TrekStor vibez 8 GB MP3 Player (Black/Silver) | List Price: $219.99
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Brand: TrekStor GmbH & Co KG.
Binding: Electronics
Features: - Full color TFT display with 176 X 132 pixels
- Play time: 20 hours; charge time: 3 hours
- 8 GB capacity holds up to 2000 songs
- Magnetically mounted scroll wheel
- Resume function (continue where you stopped after the player was turned off)
This player is great [Posted on 2007-01-29]
This player is everything I was looking for. I've never been too partial to the iPod because you can't use it without iTunes and I just wanted a music player that you can simply drag n drop music. I make my usual Rock, Rap, Country etc folders on my computer and simply copy and paste into the Vibez. I can go over my friends house and do the same...any computer anywhere. Unlike the iPod which requires the CPU hogging iTunes. Very simple user interface. The magnetic scroll wheel is very nice and useful. You can play music by year, genre, album, artist, folder or many others. The DJ option is great too. I have the 8 GB version which is plenty and it has flash memory so theres no worries about dropping it and messing up a spinning hard drive. For approx. $160 I think I got more than my money's worth. The only complaint I would have is the default maximum sound volume is a bit on the quiet side. I fixed that by increasing the settings in the equalizer and making my own preset.
Great Audio player [Posted on 2007-02-05]
I got a Vibez 8 gb for Christmas. I was rather intrigued with the player when the news about it first came out. It uses a Sigmatel chipset, and is basically what the purported Rio Avalon would have been (see [...], search Rio Avalon). The player uses a Cornice 1" hard drive, available now in the 8 or 12 gb size, with a possible 15 gb edition coming out soon. The hard drive has a unique protection device that parks the head when the unit is dropped (it works quite well, as I have dropped my player twice in the last week, once on concrete, and is okay).
One issue that I ran into, (as R. Crowder did with the 12 gb edition, see his review on Amazon), is the player defaulted to the French volume setting, even after resetting it. In the end, I had to reset it twice to get the non-French volume setting. (There is a law in France stipulating that daps have a lower volume setting, limiting the volume output to 105 db. When you first turn the player on, it will ask you if you live in France. Answering no will (supposedly) give you no volume restrictions. If the volume seems low, keep resetting the player until the volume is satisfactory (press the menu button, scroll to 'Features, then 'Maintenance, 'Factory defaults). This will reset the player and erase the hard drive. When you turn it back on, you will get the 'French' question again. As I stated earlier, I had to do this twice to get the normal volume.
As for the player it self...
Pros: The sound quality is excellent, great codec support (if you happen to have wmas, mp3s, vorbis, and flac, you can have them all on the vibez). Parametric equalizer, great playlisting features, all in all a great player for playing digital audio tracks. Battery is replacable; hard drive is likely upgradable as 1" drives gain in capacity; player features can be expanded with a drop in chip (fm tuner is available, video supposedly in the future).
Cons: Screen is only okay; the steel back shell is rather slippery (contributing to my drops); the scroll wheel is a bit sensitive; accessories are currently not available (case, dock, remote, extra batteries).
If you are looking for a multi-codec, flexible, unique player, the vibez may be for you. Once the volume issue was resolved, I have really enjoyed the player. Highly recommended.
Not impressed [Posted on 2007-03-25]
Normally, I really try and shy away from 1 star ratings, but this product I'm afraid warranted it. I have not had good luck with its reliability. A month into owning it, it stopped completing its start-up cycle. TrekStor was was fairly nice about having me return it for a replacement (tho they didn't send me pre-payed shipping labels like HP has). Now giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could have been a fluke and a bad unit. But immediately upon receiving the second one, it gives faulty "back cover removed" errors and shuts off. Since it's more than 90 days since I bought it from JR Electronics thru Amazon, they will not let me return it to them.
So now I'm paying for this one to be returned as well, and hoping I have better luck with my third one.
That said, here's how I rate the non-reliability issues:
Pros
-really elegant, snazzy look
-great drag-and-drop way of adding/removing songs; it appears as a USB disk.
-allegedly wide variety of supported formats
Cons
-rotating wheel control is sometimes cumbersome and redundant with other buttons that do the same thing
-the French volume setting note mentioned in the review above
-player has trouble with .OGGs unless they are perfectly encoded; it's not that it won't play them--it plays them, then freezes up at the end of the song, and won't respond to anything until the battery has been removed *and then* the unit has been plugged into your USB port.
need better quality control [Posted on 2007-06-05]
this *could* be a great music player. works with linux, supports open formats, audiophile features (speed control, advanced playlist features, advanced EQ), etc. those are the "pros." "cons" include: why is FM radio reception an option and not standard? also, why not have a speed control that's independent of pitch change? the technology for this has been around for at least 10 years now...
my main complaint about this unit is that i've gotten two bad ones from J&R; returning the second one tomorrow. the first one crapped out after about 2 weeks, and the second one refuses to power up after only two days.
trekstor tech support answers emails promptly enough, but their advice doesn't go much beyond suggestions to update the firmware (although i told them that both of my vibezs shipped with the latest firmware already installed).
i'm going to try one more time, because i think this could be the best alternative to the iPod that's out there. wish me luck!
Refurbished item didn't quite work right [Posted on 2007-10-23]
GREAT MP3 player. Very cool. Nearly made me replace my iPod. I bought it for recording (which the iPod does not do with buying more stuff), however, this device makes recording difficult. You have to jump through a bunch of menus just to start your recording. Once I finally got used to that, I found out on this refurbished item that the inline plug doesn't work. So none of my external mics would work. I returned the item and purchased a Panasonic voice recorder instead (mostly for ease of use). If you are looking for an MP3 player (even if you have a Mac like I do), this is a very cool item with a better interface than the iPod and very good sound.
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