I liked the spec so much, I bought two (Frontier Labs Nex II)

Member Name: dragonone

Product:	Frontier Labs Nex II
Date:	19/03/02 (956 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Headphones, excellent quality, Light weight, highly expandable / upgradable

Disadvantages: No RAM as standard, Can be hard to find

For eighteen months I have been trying to persuade myself to by an MP3 player, my wife even offered to buy me one for my birthday, I turned her down in favour of some DVDs. No I like music, my tastes are fairly eclectic but I am not passionate about it.

~~~ WHY MP3? ~~~

So it is the first week in November 2001, in a month’s time we will be jetting off to the Philippines for a months holiday. We are flying with Singapore Airlines, who have an extensive onboard entertainment system, 18 hours on a plane is a long time. When I relax I like to listen to mellow music, soul, R&B, Classical even a little Jazz. With a personal stereo this would mean carrying several tapes/CDs/MDs, all of this would involve more 'crap' in my hand luggage. An MP3 player started to look like the best medium, I mentioned this two the wife and 'Oh good, can I have one too?'

~~~ Research ~~~

I took a walk around the high street, checked out Dixon’s; this is always a good move as it tells me the maximum price for an item. Did some research on the Internet, DOOYOO & MP3.com. I spoke to friends with MP3 players, one of whom recommended I download Cdex media ripper, which I did, ripped a few tracks and discovered I could not tell the difference between a track at a high quality or a lower quality. I would recommend you do the same. After all my research I came up with a list of criteria: -

- Small & Lightweight, this saves space and baggage allowance
- Good quality
- Cost around £100 each
- Expandable
- Good battery Life
- Maybe something a little different

~~~ Get a good deal ~~~

I also decided I would have better luck getting a good deal off the internet, I had been having a great deal of success on Ebay, so this is where I logged onto and I came up with the NEX II player. The Seller had several auctions for this player, I checked it out on MP3.COm and was impressed with the rating, top fiv
e star rating. As I wanted two, I emailed the seller and arranged a reasonable deal - 2 NEX II Players + 2 NEXKin Packs + Delivery came to £201.49

For those who are interested, I ordered from Josh of advancedmp3player.co.uk

~~~ Delivery & Service ~~~

I paid for the player using the NOCHEX system; I will do an opinion on this in the future. The money was sent on 30th Nov, the goods arrived 4th Dec. Unfortunately one of the players was missing a part, a clear plastic 'lens' that hold a NEXkin in place. I emailed the supplier who apologised and dispatched a 'spare' at no cost within a week. The 'lens' arrived one the day we flew out, unfortunately the post arrived after we left for the airport. As the 'lens' did not detract from the operational capabilities of the player, it was no hardship.

~~~ What is in the Box? ~~~

Instruction Book, The Player with clear plastic lens, 4 Single colour NEXKins, Silver Grey cloth case with belt clip, Headphones, USB Data Cable and Software CD.

~~~ What is not in the Box? ~~~

Two AA batteries and any form of storage media, yes I still had to go out and buy a Compact Flash module card before I could use the player. After testing the player with the MP3 I had already ripped from my CD collection bought my wife and daughter a CF module each.
For eighteen months I have been trying to persuade myself to by an MP3 player, my wife even offered to buy me one for my birthday, I turned her down in favour of some DVDs. No I like music, my tastes are fairly eclectic but I am not passionate about it.

~~~ WHY MP3? ~~~

So it is the first week in November 2001, in a month’s time we will be jetting off to the Philippines for a months holiday. We are flying with Singapore Airlines, who have an extensive onboard entertainment system, 18 hours on a plane is a long time. When I relax I like to listen to mellow music, soul, R&B, Cla
ssical even a little Jazz. With a personal stereo this would mean carrying several tapes/CDs/MDs, all of this would involve more 'crap' in my hand luggage. An MP3 player started to look like the best medium, I mentioned this to the wife and 'Oh good, can I have one too?'

~~~ Research ~~~

I took a walk around the high street, checked out Dixon’s; this is always a good move as it tells me the maximum price for an item. Did some research on the Internet. I spoke to friends with MP3 players, one of whom recommended I download Cdex media ripper, which I did, ripped a few tracks and discovered I could not tell the difference between a track at a high quality or a lower quality. I would recommend you do the same. After all my research I came up with a list of criteria: -

- Small & Lightweight, this saves space and baggage allowance
- Good quality
- Cost around £100 each
- Expandable
- Good battery Life
- Maybe something a little different

~~~ Get a good deal ~~~

I also decided I would have better luck getting a good deal off the internet, I had been having a great deal of success on Ebay, so this is where I logged onto and I came up with the NEX II player. The Seller had several auctions for this player, I checked it out on MP3.COm and was impressed with the rating, top five star rating. As I wanted two, I emailed the seller and arranged a reasonable deal - 2 NEX II Players + 2 NEXKin Packs + Delivery came to £201.49

For those who are interested, I ordered from Josh of advancedmp3player.co.uk

~~~ Delivery & Service ~~~

I paid for the player using the NOCHEX system; I will do an opinion on this in the future. The money was sent on 30th Nov, the goods arrived 4th Dec. Unfortunately one of the players was missing a part, a clear plastic 'lens' that hold a NEXkin in place. I emailed the supplier who apologised and dispatched a 'spare' a
t no cost within a week. The 'lens' arrived one the day we flew out, unfortunately the post arrived after we left for the airport. As the 'lens' did not detract from the operational capabilities of the player, it was no hardship.

~~~ What is in the Box? ~~~

Instruction Book, The Player with clear plastic lens, 4 Single colour NEXKins, Silver Grey cloth case with belt clip, Headphones, USB Data Cable and Software CD.

