MP3 and iPod
MP3 player with quality touch
By Ezilon.com Articles
Jan 25, 2006, 01:02

MP3 player with quality touch

Intel Corp jumped into the MP3 foray with the Pocket Concert and the Personal Audio Player 3000. But due to a focus on other markets such as electronic business, the company is pulling out from the MP3 market, discontinuing not only the production of its MP3 players, but also Webcams and other gadgets under the consumer electronics division.

Having said that, the Personal Audio Player 3000 will still be available at a local store, The Handheld Shop, and it comes with a one-year warranty. The Personal Audio Player 3000 is slightly larger than Compaq's iPaq Personal Audio Player PA-1, measuring 83 by 64 by 38 millimeters and weighing only 83.4 grams without the battery.

Thanks to its small size, the player slips easily into your shirt pocket; you can even clasp the player using the bundled belt clip. The player, in a plastic casing with rubber coating at the edges, has its control buttons conveniently located near the edges for easy access. But some may not like the "rubber" feel, though.

Nonetheless, you can use any one of the six covers bundled together. And for more choices, check out the designs which come with the Intel Faceplate Designer tool. The Personal Audio Player 3000 is packed with 64 megabytes (MB) of internal memory.

We ripped two audio CDs, one with 20 songs and the other, 17. To do this, install the software and hook the cable to the respective universal serial bus (USB) ports. Transfer rate from the computer to the player is fast with the USB connection, at 12 megabits per second.

We managed to squeeze 31 songs into the player at radio quality (64 kilobits per second/Kbps) using the MP3 format. With Windows Media format, you can fit in 30 songs, encoded at 64Kbps. Using the bundled MusicMatch Jukebox software, we encoded the songs at near-CD quality (96Kbps) and CD quality (1,28Kbps) in MP3 and Windows Media formats. For both formats, we managed to store 22 songs at near-CD quality and 16 songs at CD quality.

So, based on this evaluation, to store more digital songs, encode them at radio quality. Music quality.

Apart from a slight difficulty inserting the AA alkaline battery into its compartment, we found that the music quality was good and there wasn't any difference in the three recording quality modes.

You can also adjust the bass and treble to suit your listening taste. Another interesting finding is that both the MP3 and Windows Media formats offer similar file size, especially when encoding at near-CD quality and CD quality. When it comes to encoding at radio quality, the MP3 format managed to squeeze in an additional song.

That's why we recommend users to encode the songs at radio quality. If you want to store more songs, there is a MultiMediaCard (MMC) expansion slot near the battery compartment. An MMC card is expensive, for example, the 32MB card costs RM150 and the 64MB card RM250.

With a 64MB MMC and internal memory, you can fit about 60 songs at MP3 or WMA formats at radio quality. The Personal Audio Player 3000 is not without faults, though these are perhaps minor.

The liquid crystal display screen does not display details like song titles or artistes' names.

It only displays the track numbers, which makes it difficult to select a particular song. The player also does not come with backlight, which can be a pain when selecting a song in a poorly-lit environment. Besides that, there are no extra functions like voice recording capability or FM tuner to listen to your favorite radio stations, especially when you've had enough of the songs you had ripped from the CDs or downloaded from the Internet. In a nutshell, the Personal Audio Player 3000 is worth checking out.


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