ace3502's Full Review: Memorex MMP8500 (128 MB) MP3 Player
I am a bit of a health nut. I go to the gym 5 days a week, most days twice a day, (no I'm not addicted I just do my cardio work out in the morning and then weight training in the afternoon). So I wanted an MP3 player that was small, portable, light, and could withstand a beating of me potentially dropping it or bouncing it around running.
I purchased this MP3 player at Circuit City about two years ago for a little over $100. At the time I was apprehensive of iPods and didn't want to break the bank on one, so I opted for this. It comes with headphones and velcro arm band which is easy to assemble and use. The arm band has an attached holder for the MP3 player itself and a button strap on the top to hold it in place. Batteries are not included and it runs on one AAA battery.
Design
The design is well done. It's compact and lightweight. I only saw black as an available color which suited me just fine. It is about the size of a lime in terms of face size (but not as round) and it is about as thick as a piece of ziti. (Can you tell I'm hungry while I'm writing this review haha) The volume, power control, and headphone jack are all on the top for easy access, and the play, advance forward/back button is on the side. The face has a small LCD screen about the size of a quarter that displays clearly the song title, song number, battery life, time, and various other small components such as if you turn shuffle on/off, repeat song, etc.
Sound
The sound quality is decent. It isn't by any means a surround sound system that will blow your mind but it is suitable for the average listener, especially if he/she is doing a workout and just likes to be listening to their music as some background noise. The headphones that came with it however were terrible, they were the small dime sized ones you insert fully into your ear. Now I know that headphones aren't made to be yanked and pulled around but on occasion if they get caught on something as you're walking by, I don't see a reason why they would break as I've had this happen numerous times with other headphones. Well in wearing these, I wear them on the inside of my shirt while I work out so they don't get in the way. As I was adjusting them, about two weeks after I got them, I reached up the inside of my shirt and pulled the cord down, while they earphones were in my ear. Where the two separate earpiece cords come together to form one cord, it broke. The rubber-ish material that was on the outside frayed and the wires broke out, some wires breaking apart all together. Needless to say I was a little surprised because I hadn't expected it to break. I wasn't pulling that hard I assure you. Oh well, I moved on and used my own earphone buds which work just fine and are much more durable.
Memory Capacity
Now I knew when I bought this that the memory wasn't exceptional because I wasn't spending a ton on it. I had wanted something that could hold hopefully at least 30 or 40 songs that I could use at the gym for a week or two then rotate them out with 40 new ones. I didn't necessarily need something that held 2,000 songs, that was just unnecessary to me. Once I got it home and uploaded the software on to my computer (which I found out afterwards I didn't even actually have to upload as my computer just recognized the MP3 as a mass storage device) I found it only held about 20-25 songs. A little disappointing, but again, I can deal.
Durability
Here's where I couldn't deal anymore. About 5 to 7 months after buying it, I dropped it while going down my front staircase. Now up until this point I never had a problem wit the durability. After the mighty drop (which wasn't so mighty in reality) the player was never the same. Before that drop I could be walking through a doorway and misguide myself, bump my arm and or MP3 into the door jam and it wouldn't miss a beat. Now, any strong vibration shuts it off. If I'm doing bench press and go to rack the weight when I'm done, if I bang too hard when racking it, the vibrations from that shut it off. Needless to say this becomes exceedingly annoying and has gotten worse and worse after it first started. Right now, after over a year of it doing this, it shuts off virtually EVERY TIME I bump something or send a vibration through my arm. It's at a point now where I'm looking to get an iPod. I just can't stand the fact that it keeps shutting off on me.
Battery Life
The battery life doesn't disappoint. I can get a good solid 6 to 7 1/2 hours listening time out of each battery. Sometimes longer. It all depends on if I start and stop the player a lot or if I pause it and chat with someone for a while. Each time I do that it runs the battery down obviously, but without doing that I can easily have a battery last me two full weeks without having to change it out. And anyway I would recommend getting rechargeable batteries, more economical and saves the environment too. :)
Modes
The player has three modes. The MP3 mode of course, the AM / FM tuner, and the stopwatch mode. The MP3 player works fine, other than the problems I mentioned above. The radio surprised me however. Now I've really never had a problem getting a radio station with any radio I've ever had, but this one can't pick up a signal for the life of it! I was shocked! I really thought oh well they can't go wrong with the radio, well apparently they can. It gets mostly static, even from the strongest radio station signals, and the occasional sound you do get, you have to stand still in a certain place to receive it. Clearly not conducive to moving around at a gym or going jogging. The stopwatch mode is decent, it's not extraordinarily reliable but it can get the job done. The start stop button (which is the same as the play button) sticks on occasion almost. Now not literally sticks but if you press it once it may register it as two presses and start and stop it in the same instant. This only occurs during the stop watch mode and doesn't happen while I'm playing MP3's so I'm not sure if it's a glitch or what.
Overall
I really couldn't in good conscious recommend this to anyone. It did ok by me at first but if it can't take a beating then it isn't meant to be bounced around by an athletic person. The design was decent...size height weight were all great. The headphone thing was annoying but I overlooked it. But the durability was something I couldn't get around. I really was disappointed when it started shutting off on me and becoming more and more frequent. Oh well, guess I'll just have to succumb to the entity that is Apple and get an iPod. Thanks for reading!
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