Digital Home Thoughts: Two Feature Rich Flash Music Players

"The flash player segment is a relatively crowded market, with many products, from a variety of manufacturers. Apple’s offering is the minimalistic iPod Shuffle, with no display and a minimal feature set. The iPod Shuffle has no FM radio, plays only MP3 and AAC files, and has no recording capability. Other companies are building feature rich electronic, all in one, “Leatherman” audio devices. I had the opportunity to test two of the latest feature-rich offerings. They are JetAudio’s iAudio 5, and Lexar’s LDP-600. Both support a variety of music formats, record voice, and have built in FM radios. In direct opposition to the iPod Shuffle, they both have displays with multiple colors. While each does cost more than a Shuffle with the same capacity, let’s see what the extra bucks buy, and if it’s worth it."



I recently added a second MP3 player to my toy box. I have had a 40 GB iRiver for a while now and love its ability to let me take my entire collection everywhere with me. However, I was finding certain tasks for which I would never carry my iRiver due to its size or relative fragility when compared to a flash based player , so I bought a Creative Muvo N200. These small units are great I use mine for hiking and for doing yard work. Mine is so small, it fits into the pocket of my Scott eVest hat and packs in almost all of the features of the above mentioned units.