MP-50

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• Expert Rating

  2.50 / 5

• User Rating

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• Price

  $ 129.00 (AUD)

Benjamin Russell Good Gear Guide 03/12/05 Follow @pcworldau

Pros

• Readily portable, plug-and-play

Cons

• Poor sound quality, tiny buttons

Bottom Line

A fairly average mp3 player, the MP-50's low quality sound and fiddly controls are countered by its cheap price tag and light weight.

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Encased in silver-gray plastic, the MP-50 measures a mere 72mm x 36mm x 12mm, and weighs in at 24g. A one inch screen takes up the left hand side of the player, while a tiny circle of buttons sits on the right side. Menu, record, and power switches are located on the sides of the device, as are the headphone and USB plugs, and the built in microphone. Physically, the player sits very easily in a pocket or hand, and is generally quite unobtrusive.

Actually using the Voxson is a little different, however. The buttons take up less than half the space not occupied by the screen, a phenomenon that perplexed us, as the buttons are quite obviously too small for easy operation. The circular central button has a diameter of about one centimeter, and is adjacent to four other buttons, a configuration which results in several accidental presses. Apart from this, we found the buttons to generally be pretty responsive, and a stylish blue backlight contributes nicely to the player's overall look.

Sound quality is probably this player's biggest let down. It just doesn't sound good enough, especially when using the supplied earphones. We did notice a marked improvement in clarity and reproduction of individual notes when using our own preferred set of headphones, however there were still unacceptable levels 'fuzz' at mid to high volume. We found this to be less noticeable with certain genres of music, for example hip hop sounded impressive on the Voxson, whereas Jazz suffered distinctly from poor sound quality. Part of this could be attributed to the equaliser, which included only seven presets, without support for customised equalisation. It wasn't all equalisation, however, and we were able to detect notable trouble in reproduction of high range tones, although to its credit, the MP-50 delivered relatively respectable bass levels.

FM radio, voice recording, and e-book support are all fairly well integrated, functioning at about the level one would expect from peripheral features such as these. Connection to a PC is via USB 2.0, and its easy 'plug-and-play' interface means that the MP-50 can readily serve as a removal storage device if so required.