|
16 NOVEMBER 2004 |
|
mobiBLU DAH-1200 MP3 Player |
|
With the
overflowing amount of MP3
players to choose from in the
market today, it can become a
daunting task to decide which
one to buy. Since there really
has not been any technological
advances in the playing of music
files, the companies' main
concern has been refining the
player. Companies mainly
differentiate their MP3 players
either through design or
features. The design of an
MP3 player includes making it
smaller and more compact. On the
other hand, companies can also
add a unique set of features
such as a longer battery life or
the ability to play multiple
types of media files. Today, I
will be reviewing the mobiBLU
DAH-1200 MP3 player. This
MP3 player is a flash based
player with a maximum capacity
of 256MB.
The mobiBLU brand name has been
established by a company called
Hyun Won Inc which was
established in January 2003.
In other words, this is a fairly
new company. They focus on
products that provide many
features, but at a very
affordable price. In
addition, their products offer
intuitive instructions,
software, features while having
a compact design. Let's
find out if this company's
products are able to compete
with the products offered by the
more well known companies.
|
|
|
|
|
|

|
|
The DAH-1200 came
in a roundish plastic container.
The front of the package shows the
device itself so that you can see
immediately what it looks like.
The back of the box lists all the
features and specifications of the
product. I like the way how well
the back of the box is organized because
it directly tells the consumer exactly
what they are getting. When
opening the package, I was glad to find
that the package included almost all the
accessories you will need for the
product. The package includes the
device itself, a docking station,
earphones, USB adapter, line-in cable,
software, a manual, neck strap, and a AAA battery. I was glad that
mobiBLU followed the trend of other
Korean-based MP3 players and did not
skimp on the amount of included
accessories. All the extra
accessories included provide an immense
value to the consumer.
|
|
|
 |

|
|
 |

|
|
|
|
|
|
When looking at the
DAH-1200, the device itself is really
not too big or too small compared with
other flash-based MP3 players I have
seen. Because of the white finish,
this player does have some resemblance
to the iPod look. The buttons
around the player have a silver look.
The player has the
usual important buttons. The play,
forward, and rewind buttons are
controlled with the use of a jog-wheel.
The jog-wheel makes it easy to switch
between tracks by moving the wheel from
one side to another. There is also
another jog-wheel type button which
allows you to control the volume of the
player. There is also an SRS
effect button which allows you to switch
between the different effects used to
enhance the music you are listening to.
Lastly, there is a button which allows
you set 'points' in a song so you can
have it play just that section.
This is a very useful tool if you are
having trouble hearing the words from
the artist's voice and are trying to
learn the words to the song.
The top of the
device has the built in headphone jack
as well as the built-in microphone which
is just a tiny hole in the player.
The other end of the device contains the
small USB port, line-in port, and
battery compartment access. In
addition, the back of the device has a
hold button which is very useful to
prevent accidental presses which may
turn on the player and drain the
battery.
The LCD screen on
the device is just about right. It
is big enough to see all the information
on the screen and you don't sense that
the screen is too small either.
When pushing buttons on the player, you
will notice that the player has a blue
backlight which is bright enough to see
the text clearly in a dark environment.
This device is one
of the few MP3 players I've seen that
includes a docking station. The
docking station makes it easier to
transfer files to your player assuming
you have the docking station already
plugged in. Rather than messing
around with a long USB cable, the
docking station also adds a bit of style
and coolness with its glowing blue rim.
When the device was
playing the sample soundtrack, the
interface looked a bit generic, but well
organized. The top of the screen
shows the type of file that is playing,
the battery level, and the volume level.
The battery level is indicated with a
battery icon which is filled with three
bars when full. The volume level
is represented with a number ranging
from 0-30. The middle of the
screen shows the number of the track as
well as the time that has elapsed on the
song. The bottom of the screen
shows the title of the song that is
currently playing. Lastly, the
right side of the screen shows a
vertical bar also indicating the volume
as well as the various equalizations
available. Equalizations available
include Live, Classic, Jazz, Dance, and
Rock. You can also customize the
equalizer to your needs if necessary.
|
|
 |
 |

|
|
 |
 |

|
|
|
|
|
Installation of the device is
minimal. All you need to
do is plug in the provided USB
docking station into your
computer. Then, you
securely place the device into
the docking station. My
Windows XP computer was able to
immediately detect the device
without any additional software
or device drivers. Windows
automatically installed its
built-in drivers and the device
showed up as a removable drive
in 'My Computer'.
Essentially, this means that
this device can also be used as
a flash drive to store files if
needed. In addition, you
can transfer files easily by
just opening up the drive and
dragging and dropping your music
files into its main folder.
You only need to install the
software on the provided CD if
you would like to take advantage
of the software.
With the recent release of the
product, I was a bit
disappointed when I found out
that this MP3 player is only USB
1.1. When transferring my
MP3 files onto the device one by
one, it took about 5-10 seconds
to transfer a 192kbps rate MP3
song. That isn't too bad
until you try and transfer a
bunch of songs.
Transferring about 10 songs
encoded at 192kbps took about 5
minutes. MobiBLU really
needs to stay ahead of
technology and put USB 2.0
support in the device.
Although the device is only USB
1.1 compatible, I tested the
speeds of the device as it were
a flash drive to see how well it
compares to other devices
similar in its class. I
used both SiSoft Sandra and
HDTach to test the device.
The speed of the device is fast
on extremely small files, but is
a bit slower when transferring
larger files. The HDTach
results indicate that the device
was able to read at a constant
0.8MB/s which is about what is
expected for a USB 1.1 device.
|
|

click to enlarge
|

click to enlarge |
|
|
|
|
|
Throughout this review,
I’ve been referring to this device as an MP3
player. This is not entirely accurate.
This MP3 player also has an FM tuner, Voice
Recorder, and Line-In recorder all-in-one.
For radio quality, the FM Tuner was very clear.
By holding down the forward or rewind buttons,
it will automatically scan the frequencies for
an active radio station.
|
|
|
|
With a 90dB signal to noise ratio,
this player was able to produce sounds very clearly.
With no equalization involved, I would on average play
music at around 22-25. The maximum volume level is
30. When testing the player with songs mainly with
solo voices, I enjoyed the clarity and the treble the
player had to offer. The earphones provided with
the product is only a temporary solution, but is still
welcome in the package. The headphones are very
clear for mid's and high's, but has some trouble with
deeper tones on bass heavy music. There was some
slight distortion on the bass on the provided
headphones.
Next, I used higher end headphones
(Sennheiser HD497) to listen to the sound on the player.
When listening to my usual mix of songs, I was able to
hear the songs in the high quality that I have been
accustomed to. I had no complaints at all about
the sound quality from then on.
|
|
|
This player offers both
equalization as well as SRS, WOW, and T.B sound
enhancements. Even with the HD497 headphones, I
didn't really like the overall effects of the SRS and
WOW sound enhancements. I have to admit that they
did make the mid and high's more vibrant and rich in
sound. With the sound enhancements on though, the
bass in the songs sounded a bit distorted and clunky.
The only enhancement that was decent was the T.B.
These enhancements can be selected by cycling through
them when pressing the SRS button on the device.
I found the equalization to be more useful. You
are able to choose between the presets such as Live,
Rock, Jazz, Classic, etc. In addition, if one of
the presets doesn't suit you, you can customize your own
equalization with their basic equalization meter. |
|
|
It is quite obvious
that no one is going to run the battery on the device
continuously for 9 hours or so. Instead, I used the player in my
daily routine using it in multiple intervals of
approximately 10-20minutes. While using it, I
would frequently do things such as changing the the
volume or moving between tracks. I changed the
volume a lot because different songs are recorded
differently, therefore, they are heard optimally at
different volumes. This procedure is a better
determination of the battery life.
With an advertised battery life of 9 hours, the DAH-1200
is immediately placed behind because MP3 flash-based
players these days seem to have an average of 15 hours.
Then of course, it is possible that each company
measures their battery life differently, since there
seems to be no standard in making measurements of
battery life in electronic devices. Compared with
JetAudio's iAUDIO 4 which had a rated 15 hours of
continuous playback, I was surprised to find that the
DAH-1200 was able to last almost just as long as that
device. |
|
|
There are several things
that mobiBLU can do to improve this player.
First of all, I would like to see USB 2.0
support in this product. Many other MP3
players already have this standard.
Because of the speeds USB 2.0 has to offer, it
will greatly reduce the time to transfer files.
The other major thing that
they can do is improve the battery life.
Although I have to admit that their rated
battery life was very realistic because I almost
got a full 9 hours, it doesn't hurt for the
product to have an even greater battery life. |
|
|
|
MobiBLU's DAH-1200 is overall a very decent
player. It not only plays sound well, but has other
desirable features such as a FM tuner, voice recorder, and
line-in recorder. Considering that this product has been
recently released, many people will be hard-pressed that this
device only supports USB 1.1. Other than this setback, I
have to admit that the 9 hours of battery life advertised with
the product is almost a full 9 hours even under the situation of
non-continuous playback. This doesn't do the product
justice because a consumer eventually comparing a product in
terms of battery life may immediately choose the product which
"says" it has a higher battery life. You can
purchase the product at
http://www.mobibluamerica.com/ at the price of $119 which is
certainly reasonable for a product with many features.
|
|
Reviewed by
ronald@digitalreviews.net |
|
|
|