Mpio HD200 Review

Good Points
Great Sound.
Upgradable software!(firmware)
Almost all good but...

Bad Points
HD200 crashes or freezes often.
Navigation is frustrating at best!

General Comments
The Mpio HD200 is my first MP3 player, and navigation is a nightmare! I did not realize extra buttons were so undesirable in manufacturing, it has only 3 buttons to control everything (volumne is a 4th button). It probably needs a couple more buttons to avoid having buttons with multiple effects depending of how you engage them. It's gotten so frustrating, I look at it sitting there and have to ask myself if I really want to use it, am I ready to suffer through the navigation to get it playing what I want? Sometimes the answer is no! Is that a proper attitude to have with such a wonderful little machine? I've only had it a week or so and I'm wondering if the MPIO bigger brother is what I should have bought as the controls are different and it may be better for a person such as me that has little, no, very little patience for poor design. You can get all set up and unwittingly pick it up or touch it wrong and bang, back to frustration. It is by no means intuitive. In fact, the average joe couldn't even turn it on without being told how and after that step, it gets worse. The features are great if only you could easily access them. I don't know much about computers and software but I managed to get onto MPIO's website and downloaded firmware upgrades successfully without much problem, that's saying something! That feature could be worth it's weight in gold, I am blown away that MPIO have designed it to be upgraded like that, they are brilliant. This gives me hope that someday MPIO will improve navigation but I'm not sure how without more buttons to work with. I have noticed wee improvements already with the newer firmware release, added icons and it does not crash as often as it did with it's supplied firmware version 1.0. In summary I guess you noticed all I've talked about is in reference to navigation, and that is the wrench in the works, everything else about this puppy is wonderfull. Everything! I will offer another review after being more familiar with it.