I decided to start my New Years resolutions a month early. I am going to be walking every day since you can't ride a bicycle in the constant winter rain and darkness of the Pacific Northwest.
I thought I could use a small MP3 player to listen to while I am out and about. I noticed an TDK Mojo 256 MP3 player on sale for $120 at a local store so I figured what the hell and gave it a shot. It is about the size of two packs of gum and it runs on one AAA battery. I have some rechargeable AAAs so party on. It has 125 megs of internal flash storage and it has a slot for additional SD/MMC cards. The 256 megs is enough for about for albums and it can play lower quality compressed MP3 files for audio books and Podcasting. It can play MP3s, WMA files, protected WMA files but it can't play AAC files or OggVorbis I don't use AAC or Vorbis files so no big deal.
The software situations sort of blows. The box says that it is Mac and PC compatible and that there is a plug in for Apple iTunes. However what they fail to mention is that the iTunes plug in is for Mac only. Another thing that sucks is that you need to use a custom application to put MP3s on it. I would have just preferred if you could use the Windows explorer but alas the TDK UniFi software works but it is finicky and prone to locking up and has poor re-draw after changing a file. You have to use a MP3 ripping program like iTunes in order to get your CD into MP3.
The form factor is pretty small at about the size of two packs of bubble gum (not the stick kind but the chewy tasty stuff). There are no moving parts, no skipping and you can get about ten hours of battery life out of one AAA but rechargeables are the only way if you are going to be using it daily. Toggling between tracks, fast forward and rewinding a song can are handled by a small thumb wheel and once I memorized the button layout I could run it in my pocket. You can have one of these in your pocket with no noticeable bulge. I have other noticeable bulges in my pants but I assure you it is not from my MP3 player. It has an FM tuner but no AM. That is annoying because I can't listen to the AM based Seattle affiliate of Air America on this thing and will have to catch yesterdays show in MP3 from Air America Place. The low quality compressed MP3 files work great and a two hour radio show fits on there just fine. The sound quality is great and there is some equalizing effects built. There is a nice back lit LCD screen that lights up when you change tracks or change something. There is a microphone and I could use it as a dictation machine but I don't see using that often.
Over all it is a pretty good flash memory based MP3 player. The software could be better but I think this little unit will come in quite handy. Sure it is no iPod but it is a quarter of the cost.
Update: The TDK software sucks so much that I am going to buy a new 512 Meg SD Memory card and transfer music to and from it via Windows XP so I will never have to use the crash prone application ever again.
Greetings from another gamer/blogger from the Pacific Northwest...where we can use the lousy weather to justify excessive time spent gaming, reading about games, and writing about games. I'm blogging from Portland, Oregon, at http://rendergaming.blogspot.com. Where are you? Washington or Oregon? Just curious. Anyway, great site. I've been following it for months. Good luck on your resolution. Lord knows I have to get out and excercise more. Maybe If I had a new MP3 player to keep me company...
Quarter of the cost yes, but the iPod is so sweet! Especially those nice 60 GB iPod Photo's. $600 is a hefty chunk of change though :(
I got a 40GB iPod a while back because i was buying a powerbook, and with the special at the time, i saved $250 on the thing, so i couldnt pass up a 40GB for $150.
I can't imagine you'll listen to Air America while walking...ewwwww. i can't imagine listening to anything other than music while i'm being physical.
use hymn to unlock your iTunes music if you don't have anything to do so. i use it mainly because apple doesn't take into consideration that people may have more than a few PC's.
my nephew has one of these, and i'm impressed--particulary because of the sound in such a tiny little joint.
i still would have gotten an ipod if i were you. it's just *so much more* music. i've found that i'm at my limit on my 15GB ipod. granted it was a gift so i'm not complaining.
j.
What can I say. Janine Graphalo gets my blood flowing.
How can you not dig anything called "Mojo?"
The software REALLY SUCKS. There is no iTunes plugin for Windows and you can't load MP3s directly via Windows.
YOu are so right my uncle reccommedned it to my parents and now i am fing screwed over the software sucks so much at least you got yours for 120 mine was 200 still
i nedd driver and aplicattion for tdk mojo 256 for windows xp or 98
thanks
my friends lost his ipod and is terribly distraught. so i lent him my ipod since he had to travel so far from work. then i remembered i had another mp3 player and its this one. it still works... but the problem us i dnt have a driver let it be recognized by the pc.. i cant add mp3 songs... can you possibly help me!!! i really need it.. thanks