~~~ What is not in the Box? ~~~

Two AA batteries and any form of storage media, yes I still had to go out and buy a Compact Flash module card before I could use the player. After testing the player with the MP3 I had already ripped from my CD collection bought my wife and daughter a CF module each.

~~~ What can you get on a CF Module ~~~

I used Cdex 1.4 to rip tracks from my CD collection. As an example I will use my Daughter's favourite track - Kylie Minogue's 'I cant get you out of my head' at 3 minutes and 50 seconds long, Cdex reported the track as 34Mb in size. I used the Windows MP3 Encoder and select 56KBit/sec 22,050 Hz Stereo. This gave me an MP3 file of 1.5Mb. At the other end of the scale, ripping at 18KBit/sec 22,050 Hz Stereo, gave me a MP3 file of 508Kb.

As you see the size of the ripped file depends on the length of the track and the encoding you use.

The three modules I purchased were:

- 96Mb for me, 73 tracks from 236Kb to 2Mb in size
- 64Mb for my wife, 38 tracks from 817Kb to 1.6Mb
- 16Mb for my daughter, 19 tracks from 351Kb to 1.3Mb

~~~ The Player ~~~

OK thanks for reading all my ravings above, I will now get on and describe the player.

This player originated from a Hong Kong based company called FrountierLabs, the UK is not a major customer for this company, so the player is imported by a number of small companies, or ordered directly from the company’s website - www.fr
ontierlabs.com

The player is 9cm x 6cm x 2cm and weighs 65gm without the batteries, the front is finished in cream/white plastic with a silver bordered clear plastic lens in the shape of a classic StarTrek badge. Under the lens lived the 112 x 64 bitmapped and backlit LCD and the changeable skin (NEXkin). The back is finished in dark grey plastic with the battery compartment and media eject button. The Top edge has the Media Slot: this makes the player very expandable using industry standard Compact Flash modules or the new IBM Micro drive, potentially giving the NEX II 1Gb of usable space. Next to the Media slot is the PC connection port using a USB connection for the downloading of MP3 files. As this device acts like a removable disk drive, files can be dragged and dropped using the windows explorer, also you could you the player as a portable drive to transport other files, EXEs, Jpgs etc. The Left side has the Headphone Jack; lock switch - this can prevent the accidental pressing of buttons, Function button – takes you into the played extensive function menu, and the Stop/Escape button. The right side has the Jog lever – this acts like a cursor control key and enter key, and the volume controls.

Other features of note are, Flash upgradeable firmware – you can download system updates specifically for CF usage or Micro Drive usage. Audio Codecs supported are MP3 and WMA – Flash updates take care of future proofing.

~~~ System Requirements ~~~

To use a PC to transfer files to the player you will require Windows 98/ ME / 2000, at least a 200Mhz processor, 64Mb Ram and a USB port.
~~~ Operations ~~~

Inserting the Batteries can be a little tricky, opening the battery compartment require you get you finger nails under the lip and flip it open, this can be quite stiff. Inside the compartment is a little ribbon to assist you removing the old batteries, be careful as this can cover the battery termi
nals when you insert the new batteries.

Inserting the CF module can also be a less than smooth operation requiring you to exactly line up the guide rails.

To turn the player on, press the Jog Lever on the right hand side. The Frontier Labs logo will appear on the LCD screen and after a second the play list will appear.

To select a track, move the ‘cursor’ up and down the play list using the Jog lever. Press the Jog Lever in to play the track. Press the Jog lever again to pause.

Press the Stop button on the left hand side to stop a track, hold it in and the message ‘Bye-Bye’ will appear and the player will turn off.

The Function button gives you access to the menu system where you control the play mode – Repeat one track, Repeat All of Shuffle (random) play. Sound Mode accesses an Equalizer with presets for Jazz, Latin, Dance and Jazz. LCD controls allow you to select backlit on/off or on for 3 seconds when other function is accessed.

~~~ My experiences ~~~

I have been using this player for about four months now; I have used it on the plane, the train and on the bus. The headphones are comfortable and of excellent quality. Battery life is excellent, always use a good quality battery, I recommend Duracell. I use my player in the train/tube to work and home, at least an hour each way, and I expect to get two weeks out of one set of batteries. My wife did buy some cheap batteries from the market (16 for £1) and they lasted less than a day. Although I have not used a Micro drive in this player, the manual warns that the extra power requirements of the drive does drain the batteries 50% to 75% faster.

To save on battery life, I invested in a USB CF reader, which makes updating my CF card easy, and I dont have to hunt for the cable.

~~~ Conclusion ~~~

I have found the NEX II player from Frontier Labs to be a great little device that has made my dail
y commute less of a chore. My wife loves hers too and always carries it when we go out with our daughter, she loves Kylie’s ‘Cant get you out of my head’.

~~~ COSTS ~~~

Nex II Play £90 to £110
8 NexKins £10 to £15
CF 16Mb around £10
CF 64Mb £20 to £25
CF 128Mb £35 to £45
USB CF Reader From £18

Summary: