - my fourteen year old loves it, it works well, great sound, holds loads of music files, is sooo easy to use, looks stylish, we have two others in the house and this is definately the best by far we have used, would recommend it to everyone!
(5 out of 5)Little player - BIG voice
I needed a replacement for my old Ipaq player, which had suffered an unfortunate accident. After looking at what was available I decided to purchase the Rock Box, in part because the manufacturer's web site was detailed (I was able to download the manual to get a feel for the device) and showed some commitment to support their products. Even though I had never heard of Hyun Won before, what I saw was enough to persuade me to part with my money.
Now after a couple of months I feel I can comment. Firstly, I love the look, there may be cooler designs but this is so compact for the amount of functions available, and while the number of buttons may be a bit off putting the main controls are intuitive. It is a tad larger than my old device but still very compact and the supplied software is a joy to use. Transferring tracks to both the internal memory and any expansion card is so easy, and a lot more reliable than I had been used to. As to quality of playback, I am satisfied. The volume is well loud enough, rarely needing to be pushed up anywhere near maximum and the clarity through the supplied phones is good. There are 4 EQ settings including a punchy LIVE setting and a still lively FLAT. Some settings can emphasise any hiss or hum on the original recording, as well as a very quiet hum that seems to come from the player itself. That said for general music listening the LIVE setting is excellent and it is only on quiet passages that you might hear anything other than the track itself. My main use for this player is to listen to audio plays so I am very conscious of the sound quality and when set to FLAT I have few complaints, in fact the clarity of reproduction means that I have often heard things that I had missed when listening before.
This little player is powered by 2 AAA cells, which last for a decent time. The main control is a 4-way pad that enables play/pause and stop as well as on and off. Tracks can be skipped backwards and forwards by seconds as well as by whole track and can also be restarted while in progress. The display is detailed and glows green when any keys are pressed. You get both track number, elapsed time, track name and artist (which scrolls if longer than the screen) as well as indicators for battery strength, expansion card and file type. Tracks can only be played in the order that they are loaded but once onboard you can play in random order or repeat either by track or all. You can even repeat part of a track!
It was very important for me that the player I bought be able to play WMA files as I always file tracks in this format. The Rock Box is happy with WMA and MP3 and will even convert WAV files to its own format if you download the conversion utility from the website. To complete my target list of features I required a hold switch and of course the Rock Box has one of these too, so I needn’t worry about player jumping tracks when stuffed in a pocket.
If all that isn’t enough this little wonder also records speech via a little built in microphone and can be plugged into a hi-fi to directly encode tracks too. It even comes complete with a smart case to keep it clean and scratch free,
I do have a couple of minor whinges, firstly that there is a brief break between tracks, unnoticeable when listening to music but mildly irritating for spoken plays. Secondly there is that very slight hum that pops up sometimes on quiet tracks and to be really picky the case cannot be left on when you download tracks. Even with those 3 complaints I still find myself awarding 5 stars as the positive points so outweigh the negatives. All in all this is a very nice little player and very well specified. I would definitely recommend it.