Apacer AU524 Review - Great Little MP3 Player and Mac Friendly!
2/11/2007 - I needed a USB Flash memory drive. I could buy a 1GB model for about $12 from Meritline.com. But it's only a memory stick, that's it. I like more complicated gadgets.
I thought about getting an iPod Shuffle. I have a 30GB iPod Video and I love it. The new Shuffle is cute, but it requires a dock so I have to carry another cable. The price of the 1GB Shuffle is $79. A refurb 1st gen shuffle with the integrated USB just fell to $49. Meets the no cable requirement. Shuffles have no screen to see what track you're playing. I wanted a screen. Whatever I bought, it would have to play nice with Macs and PCs. (Remember, I really only needed a memory stick.)
The Apacer AU524- 1GB MP3 player, FM stereo radio tuner with recording feature, voice recorder and memory stick. It met all my requirements and surpassed them. It works great with my Mac.
I put together a little video review. It's my first time ever doing this. It took a bunch of tries and came out less than polished. I have new respect for TV reporters. That said, the video will give you a very good idea how the unit works. Oh, I forgot to show the instruction manual and 3" driver CD that comes with it in the video. The manual is not very good. The CD is useless to me because my computers have slot loading drives. It would be the last CD I ever used. The driver disc was for Windows PCs anyway.
You'll need Flash Player 8 or higher to watch this video.
I paid $36 for it. I bought it from Supermediastore.com. Shipping was about $7. At this price, you could give it to your kids. It's not a $250 iPod. Not as fragile as an iPod either.
I'm impressed by so much capability in such a small device. The one thing it's not very good at is being a memory stick! It works, but at USB 1.1 like speeds. It is rated as a USB 2.0 device. The maximum data transfer rate I could get out of it was 1.3 MB/ps. To fill it would take over 12 minutes, around 75 MBs per minute.
Sound quality out of it is quite good, not as good as an iPod, though. It has a hum at low volume which disappears pretty quickly as the volume goes up. The battery is built-in unlike most of the other MP3 player memory sticks. Most need a AA battery. It charges while it's plugged into your computer in about 2 hours. Playback time is supposed to be about 8 hours. I haven't timed my useage, but it seems to last quite a long time. I can charge it in our USB iPod wall charger, as well.
I use iTunes to organize my music. The way I move MP3s to the 524 is very simple. I open a window showing the files on the 524. I created a folder called 'music' on the 524. Inside that folder I create a new folder called anything you like, let's say it's Nickelback. Open the Nickelback folder on the 524. In iTunes open my Nickelback playlist. Select all the tracks I want to move and drag them to the open Nickelback window on the 524. That's it. On the 524 you can use the built-in file browser to navigate to the Nickelback folder. When the 524 starts up it seems to crawl the whole file system looking for MP3s and WMAs. You can nest folders in folders and the 524 will find all the tracks.
Someone asked me if the player will hold your spot in a song when you turn it off. A good thing for listening to podcasts. It does hold your place in the track. It will hold your spot even if you plug it into the computer. If you pause the player it will automatically turn off after a time set in the settings menu. Even after auto-shutoff it will hold it's position in the current track. It only retains its position in the current track. Unlike an iPod, it doesn't remember where you were when you go back to a previously played podcast.
I have not tried to use the 1GB MicroSD slot. From the what I found on the system menu of the 524, it looks like you toggle between built-in memory and the MicroSD slot. I would guess you could put all your music on the MicroSD card and keep the built in free for data. If I get one of those cards, I'll update this.
Only trouble I had was when the battery ran down all the way. I left it on overnight. I plugged it into the computer and it didn't mount or light up showing the battery charging symbol. I left it in the computer for a while to charge. I pulled it out and poked the reset button with a pin. It started up and mounted right away. No data or music was lost.
Update 3-19-07 - I have had to reset it several times now. It seems to get messed up when the battery is very low. Each time I just push the reset button with a pin and everything is fine, no data loss. But sometimes it's hard to find a pin or paperclip needed to push reset.
To sum it up:
PROS
-Great size
-Good construction quality
-Built-In battery
-Works with iTunes (kinda)
-FM radio, mic recorder and clear animated display
CONS
-Slow read and write speed.
-A little wide for some USB jacks. May need the USB extender at some point. But not yet!
-Not a great amp, a little buzzy at low volume. Sounds fine once you turn it up.
updated - 4-12-2007
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