Olympus 5GB MP3 Player $99AR

This is a pretty good deal they look like they go for around $150 elsewhere. Free shipping on them too. They have them instore for this same price also.
 
friken sweet, i went down and picked one up as soon as i read this, and radio shack has a 30 day return policy even if the item is open you can return it so if you dont like it just return it.
 
How does it work? No offense, but it looks cheap and difficult to use.
 
Seconded - I would like to know if this is a decent piece of hardware . . . although the low price tempts me, oh does it tempt me.
 
just bougth one and loving it more than my sister's ipod mini...and only paid half the price :D

I work at radio shack, so i got toplay with it before i bought it...i must say is a great deal. ipod might be droping theirprices soon
 
Thanks man, my wife wanted an MP3 player. I been looking around and bam this is the best deal I have seen THANKS!!!
 
Bellz said:
[IG]http://www.radioshack.com/images/ProductCatalog/ProductImage/42/42-8086.jpg[/IMG]
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You forgot the M in IMG :p I may get this too, it looks cool.

42-8086.jpg
 
For those wanting to know more about the player Google is your friend. Come on, how hard is it to find review on your own? ;)

BTW, using corporate bandwidth for post images is frowned upon by admins. Just FYI.

As for the player, I might have to check this out myself; although my local Radio Shack *never* has interesting shit in stock and seems to be staffed by stoners with the IQ of your average fruit fly. :rolleyes:

Regards,
fastgeek
 
Is the software as big a pain to use as many of the reviews detail? Something about having to deselect files so they don't transfer...a huge pain if you have thousands of files on your computer.
 
Yea, the reviews make the software out to be horrible... I wonder if you could just treat it like a removable disk (pen drive, etc) and write to it directly to negate crappy software. It'd be nice anyways.

~Kris
 
fastgeek said:
As for the player, I might have to check this out myself; although my local Radio Shack *never* has interesting shit in stock and seems to be staffed by stoners with the IQ of your average fruit fly. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You can check stock online. :p I just bough it, haven't used it yet. Why would you need to use software. Isn't this like other player, where it shows up as an additional drive and you just copy the songs to it?

Why does everyone make things so difficult?


 
fastgeek said:
As for the player, I might have to check this out myself; although my local Radio Shack *never* has interesting shit in stock and seems to be staffed by stoners with the IQ of your average fruit fly. :rolleyes:

Regards,
fastgeek
Click to expand...

Hey man, don't dis stoners like that...

But in response to the question above, it all depends on the player. Its up to the manufacturer to make the device turn up as a drive letter. They inevitably have to do/program more to get that to work. They have to get the price down to $99 somehow. I don't have this, but if the reviewers say u need the software, you're SOL. Use google to see if hacks exist for it.
 
It probably shows up as a removable drive. Even the cheapest players show up as one. I actually think that the truth is it's a bigger pain to have an mp3 player not show up as a removable drive in windows as the default action windows takes is to map it as such. I've read the software is fishy but I suspect it will probably get better if it's such a major issue as olympus makes more than just this player.

The build quality is actually quite good. It has a nice amount of heft for it's size and feels like it definitely has some metal used in it's frame. The interface on the front is perftecly flat and touch sensitive, it has a vertical slider pad that works in the menus just like the circular one on the ipod. The button areas are designated by the lights that appear when it's turned on otherwise the front is perfectly black when off. The only real issue I see is that you have to use the keylock if you put it in a case unlike the ipod because the touch key areas aren't depressed into the front at all.

I'd say for the price you aren't going to find anything better except maybe a used 10GB ipod on ebay with a bad battery and perhaps a flaky charging jack. I suspect it's only a matter of time before someone hacks these since they're so cheap for a harddrive based mp3 player.

Oh yeah, and please don't rip on RS employees I work there too and frankly we have shitty jobs, we get yelled at a lot by customers about stuff they didn't even buy from us (Since walmart employees certainly won't help them hookup their DVD player), and management treats sales people like dirt. At least around here we're mostly college students just trying to pay for our living expenses since college prices have gone up 25-50% in the last 5years with NO increase in financial aide or grants. And frankly I can't blame them for getting stoned considering.

Anyways Sorry bout the rant just wanted to throw that out there. :)
 
Lets look back when the iPod came out shall we:
"Looks good, but Apple as an mp3 manufacturer?"
 
Shmuckety said:
You forgot the M in IMG :p I may get this too, it looks cool.
Click to expand...
Nope, I didn't leave it out..Scubasteve changed it.
"Last edited by ScubaSteve : 09-24-2005 at 11:24 PM."
 
Oh, sorry. I plugged this thing in and the computer did not automatically recognize it. It doesn't have a regular usb connector, that may be why. :(

It has usb on one side and proprietary on the other (looks like cell phone). Anyone else try this?

 
I bit on this and I have to say for the price it's definitely not a bad deal. The unit quality is good and it's a bit smaller and slimmer than an IPod Mini. Had no problems being recognized by Win XP. The navigation software is a bit annoying since it doesn't support direct copy. Charged to full in about 2 and a half hours. Volume is a bit low (About 60-75% that of my wife's IPod.) at max setting, but loud enough. If my $30 MIR comes through, it'll be a good deal. Only issuesI have so far is the proprietary USB cable, the lack of a clip or case with the unit, and the fact that it doesn't support direct copy. Those I can live with though.
 
I moved it around and it worked. It does just show up as a drive. If it didn't have the proprietary connector it would be better, l but this is a good deal. Especially considering you can (maybe) find a 1GB flash memory drive for $50-$60 and here you get a 5GB drive for $99 AR.

 
What is direct copy? I can view the folders without the software. It doesn't seem to recognize the songs I put on there. Maybe that's what you mean. :(

 
Yeah direct copy is just dragging and dropping or copy and pasting the file directly to the player. The software isn't very good and I had to figure out why my music I sync'ed kept disappearing.
 
So, you _can_ use this as a portable HD/thumbdrive type of thing, but you can't just drag and drop mp3 files onto it and have it play them?
 
NulloModo said:
So, you _can_ use this as a portable HD/thumbdrive type of thing, but you can't just drag and drop mp3 files onto it and have it play them?
Click to expand...
Yep, as long as you don't delete any of the system settings on the unit already, it can work as a USB Mass Storage device, or a DMP. You CAN drag and drop MP3 files to it, but it won't recognize them in the DMP UI, but you could play them on a PC with WinAmp or WMP or whatever you use to play your files. One other con that I have with it is it only supports MP3 and WMA, but I knew that before I got it. Can't really complain about that for the price though. It's innocuous enough to be used as a jumpdrive, it's about the same size as my proximity ID for work, weighs about as much as my zippo. I'll see if I can post contrast pics when I get home tonight.
 
I went to the RadioShack near my office in Philly, and the guy wouldn't show me the unit. "Oh yeah we have them in the back!" Well can I see it? "Well it's about the size of an Ipod!" Well can I SEE IT! "It looks a little different" (no move to go get it. Add pause for abject stupid look on his face.)

/walks out door
 
fastgeek said:
For those wanting to know more about the player Google is your friend. Come on, how hard is it to find review on your own? ;)
Click to expand...

Aren't forums for people to discuss ideas, share information, give opinions? I understand why people always point to google, but I really don't see a problem with someone on this forum asking other [H] members for their opinon on a product.
 
I am really tempted. I mean, I have sorta wanted an MP3 player, this has a good amount of space, it is tiny, and it looks a hell of a lot cooler than the iPod... Plus, for the price, it seems hard to beat. The one thing sort of holding me back is no drag and drop music loading support... just how bad is this software? Is it laden with that DRM shit?
 
This is getting a little off topic... but.

I'm not ripping on all Radio Shack employees in general; rather I said the ones at my local RS are just about useless. I've been to a lot of 'Shacks across the country (would often get misc. parts from them while on traveling for one of my old jobs) and my local one is far and away the worst of the bunch.

Stoners. I know a lot of stoners and have nothing against them specifically. But when I walk into somewhere looking for something and the fucking store smells like pot and the staff is too wasted to put together an actual thought? Yeah, that's just a little different.

Lastly Google. No, there's nothing wrong with asking fellow forum members for their input. However most of these questions were extremely basic and could be answered by any number of "professional" or personal reviews out there. I knew sooner or later we'd have people posting their own thoughts as they grabbed the units; but until then Googling for reviews was the best bet.

... back on topic though, surprise surprise my local RS doesn't even show up as a possible option for picking up this player... figures. :p ;)

Regards,
fastgeek
 
The software is quirky. I haven't tried ripping any music WITH it, but all the stuff I had that it imported into my library worked fine. The majority of it is all stuff I ripped with CDex from my personal CDs though. Anyway, RS has a 30-day return policy, as well as a $15 restocking fee for the unit if it works and is returned. I'm definitely satisfied with it for the price. It'll hold me over nicely till I get my iAudio in December.
 
went and got one today, very sleek mofo. but its not without its flaws compared to the itunes/ipod UI structure.

for one, the software has a knack for stealing CPU cycles from other processes whenever it does something

as for the players UI, the vertical scroll does nothing but volume when playing music, and list scrolling otherwise (aka, no way to time scroll, you gotta hold the left or right arrows down for that and its relatively slow and linear)

the player is also very laggy about HD access, it doesnt have nearly as much cache as an ipod.

but for 99 bucks, its awsome.
 
DVAmon said:
The software is quirky. I haven't tried ripping any music WITH it, but all the stuff I had that it imported into my library worked fine. The majority of it is all stuff I ripped with CDex from my personal CDs though. Anyway, RS has a 30-day return policy, as well as a $15 restocking fee for the unit if it works and is returned. I'm definitely satisfied with it for the price. It'll hold me over nicely till I get my iAudio in December.
Click to expand...

Who told your there's a restocking fee? If it was an employee, he was probably just trying to save his 5% commission on it and lying to you.

I bought one a couple days ago and the only real problem is the interface on the player itself. It'll take awhile before the button combos become second nature.

As far as storage, having installed the software it does show up as a usb mass storage device. I'll have to test it on a different computer without the software installed. Overall, it's a really neat little player that is definitely worth $100 if you don't have one yet.
 
Anyone know if it will allow for drag-and-drop through MusicMatchJukebox?
 
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