e.Digital MXP100 Review

Overall Rating

• Compact flash and IBM Microdrive compatible
  
• Small for a 1GB+ player
  
• Rechargable Li-Ion battery
  
• Low price
  
• No internal storage
  
• Large display
  

• Slow transfer using included software (not required)
  
• Doesn't show as a USB mass storage device
  
• Larger than non-microdrive card players
  
• Proprietary battery
  

The two major complaints I've seen in other review of this unit - the price and the slow transfer speed - are now largely things of the past.

This was the cheapest 256MB player (1 CF card included) I could find in the UK: £120. incl from www.advancedmp3players.co.uk.

The latest firmware allows the CF or micrdodrives to be read in other readers, so it's no longer necessary to use either the included software or even the cable for anything other than firmware updates. I havea USB2 CF reader built into my PC, so this is ideal; if you have no faster way of reading CF, then you'd really need to add that to the price of the player.

The Audio recording is a fairly useful feature, even for meetings; I personally find the audio song selection to be more of a gimmick; since I usually have the player clipped to my belt.

Members' Comments onLorewin.'s Review

• steveherzfeld on 3rd Sep 2003

  a good point but the feature is not documented in the manual even for the updated version as far as I can tell.
  
  It is accomplished as follows:
  . You can transfer files to a Compact Flash Card directly when using the MXP-100, but you have to follow the steps below when re-inserting the CF card into the player:
  
  -Insert new CF card into MXP 100 and connect to Music Explorer (This formats the card and creates the 3 main folders:Data,Music & Voice)
  -Remove CF card and insert into card reader.
  -Using Windows Explorer or similar, explore card to find "Music" folder & open
  -Create subfolders (i.e.My MP3's) as you would in Music Explorer & open
  -Drag & Drop MP3s into subfolders as you like
  -When finished insert CF card back in MXP 100
  -Instead of switching unit on with PLAY button, ROTATE & HOLD SCROLL wheel in DOWNWARD direction whilst pressing PLAY button
  -MXP 100 will switch on with message "Reconciling disk"
  -You can then play music as normal
  
  Please note:
  MXP 100 will recognise the MP3s every time when switching on normally afterwards unless you remove/add any MP3s, then you have to "reconcile the disk" again, otherwise it will not read the newly added MP3s.
  
  However I would be most appreciative of any advice you can give me regarding handling VOICE files under this system. When I read the card directly on my laptop card reader I simply does not see the VOICE folder.

• Lorewin on 10th Sep 2003

  The 'Voice' folder is tagged as a system folder, which Windows explorer hides by default. In XP (the only version I have to hand at the moment), you can go to Tools...Folder Options...View and ensure 'Hide Protected Operating System Files' is unchecked. Alternately, in any version on windows, open up a command window, and type:
  
  attrib -s -h x:\*.*
  
  where 'x' is the letter of your removable (CF/Micro) drive.
  
  Note that voice memo files have a .wav extension, but they are in RIFF format. Apollo player plays them under Windows (http://www.hut.fi/~hylinen/apollo/)
  
  Enjoy!
  
  Lorewin

• steveherzfeld on 11th Sep 2003

  Thank you. Very useful advice on both counts.
  Apollo is a very cool little player.
  
  I guess the only other point is:
  DO you know if the RIFF file can be converted to MP3 or real WAV so I can burn a CD of a lecture I recorded?

• Lorewin on 3rd Oct 2003

  From the Apollo FAQ (I haven't tried this but assume it will also work for the RIFF files as well as MP3s)
  
  --
  How do I decode MP3s to WAV?
  From the options dialog (available through the hammer-button) select the Output tab. Select the "Decode to .WAV file without playback" radio button. Then press the Browse-button and select the folder where you want the WAVs to be written. Then press the OK-button and start to play the MP3s you want to decode.
  
  You won't hear any output during the decoding. For decoding in background, it might be wise to set the process priority to low from the General section. This is because Apollo will use all the processor time it gets to do the decoding.
  
  After playing the MP3s you should find the corresponding WAVs in the directory you selected. To switch back to playback, select "Wave Out" or DirectSound again from the Options->Output.
  --
  
  Hope this works for you
  
  Lorewin

• tonyb on 5th Nov 2003

  to steveherzfeld;
  
  that is so cool to find out I can finally transfer files directly to CF cards rather than using the software with the mpx100, too slow :-(.
  Thanks!
  How did you find out the "down-dial+play" feature and are there any more undocumented features?

• steveherzfeld on 5th Nov 2003

  to Tony B
  
  I think I found that "roll the wheel down and hold" feature when I searched the newsgroup archives for discussion of this mxp100 via google.