Sonken U30 Review

Overall Rating

Excellent Build Quality
128Mb Internal Memory
SmartMedia Slot
Radio
Voice Recording (internal mic. and external line in)
Choice Of Backlight Colour (Blue/Orange/Off)

When turned off, player does not resume from previous point, returns to the beginning.
Menu wheel is slightly difficult to press.
No remote control.
Lack of a separate pause button.

The Sonken U30-128MB is an excellent product and at ~£70 you can't go far wrong, this is a lot cheaper than some of the current flash based players on the market, which is odd because it has a SmartMedia slot in addition to a spacious 128Mb internal flash memory. (USB Mass Storage Device Compliant)

The Sonken U30 is the same device as the MPIO DMG, but this has an FM radio in addition.

The included headphones are supposed to be of similar quality to Sennheiser MX500s, in fact they look incredibly similar. They produce excellent sound. But they do not include the foam inserts, which make them slightly uncomfortable, but that may just be me, I have difficulty finding comfortable earphones. In fact I can only wear the Sony MDR-ED21LP or similar, with the long rubber earpiece.

While the menu system is easy to use, the menu button which is part of the navigation wheel on the side of the player, it's quite difficult to press the wheel without it twisting at the same time, but this is minor as much of the time you will only use the wheel to skip tracks.

The choice of backlight colours is a nice touch, it came with orange pre-activated, I immediately changed this to blue, for better visibility, and extra coolness! I chose the blue model, it also comes in silver.

Available in UK from http://www.allcam.biz they are the official UK suppliers. Bear in mind that the image on their website is in fact the MPIO player which has been air-brushed to remove the logo. The Sonken U30 is all silver and has small notes that dance at the top of the display as opposed to the graphic equaliser display.