"Affordable, but construction shows it" I'm about to buy another of these, but that's because I now have real money sunk into the memory usb-drives (1G + 256M) and hope a second one won't wear out in six months like the first.
#1: I echo all the complaints about forgetting the last location and slow navigation to find it again. Also, I add that if you pause the thing, it auto-turns-off in about 2 minutes. I'm constantly pausing it to pay at a cashier, then discovering it off when I leave the store 3 minutes later. In the middle of track 137.
But I could live with that, the problem is its kind of fragile.
Granted, I've dropped it many times, but that results from holding it on my belt with a big rubber band in part - if only they'd included a clip!
About the 8th time I dropped it, the display went funny - the LCDs very dim so that I'm tilting it at an angle to see the words.
Around the 12th time, the headphone jack came a little loose, so that I have more rubber bands now holding the plug to one side so that I don't lose the right speaker sound.
Then the display went much worse one day without it being dropped. Now it looks OK until I hit a button - any button - and it goes crazy; I suspect another loose connection in there.
These things are sold mainly for athletic activity: they need to be rugged!
And I also echo all the bad comments about dumb user interface and displays. The lack of song titles is just egregious. From Roy Brander, January 31, 2005
"JumpGear MP3" I was sold on this product mainly because you are not confined to flash drive the vendor designates (e.g 64, 128...)(Mine came with 1 GB drive) I didnt want the inconvenience of having to make room for new songs too frequently because I was out of space.
However I do agree that it does lack some of the basic features that other MP3 players have. Which makes it kind of annoying to use sometimes. Hopefully the firmware is upgradable, when they get some more basic features built-in.
As for having no belt clip, which was my biggest peeve because I like to workout to music. I sent them an email about it, and this was there response;
Yes, we have a carrying case that will clip to your belt. It will hold your JumpGear MP3 player as well as extra JumpDrive Sports. The part number is Wallet-JG-231 and the cost is $12.99 each.
I double checked to see if they were available from our on-line store but they were not though we have them in stock. We will get them added to the website asap. Please check the Lexar on-line store next week to see if they are up there. They would be listed in the accessories section as well as the JumpGear section of the store.
From Rudebwoy, January 03, 2005
"Lacks basic features" While I rated this 1-star it's really not too bad for the price. The thing is that it 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
Con:
* 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.
* 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. Why would I care about the file format? Yet 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. From Dave, December 23, 2004
"Great Inexpensive Alternative" To correct one thing mentioned by the last reviewer. It does have a power off button. Just hold the play button for about 5 seconds and it turns off.
I have an iPod and for more variety, or long trips, I take it. I got this Jumpgear-MP3 for a very cheap price with a 512MB JumpDrive at Buy.com. It's perfect for when you don't want the bulk of something larger, don't want a hard-drive-based device, and/or don't want to worry about losing or damaging something (working out, whatever).
My only wish is that Audible supported it. Otherwise, works as it should (reads ID3 tags just fine).
I'd recommend it if you can get it at a cheap price. Works very well.
From Pigskin, September 10, 2004
"eah, it's just ok" I do and I don't recommend it. If you could get it for $20 then it would be worth it. The problems I found were that the player doesn't have a power off button. I have to remove the battery cover to shut it off completely. It has 60 second shut off feature but there isn't even a stop button. You have to pause it and just let it shut off on it's own. Then I noticed that sometimes it would tell me to insert the jumpdrive sport as if the connection was lost. So I had to remove it then re-insert it just to play the next song.
Pros: It has a digital display with an indiglo backlight. Small but not too small. Lockable to prevent an accidental button press.
Cons: The design of this unit leaves the headphone jack vulnerable. There is no real way to carry this unit except in your pocket or hand. Has no belt clip nor available accessory to wear the jumpgear on your arm. No power off button. Slight issue with jumpdrive not being as snug and secure as it should be.
I wish Lexar would produce a rubber condom styled protector that would wrap the entire unit yet expose the display. Then possibly have clip off some sort on the back of this protector.
From Cayotic, August 24, 2004
"Best micro-sized MP3 player out there!" Skeptical that such a small MP3 player could do anything but look cute, I ordered one along with two drive, 512 and 256MB. What I found once I received it was a very efficient, very powerful way to carry around 4-6 hours worth of great sounding music without the bulk of my hard drive-based player.
The JumpGear is VERY plastic, with rubber control buttons. Although it has a two year warranty from Lexar, my one big concern has been the longevity of the unit because of the plastic housing - not because of the inside. I've had my unit for a couple of months now. The only negative I have found is actually a JumpDrive Sport problem, because the red plastic trim on one of my drives peeled back from the memory drive after I dropped it when not in the rubber protective cover (it was only glued on, so another drop of glue and I was back in business.).
Normal AAA alkalines wore out on me after between 15-20 hours, depending on how much "button punching" I was doing. If I didn't use the backlight, place a lot of "seek and find" demands on it and use the smaller headphones, I could push battery life to 25 hours. I would definitely suggest rechargeable NiMH batteries for this unit - inherently cheaper in the long run! The NiHM batteries last about the same (or a tad less) time as the Alkalines - but again the tradeoff is whether or not you want to keep paying for alkalines all the time.
I have two sets of headphones that I have used with the JumpGear - a "behind the neck" Sennheiser PMX60, and a full-size Sennheiser HD-280 Pro. I found the earbuds that came with the unit to be very uncomfortable - but that's my personal preference, I've never been able to wear them. The "behind the ears" are great, and not too hard on batteries - and you don't have to crank the sound up all the way to get quality/quantity. On the full-size HD-280 Pro set, however, the drain on the power supply (batteries) was so great that I was burning a set of two AAA Alkalines out in 10 hours or so. To assist with that I purchased a small, add-on portable amplifier that not only provides punch to the sound, but enhanced battery usage, pushing the life of the Alkalines to about 18 hours before fading.
Sound is more than adequate, and the JumpGear is fairly simple to operate. I'd highly recommend this gear for anyone looking for a pint-sized, quality music player! From Lisa Bohm, June 29, 2004
We're currently upgrading our user review system; so we won't be accepting new reviews for now. JumpGear-MP3 Specs
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, MacOS 8.6, MacOS 9.1, MacOS X
Dimensions
--
Weight
--
Natively supported music format(s)
MP3, WMA
Signal to noise ratio
Battery life
14 hrs.
Storage
64MB bundled flash drive
Storage expansion type
Lexar JumpDrive Sport USB flash drive
FM tuner
No
Voice recording
No
Software
None
Remote included?
No
Inputs / outputs
Headphone jack
Extras?
--
Screen
--
Photo import?
--
Natively supported video format(s)
--
Max output
--
Line-in recording?
--
Power source
Self- or bus-powered
Warranty
One year
Extras Turn on and off this self-powered device automatically with your PC.
Lost a USB cable? Get a replacement USB cable.
Running out of USB ports? Get an extra USB hub.
You may need a new USB card to achieve Hi-Speed USB speeds.
Confirm with our USB 2.0 FAQ if you have Hi-Speed USB on your PC.
Where to buy Lexar JumpGear-MP3?
Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Everything USB
