I just bought an MP3 player for a friend & thought I’d share the info.
This is exactly what I was looking for, albeit a little over my target price. But I just got an Acer n10 PDA that has all those functions & more (on the other hand it was NT$10,000). I’ll try to put an update here after my friend uses it for a while.
o Model: Future Media M.M.P FTM-1280M
note: the FTM-1280 w/o M at the end doesn’t have a memory card slot
o Price: NT$3800
o Purchase location: computer market under Xinsheng Expressway, just north of Bade Lu. Basement #51
Phone: 2391-5093
o 128 MB built-in
o Memory slot can take either SD or MMC
SD – faster & more expensive - ~NT$2500 for 128MB, no?
MMC – slower & cheaper - ~NT$1400 for 128 MB, ?
o MP3/WMA Playing
Decoding-PMEG 1/2 audio layer, 2/3 decoding wma
EQ control-notmal/rock/jazz/classic
playback: repeat/all/shuffle/all
o Digital Voice Recorder
(128 MB so 8 hr.s recording at 32kbps - don’t know if you can change sampling rate yet)
o FM Radio (Immediate Recording)
o 1 year warranty
o comes w/1 AAA battery, headphones, pouch, USB cable, driver cd, and a carry strap
o note: the box is in English, but the manual is in Chinese. Maybe they sell it in America, in which case an English manual might be available.
I haven’t tried it yet , but bought it on the recomendation of a friend. He’s had it for about a month and loves it. BUT he did say that his battery cover was a little finicky, has broken, & now is in for repair. I just tried opening the battery door & it seems okay.
Yes, i bought one of the little usb memory things… it’s not too bad. it saves 128 MB of songs (about 20 songs) and it’s extremely small and lightweight. The AAA battery is the heaviest thing about the whole device. On the other hand, I open my backpack to find it playing. It seems there’s no way to prevent it from turning on, unless you take out the battery.
It takes about 7 seconds to transfer a song from my computer, and it has a cute little USB connector. If you spend a while looking at the different models, maybe the shopkeeper can give you a discount. I got mine for $3000, but it has no FM radio.
Purchase location: computer market under Xinsheng Expressway, just north of Bade Lu. Basement #51
If you’re recording talking, it works pretty well. The sound quality is clear. If there’s a lot of background noise, it picks that up as well. But if what you want to record is loud, it might not record it very well.
The microphone is very small on mine. It’s fine if you want to record your one on one chinese class, but to record a classroom, it gets the voices of everyone talking… so if there’s some chatting going on it will record the chatting and the teacher. I just tried recording my voice in my room as a test. It came out clear but I can hear the air conditioner in the background. I’m not able to change the sampling rate for recording.
One more function it has… it’s USB flash memory, so if you want to save some files from your computer and take them to another computer, you can use the MP3 player instead of a disk.
there are several makes on sale now around Guanghua: 128MB flash memory MP3 players with microphone, all around NT3K.
I bought one about 8 months ago when they were just appearing - the only problem is the firmware on mine seems a bit ropy. If that happens, look for the brand name manufacturer it’s being made for (in my case www.cendyne.com) and get updated firmare from their website