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Consumers have been assaulted by the overly competitive MP3 player marketplace in recent months and very little has made its way to stand out in the forefront. However, to some avail a few MP3 players still using built-in memory or smart media cards have made a name for themselves due to their advantage of being smaller and furthermore trendy. These smaller portable devices are easy to tuck away and forget about but yet are able to retain the same qualities of common portable CD players and larger MP3 players.

Yahoo to the kazoo

The kazoo is an extremely small device containing an MP3 codec for playback and 64 megabytes of built-in memory for a product the size of a larger watch. The kazoo can easily be hidden behind [or in front of] a belt, it can be strapped on a wrist with a few simple adjustments or it can slide away into a pocket and remain hidden. The player is 1.9" H, 2.24" W, 1.1" D.

The 64 megabytes of built-in memory that come standard can be increased with the assistance of a very small MultiMedia [MMC] card slot, expandable as high as 192 megabytes. The built-in memory can hold an average of approx. 15 MP3 songs to its 64 megabytes depending on the songs length and compression.

The player runs on two “AAA” batteries that can run for up to 12 hours of playback on a fresh set of batteries. The player gains a bit of battery life due to the absence of a backlight for the player, a disadvantage to those MP3ophiles who play their music in the dark.

The player comes complete with a number of accessories including a neck strap, a wrist strap and a carrying case that can attach to a belt.

All of the track information in the player is shown through a one-line LCD display, which shows the track number on the left, and the time elapsed information on the right.

The Ups and Downs

Although the player sounds great and works well, the kazoo makes a few sacrifices for its miniature design.

For starters, there is no extended ID3 display included in the player. The display is read much like that of a common CD player with a numeric display.

Also compared with other MP3 players of its caliber there is a lack of an equalizer to tweak an individuals sound settings. It does have a number of DSP settings included such as flat, bass [standard], Pop, Rock and Jazz but those are all presets and non-adjustable.

The size of the internal memory seems small in contrast with other players these days. MP3 CD players are becoming increasingly prevalent and hard drive players like the NOMAD Jukebox and iPOD completely wash the storage capacity of this player down the drain even with the MultiMedia slot. However it does have its size to barter with.

The player is very simplistic to understand and upload times with the included MusicMatch Jukebox software are fast. Also, the player is cheap in contrast with other players retailing between $149-$249 CDN.

Audio Quality

The player supports both MP3 and WMA codec’s with bit rates ranging from 32 to 320kbps. Sound quality is good and handles well with the included bass modes. There were no problems with any of the various tested MP3’s and handled extremely well on 320kbps encoded files however due to the better compression we had more space taken up on the card’s memory.

The volume can go quite high but a lot of sound is lost through the irritating Digital X-phones that wrap around the back of the head. Unlike ear bud headphones or headphones that close around the ear, the cheaper headphones spray sound outwards of the ear and lose quality as a result.

The final verdict?

The kazoo is a great product for those who are looking for versatility and a small device which can play back a whole range of MP3s and WMA files from your computer. The headphones leave much to be desired and the bass is adequate but not great.

The player works well as a fashion piece too but for those looking for great sound and the ability to read the names of your files [one of the main advantages to MP3s over standard CDs] this is not the player for you.

The kazoo is cheap and affordable but its disadvantages outweigh its pros for an average MP3 player.

Overall Score: 70%

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