Power Up! 1 GB USB/MP3 Player: Not Much Bang, But Not Much Buck

Everyone and their mom has an iPod nowadays. Everyone, that is, except me. And it's not because I don't love music; I don't think I'd be bragging to say I have quite a bit more obsession over music than the Average Joe. I'm listening to music right now. I always am when I'm in my car or anywhere near my computer, so I understand the value of MP3's. The problem is really just that I'm cheap. Yeah, iPod's are sleek, stylish, and can hold more music than most the people who own one have ever heard of. But they also cost upwards of $200 and I don't know about you, but I'd rather save that money for the music itself.

So, I searched the internet and bought the cheap no-name one I have now. I think mine is technically called, "Power Up! 1 GB USB/MP3 Player." But the brand, "Power Up!" is certainly nowhere to be found on it anywhere, so I had to look it up again where I bought it from. In so doing, I found basically the same MP3 player (with slightly different coloring) under several different brand names: "Diablo Tek" and "Centon" and I bet if I looked longer, I might even find a few more. Its concept, and its distinction from real brand-name MP3 players is simple, and it also reveals something interesting about the new global economy. Some factory in China (or maybe several) bought the specs for a cheap and easy to make MP3 player, added a standard USB connection to it, a few semi-functional buttons, a headphone jack and started selling it to other "brands" who just needed a cheap electronic gadget to try to get something started. Because it's nobody's "pet project" and no brand is really required to be associated with it, it simultaneously lacks some of the niceties you might be hoping for and also the huge price tag you might be dreading. I've found it priced anywhere between $20-$50 with the average being around $30.

Yeah, it's 1 GB, as opposed to 20 or more for a standard-sized iPod, but that stores over 200 songs. That's a good bit over 10 hours, enough to be constantly hearing different music on almost any trip. And it's surely a lot easy than transporting 20 CDs. But if you really reach the end of the 10 hours, you've probably had enough of a break you can start it over again, right? Let's be economical about our music here, if you really like it, there's nothing wrong with the thought of actually hearing some of the songs over again, and it might even be preferrable. That's something that'll hardly happen with a 20 GB iPod. But if you're not using up your iPod's memory, then you're not using all you paid for. It's also a USB/flash drive. That's something the iPod can't quickly do. If you want to use it to transport files (as well as listen to music), it's plug & play, too. You don't have to carry a cable around with you, worry about installing software, or anything like that. I find that to be very handy. It also has a built-in mic for sound recording, replay of course, and an FM radio. It also came with a pair of small ear-plug headphones that sound like they have a pretty good quality, though I've got a million pair of headphones to choose from.

Now, while I find all these things to be very satisfactory, I did have a hard time getting used to the interface at first. The manual, though most of it was in English, surely wasn't in very intelligible English. And I have a lot of experience in foreign languages and cross-cultural settings. But I still found it incredibly hard to guess what they were trying to explain in the manual. So, I just had to fiddle around with the buttons til I could figure it out. It has one obvious play button, one obvious volume toggle, a hold button (so you don't accidentally bump buttons if it's in your pocket or something), and a weird lever/button on the top. You hold play to turn it on, just like you'd expect, but subsequent pushes of the play button don't take you straight to the music. It doesn't do anything actually, except play/pause when you finally figure out how to get to the music. If you hold it down, it'll turn off. I finally figured (after about 30 mins. and about ready to give up) that the lever on top is also a button that can be pressed down. But it's pretty sensitive, so you have to do it right in the middle. Also, I found out that the length of a press on any of these buttons changed the effect. Anyway, basically the lever is for selecting an option from a menu (such as music, record, playback, FM radio, settings) by pressing it down or moving it left and right, and it's how you jump from one song directly to the next one.

But I wanted to find out how to get to random playback (that's how I like my MP3's). I was about equally frustrated with that. Finally, I found out that pressing in the top lever brought up two different menus depending on when it was pressed: in pause - folders, in playback - all sorts of settings like random, repeat, equalizer, even tempo. To navigate folders is another task and you have to coordinate the right about of lever pushing and play button. Unfortunately, I also found out the one thing I've been most sorely disappointed with. The random mode only plays randomly from songs within the current folder. That meant I could only hear one CD at a time, or I had to separately stuff all the tracks into one big folder, which also made it much more difficult to navigate from band to band or CD to CD for the times when I did want to listen to music in order. Anyway, it still maintains alphabetical ordering, so if you put the artist's name first, you can still keep your music grouped by artist if you want, but it's just a lot of button pushing to get from one CD to another if you're also wanting to hear all your music in random order sometimes. Oh, and when I plugged it into my USB drive, it turns out they made the screen upside down. So, even though it shows information on the screen while it's plugged in (a generic picture showing something plugged into a computer), you can't really see it without an extension cable. But you don't need to. And who knows? Maybe their USB ports are upside down in China.

But that's it really: somewhat difficult controls, bad navigation system, but high quality sound, adequate 1 GB space, very easy file transfer, and best of all - it's cheap! So, it really depends on what you're going for. If you're willing to spend whatever it takes just to be as "cool" as everyone else and have the same technology as them, you're going to need an iPod. If you're technologically illiterate; well, I don't know if you need an iPod, but this definitely isn't the device for you. But if you can find your way around a gadget without consulting an instruction manual and you'd rather spend your money on music than an extravagent music player, then this may really be the thing for you. Really, it's all about the music, right?