LG MF-PD330 MP3 player – great idea in principle, but limited in practice (LG MF-PD330)

Member Name: libertybell

Product:	LG MF-PD330
Date:	25/09/00 (862 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great audio quality, record what you want, lightweight, trendy

Disadvantages: Very limited memory, eats batteries, expensive for what it is, better players on market

Travelling long distances on public transport, I decided that some sort of audio entertainment was in order. I have a CD player but found it cumbersome to lug around the unit and change over the disk. A minidisk player was ruled out as it seemed to be too much like a CD player. I decided to go hi-tech and jumped on the MP3 bandwagon.

MP3 is a recording format which can be used to record music, speech etc. The file created is digital (so no hissing) and compressed so that it takes up less space.

With this in mind, I rushed out and bought a PD330 player. The main unit is made out of light shiny plastic and weighs next to nothing even when containing the 2 AAA batteries. The top of the unit contains some buttons to play, REW, FF and stop the music. On the side are 2 buttons to adjust the volume (up/down) and a flap to get at the 2 memory cards. Each card holds up to 16MB. It is possible (I am told) to buy 2 32MB cards – but I have not been able to purchase them. On the bottom of the unit is a removable rubber flap; which covers the hole into which the cable to your PC is connected. This is used to download/upload music etc. Batteries are loaded into the top of the unit and there is a switch to prevent the accidental playing of the unit. The device is small enough to fit into the palm of a hand.

Attached to the base unit are the combined earphones and control unit. This allows the user to perform all the functions without fiddling around with the main unit, which can be attached to a belt, put in a pocket or whatever. The little grey unit comes with a little dark grey pouch, which can be clipped, to a belt.

To download music, the music has to be converted (ripped) to the MP3 format. I use Real jukebox though there are many different types of rippers around. Once in MP3 on a PC, a cable is connected to a parallel port and to the MP3 player at the other end. Having installed some software, which comes with the player, the music is
copied onto each 16MB disk by clicking and dropping.

Once recorded on the cards, it is very easy to play each disk. Tracks can be selected, and played over and over again. Being digital and without any moving parts, the quality is superb.

However there a number of flaws with the player which I will describe:

The player eats batteries. Even using Duracell type AAA batteries, the player can easily get through a set every 3 days. They are also not easy to get out of the main unit ( I have used tweezers on 1 occasion). There is also no means to power the unit by mains power when at home or in the office.

The 2 x 16MB cards are very limited. You have to ensure that the total of all tracks loaded onto 1 card doesn’t exceed it’s capacity else it will not play back. You therefore have to be selective in what is loaded. I was able to record about 25 minutes of music on each card – not good. It would have been better to have 1 x 32/64MB card.

Port problems. The player does not have a USB connection, which would be much better. I kept getting ‘port not ready’ messages which my handbook did not explain. I eventually solved the problem by replacing the 2 batteries in the unit.

The same music can get boring. Unlike a CD/Minidisk player, the amount of music on an MP3 player is limited. You don’t tend to change the disks, simply ‘record’ over them from your PC. This became tedious after a while.

The principles behind MP3 players is a great one. My player is a relative pioneer and lacks a number of facilities, which would make it a lot more usable. Some of the features such as battery power, and the 2 cards are not really acceptable for such an expensive product and have been criticised in product reviews.

However LG are a major Korean producer and I am sure their next set of MP3 players will be much better....

Summary: