THe MP3Juke MP3CD Player
Overview
This review sample of the MJ-2000 (MP-JUKE to you and me), is our second, the first unit was DOA, not due to the quality of the product, no, more due to the state of the box from the courier. So finally, after months of waiting, (CES 2000 back in January 2000) we've got our grubby hands on a MP-JUKE, so was it worth the wait.
First impressions are good, it feels solid and well built compared to all the other units we've played with, and I challenge you to find a better looking CD/MP3 player on the planet.
Buttons, switches, and Levers
I don't know if you have had chance to see up close one of the A-MEX range of NAPA players, but to open the lid you need to have fingers like a 5 year old, so its nice to find a good size latch on the MP-JUKE. But with 8 of the units 10 buttons and the large LCD on the lid its probably needed, 4 good size triangle shaped buttons operate the play functions (this is also possible with the Jog dial switch) while the 4 round buttons work the players mode/functions. The final 2 buttons are on the side, one of which is a very neat (although quite small) rocker switch for the volume/bass/treble/bit-rate, by pressing the switch while in the centred position selects the desired effect. The other switch on the side is for locking out the buttons, resume and off.
LCD
The LCD is without doubt the best we've seen on any CD/MP3 player, everything you need to know is on there, and the position of the display, dead centre of the unit only helps in making use of the MP-JUKE even more of a joy.
The displayed text is also quality, nice rounded letters and numbers replace the boxy ones of the past, the scrolling text of the ID3 Tag's is smooth, I mean real smooth no flashing on/off pixels here it seems to just drift across the display, add to that a backlight when on power supply, but only when on power supply, which is a shame, but I suppose battery life is more important.
In use
I tested this unit with the free MP3 disc that comes with MP3 Magazine here in the UK, from start-up to when it displays how many folders/songs are on disc took about 12 seconds, not bad when this disc has 3 folders with 40 songs on it, from there you can choose which folder you want to go into and then which song you wish to play.
The way it plays MP3 files is very special, the unit spins the disc for about 8 seconds, reads the data and buffers it to memory, only spinning again when the memory is nearly empty. So as you can guess the anti-shock on the MP-JUKE is excellent, in fact when its playing its really a soild state unit and not a CD/MP3 player.
As just a CD/DA player its not as capable as it is as a MP3/CD player, due to the fact that CD/DA files (songs) are to big for the player to buffer into its memory, so its anti-shock isn't as good.
Also the quite capable equalizer feature of the MP-JUKE doesn't work when playing CD/DA but that said if you want an MP3/CD player you don't really want it to play your audio CD's.
Battery life
First we tested the unit with 2 cheap alkaline batteries, which gave us around 1.5 hours of continuous CD audio play, and surprisingly around the same for continuous MP3/CD play, surprisingly because with the MP-JUKE not spinning the disc all the time during MP3 play we thought it should last longer, but maybe starting then stopping the disc uses as much power as spinning the disc constantly.
Second up, we tested the unit with 2 Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) rechargeable batteries that came with our sample unit, and were pleased to get nearly 6 hours of continuous use.
Verdict
By far the best MP3/CD player we've ever played with, and most likely the MP-JUKE is better than the ones we haven't.