Review: Nex II CF MP3 Player

Music listener and Slashdot author chrisd has prepared a review of the new Nex II CF based mp3 player from Hong Kong based Frontier Labs. He declares it the best MP3 player he's owned, so read the whole review if you'd like to learn more. I have always preferred the Compact Flash memory format. I'm not alone, either. It's always baffled me that the MP3 player market has been dominated by SmartMedia-based players. It's clearly a throwback to the first Rio that Diamond released a few years back (which I still have in a box somewhere in the basement); It's always been a big problem in my mind. I find the SmartMedia format to be too small in capacity and flimsy in packaging to be appropriate for serious music listening or digital photography.

In digital photography, I've pretty much stuck with the CF-based Nikon Coolpix series of digital cameras, so I had scads of CF memory cards lying about. I also have an IBM Microdrive which I use when taking TIFFs using the Nikon. So I wanted an MP3 player able to handle not just Compact Flash, but also the Microdrive. The Microdrive is tricky because it both consumes much more power than solid-state CF cards, but also is slower to respond and larger, demanding the taller CF-II slot.

Until the i2go ego, there wasn't a mp3 player that could handle the Microdrive. I had owned and immediately given away the original, incredibly flawed, RCA Lyra because it simply stank so much I couldn't stand to own the thing. If RCA wants to send one of the new ones, I'd be pleased to check it out, but the shoddy original made me vow never to give RCA more MP3 player money.

The i2go ego (still sold some places, although I think the company that made it is defunct, look look here to see one) wasn't all bad. It played, and it acted as a pretty basic voice recorder, and it allowed for two CF cards to be inserted, at least if you bought a funny daughter board. But its build quality was such that it would spontaneously lose power if jostled. Also, it had the most annoying bug ever: the player would remember the card's contents from before, even if you changed said card's contents. It would try to play them too. It also -- at random --wouldn't notice songs that were on the card. It was very annoying, besides which it was enormous for an MP3 player.

I had been checking out the Nex II for a few months and with a long trip coming up, I decided I needed a MP3 player for the trip. I wanted to have a player that was smartly designed and able to run the microdrive. The Nex II seemed to fit the bill, so I ordered one (with a 256mb card included) for $239 (plus $15 shipping).

It arrived promptly 3 days after order from Frontier Labs' shop in Hong Kong; I've been using it for about a week now, and I have to say it's the best player I've ever owned. The display, an LCD (the letters are not blurry on the actual display) with a blue electro-luminescent backlight, is very readable, and the interface is super easy to use, with a rocker button on the right for track control above the volume buttons and the stop and the "fn" button on the left, under the headphone jack.

Conveniently, the Nex II also acts as a plain vanilla USB drive, so I can upload and download songs (or other files) under Linux with no problem. You can chose from two types of display while the song is playing (status or spectrographic display), which is fun. I stick with the status screen, which shows all pertinent information, including track length, quality in kbps, song title and time elapsed. The player has been able to handle any data rate I've thrown at it, and the specs says it can play WMA files, but I can't verify that. Also, I was able to pass the card to the camera and back with no problem, as neither the nikon nor the player are too controlling of the disk format.

Physically about the size of thick deck of playing cards, the Nex II allows you to change the color of the area around the LCD by sliding in thin colored pieces of glossy paper. You can buy more of these skins for $10, including the unfortunately named "mutant sperm" skin. It also comes with a snappy little neoprene case which has transparent portions covering the LCD and buttons so you can see what's up.

Despite all its good points, the Nex isn't perfect, it lacks some basic features, namely any sort of external power connector. You must always run it with 2 AA batteries. Mind you, it lasts 12 hours when using solid state CF and 5 when using a microdrive, so this is less inconvenient than it sounds. Also, the included headphones are not to my taste at all. The battery cover should be redesigned completely so the latches aren't as flimsy -- every time I change the batteries, I picture scotch tape in my future. Many would probably also like to see it be able to play Ogg Vorbis files, but that wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Another quirk of the Nex II is that to play Microdrives well, you need to load the 1.4(m) firmware available from the FrontierLabs website. It's odd that they didn't make this the default firmware, as the 1.4m firmware seems to work equally well with solid state cards and microdrives, while the firmware it ships with works poorly with microdrives.

So if you're looking for a decent mp3 player, you should check it out. The Nex II is an excellent value, and it sounds terrific.

Comments

Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

Thread predictions:

10 posts about how it doesn't play Ogg
14 posts about how Ogg sounds much better than MP3 or WMA.
4 posts flaming people for not reading the article
15 posts about how much better the iPod is
20 posts about how the next Nomad will be better than the iPod
12 posts about the copy protection in the
17 posts about how some /. reader buys more CD's after using Napster/Morpheus
5 posts about how Kazaa isn't truly P2P
4 posts about how no other player other than the iPod uses FireWire
3 posts from some guy about how USB is fine and nobody needs FireWire
5 posts claiming that it would take "days" to transfer an x gigabyte MP3 collection.
6 replies about how the new FireWire Nomad is coming RealSoonNow.
3 posts predicting the messages in this thread
9 posts about how thread prediction posts suck

But wait, there's more..

[petermarks]

I've had one of these players for many months and they are good. Some other features, not mentioned are:
- graphic equalizer (handy for tuning for headphones with no bass)
- spectrum display (as an alternative to the normal track display)
- CF is the best value per megabyte of any storage

On the negative side, the slot for the CF card is too deep and you can miss the pins if not careful.

I agree - it is the best, non mac based.

[Lumpy]

Sorry, but it get's an initial 10,000 points for the fact that you dump raw mp3's onto the Cf card and it will happily play them. NO OTHER MP3 PLAYER WILL DO THIS. Everything from sony has DRM,the entire Rio line has DRM (except the pmp-300 it was out before Diamond bent over for the RIAA) and I have tried every mp3 player that was removeable flash based storage at best buy/circuit city by bringing my own cf,mmc,smartmedia,memory stick,sd (copy of the mmc with drm abilities) loaded with 3 songs on each. Nothing would play them citing a bad format telling me that you must have it re-encoded and processed by the loader software to ensure you cant swap memory cards with your buddy. (as if ANYONE would do that. removable flash media is expensive, and the chances of finding a large pool of friends with the same mp3 player is near impossible unless you coordinate the purchase)

The iPod could be better, but I also dont see the point of carrying around 65 million mp3's I am quite happy with my 2 256Merg CF cards. and many times I never listen to 1/2 the music I am carrying... but then that is just me others might like the fact that they can sit through 3 meetings, 2 lunches, 4 bitching-out's by the boss, and 2 more meetings before hearing the same song again....

Now if they would make an MP3 boom-box... that way I can annoy those around me.

Yahoo Group

[zerosignal]

There is a Yahoo Group for discussion of this player at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nexiimp3/

if you want to buy one cheaper...

[Lumpy]

mp3playerstore
has them for cheaper and super low shipping. That's where I got mine, and I see today that they are selling it for even less than before.... my luck I bought mine a month ago.

Price

[OctaneZ]

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in the article or in another thread, so here we go. The base price (the player+accessories but no CF card) is only $109 directly from them! You can see all of the different options at their Yahoo! Store. it looks pretty neat, and if you combine this with the seemingly endless deals on Compact Flash cards that can be found (try AnandTech's Hot Deals Forum) this could be a great player.
-OctaneZ

Current Ogg uses floating-point

[yerricde]

If I were a portable music device manufacturer, I would seriously look at this format as a possible option in future products.

However, the current Vorbis reference decoder uses floating-point math, which isn't available on cheap DSPs. As of yet, there isn't (to my knowledge) a fixed-point decoder for any Ogg format. This is the biggest thing holding up Ogg support on portable audio players.

Re:Current Ogg uses floating-point

[ikeleib]

It's true. I work for a company that makes the chips (although not DSP's) that power most MP3 players. If you could come up with a small enough fixed point decoder, it would seriously be considered for inclusion in many players. Until a fixed point decoder is available, bitching does nothing. Stop complaining and write one!

Keeps Dying.

[The Evil Twin]

I have one of these things as well. Have had it for more than six months now... oh wait.. now.. THIS one I have had for only about 2. You see the build quality sucks. I love it because of the same reasons stated here (ie, acts as removable drive, no DRM, small, CF format). But the build quality really bugs me. My previous player died. Just wouldn't work. Mind you their tech support was helpful and I had a new unit (from Toronto, Canada to Hong Kong and back) in a week. My friend got one when he was in Hong Kong. Died in a month. Just won't turn on. The plastic is cheap and the battery removal process is cumbersome.

Some other negatives are:
- Plan to purchase "real" headphones as well. I have no idea what those "things" are that came with it.
- Audible "processor noise". That's about the only way I can describe it. The decoding is done by Software so when I first got my unit there was actual decoding "blips" but they fixed that in the 1.4 firmware... still not happy with the audio quality.

- damn thing doesn't remember last track played.

Pros are as mentioned earlier.
- Great battery life.
- FAT formatted CF Card and Microdrive. (I use an external USB CF reader to put stuff onto the card.
- Nice clear display.
- price
- support.

I recommend this unit for no other reason then to send a clear "up yours and your DRM" to the RIAA.