You don't have to go to Apple to get a high-quality MP3 player. It's true that the company's exceptionally well-designed IPod and IPod Mini have become the standard by which all portable players are judged, but they're far from the only game in town.
And there's at least one distinct advantage to avoiding the IPod bandwagon: flexibility. All three players I tested support MP3 and WMA. Most of the major online music stores (aside from Apple's ITunes, which is just about your only online store option if you use an IPod) offer downloads as WMA files. In addition, firmware upgrades for all three players will support Microsoft's new Windows Media Digital Rights Management technology, which will enable users to move subscription-based content from their PCs onto their portable players.
Flash drives have no moving parts, so they're ideal for active music fans. Rave-MP's crimson, pager-size AMP 128 weighs a mere 1.8 ounces, and yet it comes with 128MB of flash storage, an FM receiver, a voice and FM recorder, an SD/MMC card slot for additional storage, and an AAA battery.
The device--plus a USB cable, hook-on earphones, a belt clip, and an armband--costs only $99 (a 256MB version runs $129). It sounds like a good deal--and overall, it is.
Accompanying the player is a disc containing free Windows Media Player 9 desktop software for file transfers; but since the device appears as a drive when you use the USB cable to plug it into a PC, I simply dragged and dropped files to my preproduction unit. The AMP 128 player seems ideal for runners: It's so light that I had no trouble adjusting to having it attached to my arm. I loaded 21 MP3 songs onto the device, each encoded at 192 kbps (Rave-MP says that the AMP 128 can accommodate up to 4 hours of WMA tunes encoded at 64 kbps). The unit exhibited strong battery life, turning in 17 hours, 13 minutes of run time on a single alkaline AAA battery.
Still, there are a few things not to like: The AMP 128's construction feels a bit flimsy, and the device takes too long (over 24 seconds) to power up. The reverse-contrast monochrome screen can be hard to see in bright sunlight, and the volume seemed a bit weak, even when set to maximum.
Overall, though, I enjoyed using the AMP 128. And at less than $100, it's a player you won't mind sweating all over.
No Carbon CopyA step up in capacity and price from the AMP 128, Rio's new 5GB Carbon is the sleekest MP3 player I've ever laid eyes on. Happily, the $249 device isn't just about looks: A simple interface and amazing battery life mark it as a definite contender for the mini crown now held by Apple's comparably priced 4GB IPod Mini.
The Carbon's wedge-shaped design makes the unit easy to slip into a shirt, pants, or jacket pocket (even when enclosed in its simple case). A smooth-operating directional pad up front and a clickable dial and menu button on the right side streamline navigation. Rio keeps other buttons and ports to a minimum: In addition to a power-on button, there is a headphone jack, a USB 2.0 port, and a built-in microphone for recording memos.
The USB 2.0-based Carbon appears as a drive when you plug it in, or you can use Rio's solid Music Manager app to transfer songs. I loaded 906 MP3 songs encoded at 192 kbps into my preproduction unit (Rio claims the device can hold up to 160 hours of WMA music encoded at 64 kbps). Both the unit's sound quality and its volume were good.
The Carbon lets you select songs by album, artist, genre, or track--or by when you last heard them (in increments of a day, week, or month). The Carbon's greatest weakness: It doesn't let you generate your own on-the-fly playlists.
In my informal tests, the rechargeable lithium ion battery ran for an admirable 20 hours, 37 minutes--dramatically better than the 8-hour maximum that Apple's similar-size IPod Mini is rated to last.
I would recommend this truly impressive MP3 player to anyone who'd be satisfied with 5GB of storage.
If you prefer to bring along most or all of your music collection, you might consider moving up to Creative's $270 Zen Touch. A legitimate alternative to Apple's slimmer and lighter 20GB IPod, the Zen Touch has a more durable exterior and dramatically better battery life than Apple's player. Nevertheless, while the Zen Touch may please buyers new to the Creative line, the latest player may disappoint fans of previous Zens.
I fall into the second camp. I had anticipated that Creative would build on the strength of earlier players such as the Zen NX and the Zen Xtra. Though larger than competing products, they justified their size with greater storage capacity, a user-replaceable battery, more playlist options, and (often) dramatically lower prices.
Regrettably, the Zen Touch does away with most of those advantages. At launch, there's only a 20GB version (Creative plans to release larger versions later); and though it's priced much less per gigabyte than the Rio Carbon, the Zen Touch costs just $30 less than Apple's more polished IPod.
In my tests of a shipping unit, the rechargeable lithium ion battery lasted for a superb 26 hours, 11 minutes between charges (more than double the battery life of the latest IPod), but you can't replace it.
And while the new touchpad works well, it's not as slick as the IPod's scrollwheel.
Currently the Zen Touch doesn't appear as a drive when plugged into a PC's USB 2.0 port, so I used Creative's MediaSource application to move 3597 MP3 files encoded at 192 kbps onto the unit (Creative says the player can hold up to 10,000 WMA songs). Creative includes its Nomad Explorer utility for transferring other types of files to the player.
The Zen Touch retains the fine sound quality of previous Zens; but in simplifying the menus, it loses some good features (particularly in playlists).
The Zen Touch is a well-made MP3 player with excellent battery life. Unfortunately, in trying to compete with the IPod, Creative dropped some of the very features that could have made it superior.
Tom Mainelli
