Good quality mp3/wma player (Freecom Beatman Flash 64 MB)

Member Name: shorty_blitz_13

Product:	Freecom Beatman Flash 64 MB
Date:	23/09/04 (349 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tiny size, Plays wma files, excellent battery life

Disadvantages: minor design flaws, small memory

I've had the Freecom BeatMan flash 64mb mp3/wma player for almost 3 years now. Overall it is a brilliant product however it is not without its (minor) flaws. I will start with the good points. First thing you notice after you buy this product is its size. This is still one of the smallest mp3/wma players around despite being on the market for several years. It doesn't come with a remote on the headphones although its not really necessary given the size and portability of the player. The supplied in-ear headphones are made by Sennheiser and are better than any other in-ear headphones I've seen or used elsewhere. You get a neck strap to wear the player around your neck as well as 3 cool covers - smooth silver/black, leopard and orange. Unfortunately they're only stickers so once they're on, you are stuck with it. Sound quality is faultless and it can play wma files which is very useful if you've burnt tracks from a cd onto a computer using Windows media player. It also has a built-in microphone which means you can use it to dictate messages. The software you use to upload songs onto the player is simple to use, while the player has support for ID3 tags (artists/track/ album etc for each track). The player interface is simple - tracks are in the order they are stored in its memory, so you cant play just a particular album unless you upload it all at once onto the player. There is also a backlight however it only stays on for 2 seconds which can be very annoying. Another bad point is its limited memory capacity - when I bought this it only had 64mb of built in memory (enough for about 15 songs) however it is now available with up to 512mb of built-in memory (obviously its costs more though). I bought a 128mb Smartmedia card (unfortunately you cannot buy bigger), meaning it can hold about 50 songs which makes it fine for long journey or plane trips but on a long holiday more memory is needed. Another minor design flaw is that with a memory card installed, replacing a battery (AAA - which last for hours) requires the card to be removed, battery replaced then the card put back in. This can be quite cumbersome when on a plane/coach especially because of the delicate memory card.

Summary: