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Product Reviews
"Millions are discovering the thrill of MP3 players, which let you take your music everywhere - that is, except in your car. Until recently there were no good solutions for playing MP3 files in cars not equipped with an auto MP3 unit.
To resolve this situation, manufacturers created new MP3 players capable of broadcasting to FM radio frequencies; sales of these have surged as they have become popular with commuters. They let you play dozens or even hundreds of songs or audio books through your car radio system, but you have to be willing to lug around an MP3 player, power adapter and power inverter around.
Alpha Omega Computer has a better idea. They have come up with their MP3onChannel player, which is a compact MP3 player that accepts USB key chains and plugs directly into your cigarette lighter. Is this the MP3 answer for clutter-phobic commuters?
Price And Contents
The MP3onChannel comes in a very simple package. There is no need for an instruction book, because the very simple instructions are printed on the back of the package. You will have to supply your own USB flash drive. Since USB flash drives are common and inexpensive, you can have separate drives for different types of music. For example, one drive for techno and another drive for rap.
The player's full name is the MP3onChannel MP3-308 and it retails for about $60.
The construction of the MP3onChannel player is extremely simple. On the top is a dial that changes the FM broadcast frequency from 87.7 to 88.9 MHz, in 0.2 MHz increments. The three front buttons are for back, forward and play/pause.
The USB slot, located on the wide end of the player, accepts USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 flash memory drives. You simply preload your MP3s on the USB drive and plug it in. A small LED, located next to the frequency dial, turns on when the drive is inserted.
Use
The MP3onChannel only plays back MP3 files. We tested MP3s having different bit rates and lengths, with the largest 34MB. All files played back to the end. The player does not have a loop function, however.
Since the MP3onChannel doesn't have a LCD display, you will be playing songs "blindly", as with Apple's new Shuffle. It appears that the unit plays songs in alphabetical order. When a song finishes, or when you press the forward button, the player will start playing the next song. There is a delay of a few seconds before the next song comes on, which makes the player unwieldy for navigating more than a dozen MP3s.
You can hold down the forward or back buttons to increase or decrease the volume, but you should never need to use this feature, since adjusting the volume with your car radio is much easier.
Playback quality is acceptable, if inconsistent. You definitely won't get CD quality music, and nearby FM radio stations will cause static until you change to a less busy frequency.
We tested the player in 2005 Toyota Matrix and a 2004 Toyota Matrix. On the 2004 Matrix, songs played back with no detectable noise. On the 2005 Matrix, playback was often slightly noisy, with a faint hum noticeable that resonated with the engine. Sometimes reseating the player solved the noise problem.
We used several USB flash drives, from a no-name 64 MB drive that we received for free at a recent trade show, to a 1 GB Kingston DataTraveler flash drive. There were no problems with playback, as long as the drives were configured as a single partition - the player refuses to play any songs on a multi-partitioned drive.
Conclusion
The playback quality on the MP3onChannel is more suited to playing voice recordings, such as audio books, or self-help or language learning programs. For song playback, the player cannot compete with audio CDs in quality. Song navigation is acceptable only if you don't have many songs on the USB flash drive.
This is a decent player in certain situations. If you are looking to get rid of the wires on your long commutes and willing to put up with average audio quality then the MP3onChannel may work for you.
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- Tom's Hardware
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