The fun and functional accessory for your JumpDrive Sport Lexar's JumpGear MP3 product is a full-featured digital music player that lets you play music stored on your JumpDrive Sport, and create personal playlists on one or multiple JumpDrives for added flexibility. And of course you can still use your JumpDrive Sport to store and carry business documents, school work, photographs, or other information, in addition to your favorite music. Lexar's JumpGear MP3 supports MP3 and WMA music formats, and includes customizable user settings for equalizer and backlight. Available in two configurations: One including a 64MB JumpDrive Sport, and the other as a stand-alone accessory for JumpDrive Sport.
1 Disappointing, inexpensive device
After using it for 3-4 hours, I think I made a mistake.
Pros:
Drag-and-drop is slick and easy
Dual puropse (w/the JumpDrive on my keyring)
Small form factor
Standard batteries (not proprietary)
Cons:
Volume not loud enough (have to re-process mp3s before I load them)
Earbuds are low, low quality
Sound quality is marginal, even at 320Kbps w/good phones (or on my Bose system)
Navigation is confusing at best, silly at worst
It does not remember the last song it played - starts at the beginning of the playlist on power-up.
Needs clip, pouch, lanyard, etc.
I wish I'd have paid a little/lot more for another brand of MP3 player. It's a decent stop-gap solution if you need something very economical and already have a JumpDrive Sport. It's a lousy solution, in my opinion, if it is going to be your only/primary MP3 player.
2 Awesome
Overall I'm really happy with this player. It's very inexpensive, expandable, and having the separate jumpdrive makes it extremely flexible. This player is great.
I only have two complaints about it.
1. The files you copy onto the jumpdrive aren't necessarily played in the order you expect. It turns out that the files aren't played in the usual alphabetical order. They are played in the order they were copied onto the jumpdrive. If you copy entire folders, the files aren't necessarily copied in the right order. To get around this bug I wrote a short Perl script that sorts the files and copies them in the correct order.
2. There is no really good way to bookmark stuff (yes there are bookmarks, but only per file). I listen to a lot of audio books and it would be nice to be able to set a bookmark per directory in addition to per file. I have to write down where I left off and skip to that spot the next time I listen.
While these issues are somewhat annoying, I would still buy this player if I had to do it over again. It's a great little device.
3 Decent for the price.
I am a poor college student trying to save all avaliable money for a laptop, so I did not want to go spending much on a mp3 player.
The user guide:
http://www.lexar.com/mp3/JumpGear_Quickstart.pdf
Suggests that one may drag and drop music onto their jump drive in order to add music. Well, it doesn't work, at least not for mine. I sent my first Jumpgear back b/c of this problem. It just keeps freezing up.
They sent me a replacement (and btw, the only proof of purchase you need is a print out of your order history from Amazon with your name on it) and it is having basically the same problem. I finally decided to try the alternative method for transferring music to my device (via sync on the Windows Media Player) and it seems to work just fine. At least for now.
My only remaining complaints:
1 - The display on the lcd, when you transfer via sync, shows file names such as 06Reme->.WMA and 05Trah->.WMA instead of entire file names, so unless you are just good at guessing, you really don't know exactly what the song is that you are selecting to listen to.
2 - The off button is hard to fine unless you have done your research, I just let mine die through the power save for the firtst few weeks. You can turn the device off by holding down the "play" button and waiting for the message "goodbye" to show up on the screen
3- I wish I could drag and drop!!! :'(
Pros:
1 - Does exactly what you need it to do- play music. I will probably get a more expensive mp3 player one day, but this will definitly satisfy my craving until then
2 - Ultra Portable- More portable than an IPod. I can easily put this thing in my pocket with room to spare.
3 - Good customer service. I had lost my original packaging, and receipt, but they still took my first one back and replaced it promptly.
4 - Cheap, Cheap, Cheap. Great for the penny pinching college student.
4 found case for $10.00
go to lexar's site and they have a case for it
5 It nullifies its best feature
I was looking for a battery operated MP3 player that had the max storage that I could get. Non-batteried players require a wall source to power up, which for travelers/hikers/distance people is not readily available. Using the player with a 1 gig Jumpdrive, I had the kind of storage I needed to put a huge amount of songs in my pocket.
Unfortunately, the larger the capacity, the more its main drawback stands out. 200 to 400 songs is nice, but if you have to remember which one you played last in order to skip forward to it every time the unit is powered up . . . much too primative for the market today. Best for 24 hours of sea shores, rivers or rain storms, but not albums.
Otherwise, good sound, sturdy construction, and long battery life. I really wish I could give this player 5 stars, but if you keep a pencil and notepad handy you'll enjoy using it.
6 Inexpensive, works great, few complaints
Lacking instructions, can't continue where left off, can not get the player to play a playlist file... m3u or pls file. Anyone have luck with this?
For me the following works (some the same as other reviews have posted)
When I say shift I mean push the volume button (roller) IN
shift - enter menu system
While in menu..
----------------
vol+/- - Scroll through menu items
Navigation -> Repeat -> Bookmark -> Backlight -> Contrast -> System Info
shift - Select the current menu item
(if navigating, play mp3 selected or go into directory selected)
(in other menu items... basically select that option (ie. select classic on EQ))
FF - go back one directory
Play - exit menu
OTHER
-----
hold down play - power OFF
7 For what it is, it's very good
I'll try to avoid duplicating information found in other reviews, except to say that I think that Lexar did a good job of providing a serviceable product at quite a low price. If you keep your eyes out for a good deal on a JumpDrive Sport or two, you can have a lot of solid-state storage for a low price.
The "manual" for this is short and often incomplete. I don't think it mentions that the JumpGear will play variable-rate .WMA files, and that's important. For typical portable music uses, the variable rate compression will allow you to use the 40-75 kbps rate supported by Windows Media Player, and this equates to an average rate (over a bunch of songs in my experience) of about 64 kbps. The sound at this lower variable rate, though, is reasonable, and probably about what you'd get from a fixed 96 kbps rate. The bottom line is that a 512 MB JumpDrive will allow you to store about 225 average songs at a quality level that's acceptable for non-critical listening.
One reviewer was complaining about a 30-day warranty, but that's wrong. The packaging that comes with the player is a little confusing, but it implies that the warranty is actually 2 years. Checking out the Lexarmedia.com site you'll find that the warranty is indeed 2 years (though it's one year on some other Lexar digital music players).
Lastly, I was impressed that at this low price they include batteries and a pair of basic earbuds of reasonable quality.
8 For day trips
When my tiny Compaq iPAQ MP3 player, a backup to a much larger and trusty Archos Jukebox, died unexpectedly (after three years) I looked around for something for day hikes, canoe rides, walks around the mall, short car trips, etc. and settled on this because I have a large Jump drive.
Ok, the controls are a bit spooky, and lord only knows why Lexar didn't program in a way for the device to remember the last track played (users must remember that and scroll ahead each time it is fired up), but the bottom line is that the sound from this thing is very, very good. As typical of devices of this kind the documentation is pretty bad. But the sound is clear, with lots of range, and with better volume than my other players. The earbuds with it are also extremely good for headphones of this type. Plug it into your home or car stereo and you'll collapse on the floor. The Lexar puts out serious sound.
One other thing I noticed. Be sure that after you delete your music files you also kill them in your computer's recycle bin. Otherwise, the player will continue to find and play them.
Bottom line, if you want to load up three or four cd's for a day's outing this thing can't be beat. It is playing my MP3pro (highly compressed) files like a pro, and it's only a couple of seconds to load a folder at USB 2.0 using Windows Explorer. Oh, and I like being able to use commonly available rechargeables instead of propietaries prone to inevitable death. So far battery life seems extremely good; easily a day's outing.
My sense is that if Lexar wanted to it could turn this into a mega-killer by making some minor fixes (I don't have a clue as to whether or not it will accept firmware upgrades), and accomodating other drives, but as it is a very nice add-on to Jump Drives, which are now selling for as little as $19.95.
9 Ok, I made a good decision with this MP3 Player
Yeah, it has all the functional limitations that everyone describes: no on/off switch, no play stop memory, etc. But, it's meant to be simple with minimal functions. My player worked right out of the box. Just what I payed for.
As for all the people complaining about the headphone connection... My headphone plug takes more force to push in all the way than I have experienced. The larger insertion force is probably due to the intended use of this MP3 player - portable, exercise, etc. A correctly inserted headphone plug should not have any of the small diameter brass visible once inserted properly. Only a thin ring of brass will be visible - the largest diameter of brass on the headphone plug. Try this out before giving up and contacting Lexar.
Also, as for the connection of the Jumpdrive to the player, the looseness that some have complained about is just part of the USB connection. These connectors are not meant to be firm, unmovable connections. If they were, you would need a screw driver to remove your Jumpdrive.
On last thing I just discovered. At least for my player, the documentation is wrong. To access the "menu", do not press and hold for two seconds and try to move the toggle. Instead press the toggle downward in the center quickly. This should get you into the menu. When ready to select something, push the toggle in quickly. In order to see that selection has been activated, look along the top of the screen. What ever you are changing will show up at the top (except the defaults). To get out of the menu, press the play/pause button.
Hope this helps some of you.
10 Comment/Question on Jumpgear
Comment: This will not work with Lexar non-Sport drives e.g. Lexar Media 512 MB JumpDrive Secure USB 2.0 (JDS512-432).
This is because the slot where drive slides in only allows the slim line shape of the Sport drives.
Question: Can you use a card reader with the JumpGear...seems like the USB cord would connect ok?
11 concerning jump drives not being read
Just got the JumpGear today. Not blown away, but not bad considering you can buy the lexar jumpdrives at pretty good prices. And if you already have a jump drive, this is a very good way to get a mp3 player without paying a bunch.
Some have mentioned that the player won't read their jumpdrives. After having the same problem, I contacted tech support and it seems my problem was that I converted the file format on the jumpdrive from fat32 to NTFS to increase transfer speeds. According to tech support, the jumpgear will not read NTFS jumpdrives. So if you are having problems in this area, see if you reformated the jumpdrive - that may be the problem.
12 Good Product for Beginners and Athletes
Well, I've never had an MP3 player, so this is my first and only. If it's the best out there, they have lots of room for improvement. Let's begin with the positive. This thing is light, easy to carry and pretty simple to use. If you don't like learning a bunch of "electronic stuff", don't worry. If you can plug in a jump drive, you are set. Windows Media player can rip all your songs and you just copy them over to the jump drive. Turn it on and hit play. It's that simple to get started. If you want to do other things like create play lists, set book marks, it can do all that - you just don't have to. You can get a 1GB Jumpdrive Sport from Lexar and hold 5 to 15 albums (depending on the quality you rip and the type of CDs you buy). It really has good sound, easy controls and has made me a MP3 convert. There's no hardrive, so you can run, jump, skip or ride horseback and it doesn't flutter a bit.
What don't I like? Well, it would be nice if it had a clip, hook or velco to attach it to you. As it is, I stick it in a pocket. Unfortunately, the earpiece plug is a bit on the loose side and if you bend over wrong, the sound breaks up because it gets pressure from the material in your pocket. Secondly, it pauses between tracks for maybe 1/10th of a second. The problem with that is, and I don't know if other players share the same problem, but if you have a CD where track one and track two were meant to run together, you now get a definite pause between them. It does not smoothly transition from one track to the next. Third, as someone else mentioned, the controls are pretty simplistic and have no memory. My 1GB drive has about 375 songs on it. When I want to go to the middle, it takes some time to get there since you have to hold the button and fast forward there. If they complain about a car crash with my cell phone, they're really going to hate it because I was fast forwarding my MP3 player. If it did nothing more than remember where it was when you shut it off so you could continue from where you were, I'd be happy. Next, the forward and reverse controls take too long and are nor intuitive. Well, maybe they are intuitive, what they aren't is compatible with a CD player. If you are listening to a song and hit "back", it goes to the beginnning of the song. On this player, it goes to the previous song. If you get a cell phone call, pause it, then go back and start it, you have to go to the previous song, then back to the one you want to hear. Also, the pause button does not last long enough. If you hit pause, it waits about 30 seconds, then shuts off. You can't have a conversation, phone call or listen to the news using the pause button.
All-in-all I am pleased with it, but it is very unsophisticated. I will likely move up and buy a 40Gb something, but I will keep this around for "rough" listening.
if you want to see if you like MP3 players like this before you buy, rip some CDs to your hard drive, plus earphones into your soundcard and play them with Windows Media Player. Outside of not being portable, this is exactly what you'll get in a credit card sized player that fits in any pocket, goes where you go and plays a long time on a pair of batteries.
13 DO NOT GET THE JUMP GEAR MP3!!!!!!
I received the Lexar Jumpgear MP3 for Christmas and loved it. The LCD screen was sweet and sound quality wasn't that bad. I read several reviews complaining about this product but there were a few good ones...I decieded to get it anyway and Buy.com sent it within three days of Christmas which is pretty good...well 30 days later, EXACTLY 30 DAYS LATER WHEN THE WARRANTY RUNS OUT, it stopped working. Completely. It freezes up on the startup screen and I have to remove the battery to stop it. I tried everything from bran-spaking new batteries to reformatting my 256Mb Thumbdrive. The Thumbdrive works fine but this Jumpgear MP3 SUCKS!! I hit play and it freezes on the startup screen and it will never go away until you cut the power. I swear companies make things that work until the warranty ends...Buy.com WILL NOT respond to my emails and Lexar won't either...I may have gotten a lemon but there are too many Jumpgear lemons I've heard about out there and I'm just trying to help you SAVE YOUR 40 BUCKS!!! EVEN THOUGH I LOST 55!!! DONT GET THIS PERIOD!!!!!
14 Great tunes
It's small and light enough to take anywhere. But, it does not have anything to attach it to, no clips or carrying sleeve.
15 Does not remember where you left off like other MP3 players
I am using this unit, but have to manually record which track I was last at when I shut it off. If I had known this before I bought this I would not have considered this unit. Lexar needs to fix this issue before this is a viable MP3 player.
16 Easy and convinient...converts my jump drive into mp3 player
It is a pretty good deal for converting my jump drive into a mp3 player for a low cost. It is easy and convinient to use. So far, I only have it for a few days but I like it so far. The only cons is that is is made of plastic that looks like it is pretty fragile. The menu control is also limited and the play list is set by the sequence you put in the songs. But overall can't complain.
17 This is a lotta bang for the buck
Controls worked well. Easy to set up. A little tough to sort files...hints: 1) build folders (albums or playlists), then its easier to select in the MP3; 2) name songs something that only uses 8 letters (days of DOS!); and 3) BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT BONKING THE HEADPHONE PLUG WHEN PHONES ARE PLUGGED IN!!!! I cratered mine by dropping it on the plug. The little internal plug broke off and now I gots to buy a new one...which I will because this thing is so cool for the bucks. Much cheaper to replace than an Ipod!
This is a good buy (unless my other one breaks too!!). By the way, the jump drive is something you need for your data anyway, so you are half way there if you buy the jump drive for data then slip some (lots) of MP3s or WMA's onto it!!!
18 Not Mac compatible
I've had my Jump Gear 512 MB for three days, and it's already stopped working. The LCD window is lit up, but I can't FF or REW, and the volume doesn't work. I tried logging onto Lexar's chat support, but was kept on hold for 20 minutes and I quit out. There's several things I don't get about this (Lexar's instructions don't help much). First of all, when I drag and drop MP3 files from iTunes to the Jump Drive, I end up with a .M4A extension, instead of MP3. Not sure if that matters. I'm interfacing with an iMac running OSX 10.3, and am unable to find an app to help manage my files. Also, I can't play more than one song in a row: after each song, I have to select a new tune and press play. Except now the player doesn't work at all.
I hope I can return this thing.
UPDATE: I finally got through to Lexar. The JumpGear is not Mac Compatible, I was told, and you cannot drag and drop MP3s from iTunes. "Our marketing dept. needs to be made aware of this fact," I was told.
UPDATE to UPDATE: Received an email from Lexar customer support today. Now they tell me I can drag and drop iTunes generated MP3s, but that the unit I just purchased is defective and needs to be returned to Lexar. These people are clearly clueless about their Mac customers. Unless you are PC based, stay away from this product!
19 Good and Bad
The Good:
It uses a jump drive. You don't need any software to load the files - just windows explorer.
Great on battery life. I'm getting 15 or so hours on two rechargeable AAA.
The Bad:
I use it primarily for listening to audio books. For the first little while I couldn't figure out the order it would play files (it was skipping all over the place). Finally, I learned that it plays the files in the order to which they were written to the jump drive (you can set up a folder structure on the jump drive which the player recognizes - nice). Meaning, that using windows explorer, you have to copy the files over one at a time (windows explorer will copy the first file you've selected, then the last file, then the ones in between (or something like that). So, once I figured out that little trick, I was all set.
There are a lot of "features" in the menu system I cannot make work. There is something called a "bookmark" but I can't determine what it does.
20 Good, but it needs a few key improvements
The Good: It sounds good, even with the ear buds (which are surprisingly comfortable). It seems solid enough, something that is hard to judge by pictures and reviews. But I suppose the best feature is that it turns your thumb drive into storage for an MP3 player. It does this just as expected, and with the ridiculously good deal I got on a 1G thumb drive, cheaper than just about any other player with half the capacity.
The bad: navigation is awkward. There seems to be no quick/easy way to go from navigating the menu to adjusting volume, or from navigating one menu "folder" to another. Also finding a specific file is complicated by the almost DOS-like abbreviation of the files - for example, a file called Favorite Band - track 01 would look something like this on the screen while navigating:
<-FAVORI->01.MP3->
During playback, the full tag is displayed. This is a nice afterthought, but it seems that they missed the point.
It is really missing an "up" button for navigating the options and directories. Waiting for a selection to time out, go back to its default state is going to annoy just about anyone used to a hierarchical file system. Adding on an option to display only folders containing supported file types would go a long way toward making it a cleaner interface.
Really getting down to picking nits: there is no "off" button. Also, the buttons are not aligned in what must be the industry-standard, by now: Rew-play-FF or something like it. It seems almost arrogant to do it any other way, but Lexar did it like this: (top to bottom) play/pause, Rew, FF. And now that I think of it, there is no stop button, which could have doubled as an Off. Not being able to pick up on the last file played is an annoyance. This is probably tied to the missing off button (no way to differentiate between a passive and active power-down)
The overall result is that you can enjoy the hybrid features of the MP3/storage device with this setup, but it requires a little more work than expected. I am not sure how this compares to an MP3 player that could double as storage - I think deciding how important having non-music file storage is to you will get you halfway to deciding if you will like this player.
I am happy with this one, although I am disappointed by how much better it could have been. I expect that some third party company will take a different approach and be far more successful - rather than being an add-on to their line of thumb drives, they will add support for other file types (Ogg and FLAC, if anyone is listening) and manufacturer's thumb drives, make navigation easier, and sell gajillions of them. So if you already have a Jumpdrive sport, and patience to make this work for your needs, you have a winner. If you would like to have a simple MP3 player/storage device, this would again suit your needs, but it may involve compromise.
21 Great player for the price
Love the player mainly because of it's versatility and cost. What hasn't been said about it already? Here are a few notes of mine:
1) I bought the JumpGear MP3 knowing it supports only MP3 and WMA formats. As an iTunes user, I was disappointed that the only mp3 player on the market that plays mp4 (AAC) files is the iPod at more than 6 times the cost of this one. :( I got the impression from the Lexar website that the JumpGear MP3 has flashable firmware so hopefully they will provide support for the mp4 format in the future.
2) At least one reviewer noted that the on-screen display showed the file name and not the song name and artist name from the ID3 tags. I quickly discovered that the JumpGear MP3 player does not recognize ID3 tags later than v1.1. With iTunes I just have to right click a song and "Convert ID3 Tag" which is a pain but worth it to view track info on the player.
edit: when navigating through the songs and folders the screen shows the filename. When the song starts playing it shows the song title and artist from the ID3 tag, from all versions. My mistake. :0
3) At least one reviewer noted a disappointment with the EQ settings and that there wasn't much bass. I have never been a fan of earbud headphones because, first of all, they are never comfortable for me, and second, they just don't provide much bass. I unplugged the headphones and ran a line out directly to my stereo (through a 20-year old receiver and bookshelf speakers) and the bass was overwhelming, I adjusted the EQ to a setting with less bass. My deduction is that the earbud headphones provide inadequate bass and the player itelf is excellent.
22 Cheap but flaky and lacks key features
An MP3 player that uses a USB drive for storage is a great idea. Unfortunately this player is just something Lexar through together to sell some extra JumpDrives with no attempt at creating a quality player. It's flaky and lacks some really basic things that should have been there.
I was looking for a low cost, high capacity, flash based MP3 player. What I got was...
Pro:
* Cheap - 1GB player for about $90.
* Large capacity
* Convenient - Copy some files to the JumpDrive and away you go.
Con:
* It's flaky. It won't read the tags from about a third of my MP3s. It locks up about once a day, often with an ear-splitting shriek that has me ripping off my earphones. I have to pop out the batteries to reset it.
* No hook, loop, etc for carrying. It's your hand, your pocket, or nothing. This is really basic and it's incredibly lame that it's missing. I'm using a small cellphone beltcase.
* Doesn't remember the last song played. I can put in 1GB of music but I have to start listening from the first song every time it gets turned off. Again, really basic and how did they manage to leave this out?
* Navigation system sucks. If it was quick and easy to navigate then the first song thing wouldn't be so bad. It's neither quick nor easy.
* When set to random, cause how else are you gonna get to the last song when you have to start at the beginning every time, clicking FF to go to the next song goes to the NEXT song. I.E. it goes from song 20 to song 21. If it's set to random then FF should randomly jump to a new song. Basic, yet Lexar did it wrong.
* The display should show the artist and the track title which it should get from the tags. It should not show JOE SAT->3.WMA. Again, basic stuff that Lexar did wrong.
Other Comments:
* I saw other comments about the drive being loose when put in the player. It does have some wiggle that they should have worked out but the drive doesn't come out easily so it's not a big deal, for now.
Overall:
* If you're going to swap a bunch of low capacity drives then this player might be okay. If you're going to put in one high capacity drive don't buy this player.
23 Great MP3 Player, Great Price
I ordered this little guy last week with a 512 MB JumpDrive Sport. I like this because I have about 6 hours of music and this is the only player with choices. I used to have 2 choices - an Ipod (Major Overkill) or a 128 player that will only hold 1/4 of my music. I had to cut the bitrate back on my music to 160 kbps, but I haven't seen (I mean herd) a difference. If ifill up my card, i can buy another. The earbuds are also great. They have good sound. Thanks Lexar! Great Idea!
24 Poorly made
I really liked the idea of this MP3 player, and you can't beat the price. However, I've encountered the same manufacturing defect twice. I originally ordered a JumpGear player from TigerDirect through Amazon. It came with a loose connection in the headphone port so that the slightest movement causes the sound to cut in and out of the left headphone. I immediately returned the player, but thought I would give the Lexar player one more try since it was so inexpensive. This time I ordered directly from Amazon, and it just arrived today. Exact same problem as the other one. I tried adjusting the jack to every possible position, and using a differen set of ear buds. I can get both headphones to work, but only if the player remains completely still.
I think Lexar has designed a good product; it's unfortunate that they haven't bothered to make sure it is made well.
25 Great buy for the money
I ordered this MP3 player along with a 1GB jumpdrive sport during a Black Friday sale. I am very pleased with the functionality of it. It's very simple. I already lost the instruction manual for it, so I have been trying to figure out the various functions on my own and it has been very easy thus far.
Some Pros:
1. Cheap. When combined with the 1GB jumpdrive, I paidabout 99 bucks for a 1GB MP3 player. I compare this to a 2GB I-pod mini that will run me $300.
2. Simple interface. I'm a fan of the text-base screen and the simple blue backlight to see what's going on.
3. Battery life. Granted, I don't listen to it very loudly, but so far the batteries have lasted me three days of constant use. (I'm using the factory AAA's that came with it)
Some Cons:
1. There is a minor click when the MP3 player occasionally reads from the jumpdrive.
2. The placement of the jumpdrive is such that when I press the buttons on top, I'm afraid of putting too much pressure on the jumpdrive to where it will bend it. The movement is very minor, but enough to cause minor concern with me.
3. Where's the stop button??
Overall---very good for the money. You're not going to get a cool touch dial or anything, but for the money it's a great buy.
26 A wonderful little gem
I bought this as a low-price MP3 player, crossed my fingers, and discovered a gem. The memory-sticks are coming down in price everyweek and I use my 512 to carry huge documents to and from work, in addition to a 100+ songs. The player is durable, beautifully designed, and burns two AA batteries every 20 days, based on an hour a day. Even better, I don't feel paranoid because my headphones are marking me out as a potential mugging victim. If I lost this one, I would be out $35 dollars and I would buy another one tomorrow. Just perfect for what I wanted.
27 This is what we've been waiting for!
This MP3 PLAYER ROCKS! Forget the Ipods and the everything else, this is everything you need. I'm a student and on a typical day, I take my Jumpgear and my Jumpdrive everywhere I go. I can put all the music I want to listen to on that particular day on my jumpdrive and then have space left over to save notes from class, assignments done in the library, and music from a friend's laptop!
I've owned quite a few mp3 players and this is BY FAR the most versitile and useful.
28 For $40 what do you want?
First of all, I have an iPod, but don't like to exercise with it as I'm always afraid it's going to drop. I have an iRock 520 which I love - it's light and sounds very good. But it requires proprietary software and a special USB cable. And with an additional SD card, it only has 192 MB.
So now I have an MPC-231 - and to go with it, I purchased a 1 GB JumpDrive Sport. Here's what I think:
Good points: pretty light (2.6 oz. with batteries). It's plastic but pretty well built. Takes up to 1 GB jumpdrive Sport, I encode stuff for this at 128, so it holds a lot of music. Uses AAA batteries instead of proprietary battery. And of course, it's only $40.
Bad points: Jumpdrive sport is a bit loose when installed, but that should not be a problem. Headphones that came with unit are pretty bad. Buy a better pair of earbuds. EQ function limited, no extra bass or loudness control.
Did I mention that it is only $40? Combined with the 1 GB Jumpdrive sport at about $80, I have a 1 GB MP3 player that also holds other files which I transport back and forth to work and needs NO additional hardware or software.
This sounds like a winner! Good job, Lexar.
29 Starting to love it... But need help ...
I got this player from amazon a month ago.
I have a Dell Jukebox 15gb too. So my comparisons would be based on that and clarify some other reviews on this website. I try not to repeat saying stuff in other reviews.
* This player uses a directory tree structure for navigation. So you can have any subfolder in the folders.
* You can have data files in the same folders as the music files or in seperate folders. These data files won't be recognised by the mp3 player, hence reducing the hassle of having to find out "playable" files.
* The sound with the stock headphones was good (better than the dell player)
* You can't get a better deal for an mp3 player as of now. I got a 1gb mp3 player for less than 100 bucks!!! The only competitor is Sandisk but they don't have a 1gb usb drive. But that player looks better.
* You want to FF a song (Keep press the FF button)
* You want to jump to the next song (press the FF button once)
Things not explained in the user guidelines.
* You can add 1 bookmark to each file. The way to do this is not described in the user guidelines. ITS NOT IN THE MENU either. You have to keep pressed the volume button for a few seconds till the bookmark menu pops up.
* To go to a bookmark - Play the file and then keep press the FF button, it will find the bookmark.
* If you are inside a menu and want to return to the main screen - press the play button once.
* If you are inside a menu and you want to come back one step out, press the REW button.
* To power off the device, keep the play button pressed until the shutdown screen comes up.
.....more to come.... as I find out new stuff :)
Temperory feedback......
Now in between I get an error message saying "jumpdrive not inserted" or "searching root directory" . Is this common ? What is a workaround for this. Can someone mail me at murd1998@yahoo.com incase you've used it. Please use the words "lexar mp3" in the subject line. I will come back and edit this and remove these lines once I get some answers rather than just post a bad review about this. Thanks
Update on the above problem : The customer service told me to format the jumpdrive once and see if the problem comes up again. I didn't format it yet as I didn't face the problem after that day. Will let you know if something happens :)
30 Pretty good ... for the price
The idea of an mp3 player that uses removable storage is great. You can take a half-dozen jump drives with you in your pocket and have access to enough music for an entire vacation.
But the Lexar media player has some problems:
1) The USB drive seems loose when it is plugged in. Also, it seems to be getting looser - wearing out (as a previous reviewer has noted).
2) The interface is terrible - very clumsy. The navigation wheel is also a button, but pushing it has no effect most of the time. I end up having to push the button a dozen times to get the song to play.
3) The preset EQs are not very effective - none of them have emphasized bass, for example.
4) Some mp3s play with a lot of background noise - like a low-level white noise or static. There is nothing wrong with the mp3s - they play perfectly on my iRiver player, in winamp, Windows Media Player, etc. Only the Lexar player has trouble with them.
5) WMA support is very very poor. Most of my WMAs (encoded at 192Kbps) pop and skip when played through the Lexar media player. I have pretty much given up trying to play WMA files with it.
6) Surprisingly, battery life isn't very good. The player takes two AAA batteries. I use 750mAh rechargables and get about 8 hours of playing time with them. By comparison, my iRiver player takes a single 2100mAh AA rechargable and lasts more than 20 hours. I am guessing that accessing the jump drive is expensive in power terms - not navigating around a lot (i.e. just letting the player play through the whole drive sequentially) could lengthen the battery life.
Overall, I am happy with the price of this player and with the convenience of being able to load media to it without special programs (such as the iRiver players require). I am hoping that the player is flashable (though I don't have any reason to believe that it is) so that when Lexar works out the bugs that cause some mp3's and wma's to play poorly they can post a patch.
31 An add-on to the jumpdrive or for expandability
I would recommend that people buy this MP3 player for one of two reasons. First, if you need or want a flash drive, buy the player as an add-on to the jumpdrive. If you just want a good music player, buy a dedicated unit. Admittedly, it's cheaper to buy this player and a 512 MB jumpdrive separately than buying an integrated unit, but the combo has three negatives. First of all, mine experiences odd 2-3 second pauses every 20-30 minutes of play. Secondly, it is bigger than other solid state players out now. Lastly, the display is underwhelming. On the other hand, if you own a jumpdrive, this is easy way to tack on a MP3 player. Second reason to buy this product is for expandability. I have been using variable sampling rate WMA files, and I have found that Microsoft is overestimating or over-touting the capabilities of their product (surprise!), the compression capabilities of variable rate WMA, in this case. At average of 170 kbs sampling rate (much higher than what the Media Player estimates for mid-level sampling), 6 CD's will nearly fill a 512MB drive. (...)
32 no amount shown!!
i want to know how much music is stored on amazon's mp3 players, but either i'm missing something or they don't tell you. START SHOWING IT!!!!
33 bookmark problem
It's a great little device for simple MP3 playing.
***Earphones***
The earphones are metal, very good quality, and sturdy. They fit snug enough to stay in my ears for jogging, but their nice, solid weightiness seems to give them enough momentum to come out during bouncing activity for some people. They should have made the plug L-shaped instead of straight so that it doesn't stick so far out from the unit.
***Strapping It Down***
There is absolutely no place to clip, strap, or string the device to secure it, so pressure on the earphone plug is a potential problem if kept in a pants pocket (pressure and bumps could make the connections in the jack come loose). But if your pants pocket is roomy and not tight against your thigh, it is not a problem. I have bumped it a few times and it is still a very study jack and plug. For the adventurous, a hole could be drilled in the plastic port for a string (necklace).
***Bookmarks***
A bookmark is set by pressing and holding the volume knob for a second, which isn't in the instructions. The Lexar's bookmark function only works for the first 6 MB of audio because that is its memory limit when loading a file. For example, a voice MP3 (32 kbps quality) can be bookmarked anywhere, but it only works for the first 30 minutes (30 minutes is 6 MB at 32 kbps). The fast-forward goes at a rate of 15 minutes per 1 minute of holding down the fast-forward button. The button is very firm and I can barely hold it down for a minute without having to change fingers. It's a barely-tolerable situation for audio books, unless you break the files into 6 MB files using an MP3 splitter - do a web search on "mega MP3 splitter" to find a free program that will split large files. If you want to read books from the internet, Textaloud is the program to convert them to big or small MP3 files. Reversing will not start at the end of a file. For bookmarks within the first 6 MB, you have to wait 5 seconds after pressing play before the bookmark can be found because it takes 5 seconds to load the 6 MB. It's finished loading when the green light stops flashing.
34 first and cheap mp3 player
now i am an international customer(outside the us). bought the jumpdrive, 512. works great. the player has alright quality and for its price. has some nice features, very simple , what you expect for the price,
very small,
easy to use.
i would recommend you buy this item if you want a cheap mp3 player and a jumpdrive to store you music and other files
35 Poor bookmark support
I'm not sure how audiobookfan is managing, but the bookmark support on this unit kills it for me. It appears that you can't jump to a bookmark unless your current play position is within the RAM buffer, which is only a few minutes long. So to find your place in a 1 or 2 hour spoken-word file requires you to manually fast-forward to your position. Completely unusable for this application.
There's quite a bit of digital noise that makes its way into the audio circuitry. This can be annoying for soft passages.
Toss out the supplied ear-bud headphones and buy a nice pair (I prefer outside-the-ear).
The navigation is pretty clumsy. MP3 tags are not displayed until a track is played. So initially you are navigating through a list of MP3 filenames, which are displayed in a truncated 8.3 format. This makes many songs look alike.
You can organize your albums into folders, and do some rudimentary navigation that way.
But for the price, you can't beat it. Buy at least a 512 MB drive to go with it.
36 Greate idea, can't beat the price
The idea of this MP3 is great, memory card and player are totally separate, so you can upgrade either. It servs as a MP3 player and a portable drive at the same time, no cable, no software needed.
One note, you do need to use a software like Media player or MusicMatch to export a playlist to make sure the tracks are played in the desired sequence. Otherwise it plays the tracks based on the time of the track file, it may not be what you want.
The price of this MP3 player is unbeatable, I paid about 100 bucks for this and a 512MB card, if you buy other flash MP3 you can not get 128MB. Yes the display is small, and it does not have any bell and whistle, but it gets job done. It is best suitable for audio book listening because of the simple menu, for music it is not as easy to navigate as Rio but still OK. For the price it is a no brainer.
Now the bad things:
1. though you can make bookmarks, they are for each file, you still need to navigate until you reached the track to use the bookmark, there is no way to jump from the beginning of a play list to the bookmark directly.
2. the case for the jump drive exposed a big portion of the card so it looks kind of bizarre, I'd prefer there is a cover and do not mind to pay a few bucks more.
37 Review
Begin Update Sep-30-2004:
As schrodycat said, bookmarks do not work for long files. If you search for one over roughly 8-10 minutes ahead, it skips the whole track. Unfortunately, this is exactly when you need bookmarks :-(. While fast forward works, fast backwards screws up also on large files, making audiobook listening a pain. It looks like the player gets confused when its internal buffer gets refreshed. I'll still rate it 4, for value, as most people don't need bookmarks. But book listeners do.
End update.
To the earlier reviewer W.V. Voltmer:
You *can* save bookmarks with this player. The sketchy instructions that came with it don't tell you how to, though they do tell you how to *remove* a bookmark (something you would never be bothered doing).
Here's how:
While playing a track, hold the little wheel thingy down for a couple of seconds. It will stop showing the menu stuff and show a "Bookmark" screen, indicating that the bookmark is saved. It lives on after you turn off.
To use the book mark:
Start playing the track, and wait for a few seconds -- don't try to use the bookmark immediately. Then click (don't hold down) the Forward button. It will find the bookmark. You can zap back to the bookmark, too. It's a little tricky to get right, but it works. I confirmed this with Product Support after figuring it out. There is one bookmark possible per file. Post a note here if you need more help.
I bought this Lexar mp3 player specifically because it had bookmarks, because like Voltmer I wanted it for books on tape.
Review:
It's not a top-of-the-line player like an iPod (which absurdly does not have bookmarks), but for small memory player it's great:
1. Swappable memory (a necessity)
2. Ideal memory token -- unlike camera-style cards you need no reader, cables, or software. USB keyring tokens and ports will be around for a long time. You can pull the token out and grab stuff or give stuff, anywhere.
3. Cheap. I can lose it and not be upset.
Limitations:
1. Small screen and few buttons, as always, make things harder work.
An extra button would be good, as pushing down the wheel makes it
stick into your finger.
2. No carrying strap, so I put it in my pocket.
3. The b*stards made it only work with Lexar JumpDrive Sport usb tokens, but that's ok -- they're as good as any.
Comments:
1. The ear buds sound fine, but they didn't fit my ears. I got some Sony "H.Ear" ear buds for $9.99. But ear things are a whole nother universe.
2. The "Limitations" above are really a matter of price. You can't expect more for the money.
3. I bought the player without token, and a separate 256M token. I recommend going straight to 512M.
4. In summary, I love it but my son has hijacked it and now I'm going to have to buy another one.
38 Easy, affordable, flexible. Not without problems.
This item is very useful. You pay $40 for the mp3 player, and then as many of these USB drives as you'd like- and they're more and more affordable. Dollar-wise, it's an EXCELLENT bargain. $80 for 256MB. $120 for 512MB, and so on- do the math.
You can even store other data on the drives- the MP3 player won't complain.
And there's NO annoying software. You just put mp3s on the drive just like any other drive.
This item is about the size of a small flip-size cell phone, and very light. You can go jogging with this and not feel the weight.
The LCD screen is small, so hard to read. The operation is simple, but not very intuitive. Unless you pull it out and look at it, it takes some time to get used to it- all the buttons feel the same. The volume lever is nice though.
Battery life is good- 2 AAAs will last a good 15 hours easy, unless you run large headphones, backlight, and constant fiddling.
The major problems are:
- It's designed for easy, casual use (like jogging), but there's no CLIP or even a hole to string a cord through. Pocket or hands only. The headphones are just barely long enough.
This is the worst, worst problem. If you can deal with this, this thing is perfect for you.
- As someone else has noted, the headphone jack is exposed. It's possible that you can get it caught and ripped out- but given that it has to go in the pocket anyways, it's not a huge problem.
Overall, I paid $80 for this and am very happy- no other $80 mp3 player comes close in the flexibility.
39 Great concept, needs polishing.
It's wonderfully easy to load MP3s onto this and it plays nicely. I've had two problems:
1. The display read Insert JumpDrive when the JumpDrive was firmly in place. After reformatting, this problem went away.
2. I use mine to listen to audiobooks, in increments of about 30 minutes. Ideally I'd like to load up a couple hours of audio and start each time from where I left off. The JumpGear does not remember where it left off, neither the position in a track nor the track number.
40 Very good value for your money
I bought this mp3 player for my wife together with Lexar JumpDrive and she loves it!!!!... one of its best features is the flexibility of using the flash memory for both moving normal files and loading mp3's which she can then listen to in the Jump Gear... the only thing that it misses is a clip so that it can be straped to the pants while walking/jogging... anyway, these two make a great couple.
41 Well worth the money
Despite a few minor drawbacks, this player really performs. The entire unit is a bit bulky compared to other players, but is comfortable to use, especially with the rubber buttons and unique volume control/menu button. Probably the best feature is its flexibility. You can get a Jumpdrive from 64 - 512 MB, depending on your needs. And since the drives are USB 2.0, you can load up with music pretty quickly. And for the audiophiles, the sound quality is good, on par with anything from Creative, although I would recommend replacement earbuds/headphones. The only real disappointments are the random function (which I can't get to work correctly), and the necessity of 2 AAA batteries as opposed to other players that only require 1. But if you can live with those, this is an excellent mp3 player for those who want flexibility and performance without having to shell out $300 for an iPod.
42 Was it worth it?
Picked this up and a 256MB jumpdrive for my wife. She had NO issues with getting MP3's from her MAC to the drive. Pretty much figured out how to use it and is happy with it. There are 2 small issues with this though.
1. It is difficult to access the menu (to change backlighting, etc). Anyone else have this issue?
2. When using the play music randomly, it's not very random. My wife was real disappointed in that.
But for $40 for the player and $25 for the swappable USB memory pretty good deal.
43 Questionable reliability, frustrating support
The idea is great. The execution is not.
My JumpGear MP3 worked with one JumpDrive Sport (512MB) but not with another (256MB). Both JumpDrives work with my PC (although only through a USB hub, neither was recognized by the primary USB ports, but that's another story).
So, three Lexar products, two "good" JumpDrives but one doesn't work with the JumpGear. For a product that invites you to swap multiple JumpDrives in and out, this is a real problem. Prime suspect would be either the JumpGear USB connector or the JumpDrive 256 USB connector -- but unless both connectors are good for the long haul, this product will not live up to its promise.
Lexar Customer Support did call back, as promised, spent most of their time attempting to replicate the problem on their end, and offering to replace the JumpGear if it did't work with their JumpDrive (a 50/50 proposition, based on my experience). They are only authorized to handle RMAs. They are not equipped (or interested) to figure out what was wrong.
44 Great value for the cost
Sometimes the most useful things are the simplest ones, and this little guy fits that category. The controls are simple and straightforward, the buttons are rugged rubber, and the battery life is exceptional if you turn off the backlight. The earbud headphones that are included are sturdy but may lack a little in reproducing bass sound; I plugged in a larger pair of Sony headphones that I use on my computer and the sound quality from this guy was equal to listening to MP3s on my PC. I could fit about 50 songs on a 256MB card, which is enough to last me a week before I want to change them. And reloading songs from a PC is *so* easy with the USB technology. Make no mistake, this isn't an iPod, but it's very small, easy to use, and very practical.
