In Praise of the MuVo

Ok. I've had MP3 player problems over the years.

Back in the day, I had an iRiver something or other which had only had 256MB in storage. I liked that thing alot. It took a AA battery and it worked fine. I gave it to a friend when I 'upgraded' to the original iPod Mini-- which I never really liked. I rarely buy music anymore (sorry music) so I don't need iTunes (which I always found confusin). The sync thing always confused me. I never knew where my files were. I don't like MP4. I never charged it so it was always dying or freezing to death. I didn't like the 'cutesy' simple interface. I felt like it was totally overrated. I just wanted buttons. We never got along.

So I got something called a Toshiba Gigabeat (40 GB) which I liked because it had buttons and stuff- but I could never figure out how to sort by album which made me crazy. All my Beatles songs would be all mixed up! Who needs that? And I couldn't even sort by track #. Only by name alphabetically. Plus the volume didn't go loud enough. It didn't crank. And I didn't charge that thing alot either so it was half-dead or dead most of the time. Eventually the screen cracked with that blurry digital rainbow weirdness and its been sitting on my shelf waiting to be pulled off the bench to serve as some sort of backup drive at some point... or so I tell it.

So for months now I simply haven't been listening to music except on my computer and that's always on shuffle. But I've been missing listening to full albums. With new music coming and recent music I've missed (a friend of mind told me the Spoon album is great and I haven't given it a day in court yet). I decided to break down and get a new mp3 player... again.

I did some research and looked for my specs:

- I wanted something that took a regular battery. I simply am not responsible enough to charge something daily.
- It needed to have a simple interface and not need some crap software to move stuff around or sync.
- I didn't need alot of storage. (Does anyone need 80GB of storage? I don't even want that much because that would be a massive organizational project for me. I'd be futzing with it always trying to get it sorted or deleting duplicates and renaming stuff. )
- It needed regular buttons. Not flat or spinny crap.
- I didn't want it to do anything else but play music-- and especially albums easily and in order!

So I got this thing called a Creative MuVo V100 and I friggin lovvve it so far. No iTunes program stupidness! When I put music on it all I do is drag... And drop. Folder to folder. Done and done. No sync nuttiness! Anything that's in a folder (aka album) is recognized that way on the player. In order. I can rename stuff easy.  It takes a AAA battery which hasn't burnt out yet. They say it can go for 25 hours. The sound quality is good. And it cranks. So no no-charge nag and if it ever dies I just buy a new battery! Who would have thunk it!? Did I mention it was only $67?

Sure it's early and maybe there's problems down the road for this thing (it does feel slightly rickity). But so far so good! I haven't been this crazy about an electronic device in a long time. And I've been walking down the street listening to the full new Bruce (rocks) plays in track order and new Radiohead (which I haven't paid for... yet...) --- and just wanted to give props to my new Muvo toy for being everything I wanted... so far. Simple!

Off to listen to ALBUMS again...

ok bye!

tOdd

PS. No this isn't a paid advertisement. But if Creative wants to retro pay that's fine with me too...

PPS. Congrats to What's Happening! 700th post!