REVIEW: XStatik 512 MB MP3/FM/Rec Player

Geeks.com were very generous to send us over for a review one of their flash mp3/wma players, the XStatik 512 MB player which couples as a USB key, an FM radio and voice recorder. Delve in for the review and pictures of the player.

The XStatik mp3 player came with a pair of headphones that also couple as a neck lanyard, an AAA battery, a manual in english and french, a USB cable and a CD with USB drivers for Win98. The player has a distinct red color plated with brushed metal. It comes with a Play The construction of the player would take a perfect 10 if it was not for the loose usb cap (it falls off very easily) and the fact that the headphone jack gets in the way when holding the device. The player works either when plugging it to a USB port or by using an AAA battery. Battery life proved pretty good, with 12 hours of mp3 playback. In comparison, Sandisk's similar mp3 player called Sansa -and also powered by an AAA battery- yields 15 hours. The included stereo headphones are good enough in terms of quality, however we would still recommend the purchase of better quality headphones.

Pressing the "Play" button turns on the device. The user is presented with a blue-lit screen (96x32) of 7 icons that he can choose from: music, fm radio, voice recording playback, voice recording, settings, text reader and telephone address book. Pressing left of right the wheel on the top of the player would move to the next icon, while pressing-in the wheel will select it. The whole user interface is based on this clicking wheel and the Play button. It will require a few minutes to get used to it, but after you go through it, the UI makes sense. This USB mp3/wma player also doubles as a USB key where you can drag-n-drop songs into it as it's a mass storage device. It works with all major operating systems.

The mp3/wma playback screen fits 4 lines of text, but only 3 are used. The first two lines are displaying the status of the current song: if the song has a lyric .lrc file (lyrics are supported by the device), if it's an mp3 or wma and how many kbps it is, if the song it's repeated or not, the current time in seconds from the end of the song, the equalizer setting and the battery level. Most of these settings along with A-B replay and gap playback can be set for each song individually by pressing the wheel button. The device supports one level of folders to navigate through and playback songs. One problem is that the device sorts its songs by extension instead of the filename, and that means that the player will first playback all mp3 songs and then all wmas (playlists are not supported). Another small problem is that moving to a song further down the line, it will take quite some time as scrolling through songs is not nearly as fast as with the iPod.

When using the voice recorder you can choose between 32kbps WAV and 8kbit ACT/VOR formats. Pressing the "Rec" button it will start recording from the integrated microphone. Quality at 32kbps is pretty good, enough for some basic personal notes. To playback the voice recordings the user must use the "voice playback" interface which is separate to the mp3/wma playback.

The FM radio is easily manageable. The wheel moves the frequency by 1 Hz per slide, while pressing the "Play" button it will cycle through the saved FM presets. When pressing the "Rec" button it will record the current FM radio station WAV at 32kbps. The user can switch between normal FM and Japanese radio frequencies. Unfortunately, FM reception was really bad. Just by moving around the radio station reception would vanish and re-appear on its own, even for radio stations that have a strong signal in our area.

The Settings screen allows you to set the date and time for your recordings, the backlight timer, the language, the PowerOff timer, the screen contrast, the USB mode (encrypted file system or not), information about free storage memory, firmware info and upgrade. The device also support telephone address import from a .csv file and text reading from small text files.

Overall, this is a great mini-mp3/wma player. The USB cap falling off is very annoying and FM radio reception is not that great, but for the price ($55) this is the best mp3/wma player we have seen on the market, for this specific storage space and size. If you need a small mp3 player to host your few songs that comes with FM radio, voice recording, WMA support and with a respectable screen, this is the one you should first look at.

Pros: For the price and features, it does what it's supposed to do pretty well.
Cons: Mediocre FM radio reception, loose usb cap.

Rating: 8/10