Hey folks, Valkor here with a new toy from the people of Memorex. I didn’t think they made gadgets, only recordable media, but I’ll be damned if I begin my daily trek without my Memorex digital media player.
First the design, it’s a simple black, very light lightweight, I’m talking “put it in your pocket and you don’t know its there” light. At first it has no recognizable buttons. Yea I was getting ready to write a flaming review bashing the hell out of this device, until I turned it on and it glowed with a heavenly effect. Ok that was a bit exaggerated but once turned on all the buttons needed to navigate the device become easily recognizable and very easy to use right out the box. Sorry no touch navigation here, which works for me. Sometimes touch devices become either too sensitive or you get no response at all. On the front the top bar is your back button and also used to power down the device. To switch it on, just press the center button. You have your left, right, when you’re in play mode pressing up will bring up an additional menu, more later. On one side you have your volume, and on the other is the hold and record button (for voice recording) Finally you have a slot for a mini SD card, max 2 gigs to even further expand on your music needs.
What makes the Memorex player so special is that it’s loaded with 250 songs by independent artist. It’s ok if you you’re interested in new artist (which I am to a point) But that’s what made using this player so frustrating at first. Trying to enjoy a commute while some unknown song is blaring in your ear doesn’t help much. Believe it or not there wasn’t one song I liked. So I wiped the drive and loaded my own. My suggestion if you decide to get this player? Check out some of the tunes see what you like and what you and don’t like.
The main options you have are music, photo, video, and radio. With music besides the traditional genre, artist, song, etc, you’re given the option of “MyDJ”. How exactly this works, I am still not quite sure. Not only is this option available in the menu screen but its also available as a button on the top of the player. But each time I press it, it says “More MyDJ music required”. 112 songs and it wants more? Sheesh. But that’s forgiven because it’s all in how it plays.
And it plays great when I load my songs into it. You can change the audio settings to add more or less bass though “Jazz setting is my personal fav. There is no separate button for forward and next selection, you simply hold the forward button down to fast forward or just a quick press to change to the next song. Music you can play by genre, song, artist, album, etc. the shuffle option, thankfully is not like the Archos 604 in that it actually SHUFFLES the songs and plays them accordingly.
My only snag that I ran into with this player is with the video. Now for something this small, video doesn’t do it for me. However I found loading some of my favorite videos difficult as the player doesn’t support Divx (DOH!!!). And if I have to go through the trouble of converting the file then its not worth the extra step, since I only want it for music anyway. Pictures come out nice, not very sharp, and a bit fuzzy, but not bad for a small screen.
Overall I give kudos to Memorex for breaking out into something more than just CDRs and blank cassesstes. Their little player is definitely worth the price of admission. I’m gonna give it a 4, though I didn’t get to try out the video, I really don’t care about squinting at a small screen to watch a movie. But I do care about my music on the go and that’s where the Memorex player shines. Valkor tested, TOV approved.