Versatile player. Small package.
Written: Jun 09 '03
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Pros: Particularly light and small for a multifunction player
Cons: FM reception is weak
The Bottom Line: It's a versatile player with good internal memory in a small package. Just don't expect much from the FM feature.
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| dsbocco's Full Review: Perception Digital FuXion Genie (128 MB) MP3 Playe... |
MP3 player play MP3s. The truth be told, they all play MP3 and do it rather well. If you’re looking for something bit more versatile, something that records, plays FM, records FM, records voice and is flashy to boot, you should look at the FuXion Genie by Perception Digital.
The first thing that struck me when I took it out of the package was how light and small it was, I mean cutting edge small for what it is and does. The manual said 39 grams. I measured about 50 grams with the one AAA battery. According to the manufacturer, it should last for over 15 hours. This, of course, will vary with the volume that it’s played at.
Naturally, I was anxious to get the battery in and start loading music so, manual aside, I started to figure out how this thing worked. By the way, music is loaded by drag and drop but additional software is supplied on a CD. This is the only time the manual came in handy. There’s a warning screen regarding the software not passing Windows Logo Testing. The manual told me to blow by it so blow by it, I did. From there on, the player showed up as a mass storage device in Windows Explorer and My Computer. After that it was drag and drop.
The files took slightly longer to transfer than I expected, taking about 9 minutes for 128MB. I was surprised to see a bright red and blue flashing light while downloading. I looked intentional enough. As far as I can tell, its purpose is to look cool.
The display is small but has good resolution and a nice backlight. In normal play mode it displays the volume and battery level across the top and playing status such as music or radio, time into song and where you are in the play list along the bottom. Along the center, in larger letters, is the tag info of the song being played. Every time a new song comes on the lights automatically start flashing again, but this time about 10 different colors and for about 10 seconds. Still very cool.
I wasn’t expecting much out of the ear bud headphones but I was surprised to find they were comparable in sound quality to my preferred ear clips. The specs didn’t offer the power output to the headphones. Maximum volume is sufficiently loud but not blasting. This is how to squeeze 15 hours out of one AAA battery.
I thought the FM would be a nice feature. Keep in mind that your not listening to the “near CD” quality of the MP3s. Tuning in a station was a bit challenging for a couple of reasons. Contrary to the manual, the controls would only let me seek to the next station. There was no way to continuously move through the stations without stopping at every station. I had to re-key it each time. The closer or stronger stations came in clear but I had problems pulling in the farther or weaker stations. I liked the fact that the FM recording feature stores the recording as MP3s and adds them directly to your play list. Don’t worry about lack of memory because you can delete MP3s directly from your display to make more room.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149
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Epinions.com ID:
dsbocco
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Reviews written: 20
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