When Jens of Sweden approached me review their latest flash-based MP3 player, the MP-400, I was a little bit confused. They don’t exactly press heavily into the US market, to my knowledge, sticking mainly to their native Finland (I kid. It’s Norway). But I thought what the hell, I haven’t used any of their players before, and the neckstrap headphones were intriguing. I think the idea of gadgets as fashion accessories is appealing, but does anyone actually wear these things? For a few hours over the last couple of weeks I did just that.
I got a lot of stares at first, which at first I chalked up to fact I was wearing a cigarette lighter-sized bit of white plastic around my neck. Then I realized that the MP-400 was flashing a blue LED every few seconds—I was a flashing beacon of dorkiness. Once I turned that bit off, the stares noticeably decreased. In fact, a few people even approached me and asked about the unit, marveling over its small size.
And it is small—it never felt heavy around my neck—but still manages to cram in 1GB of memory and a ton of features, including voice recording (built-in mic or line-in) and FM radio tuning. That’s probably the best thing about the MP-400: it can do pretty much anything you would expect a portable player to.
The interface is a bit confusing at first, but it can be picked up fairly quickly without the manual (although I did have to refer to the ample instructions to figure out how to tune the radio). Unfortunately, the bright, crisp OLED screen is too small to properly display song titles, especially since it shows the whole file name and not just the titles themselves. It scrolls them along, though, so you’ll get it eventually, but I found it easier to just start playing a song and move through by ear (you can tweak the scroll speed, though).
All in all, the interface is no iPod, but I think you knew I was going to say that. It’s very usable, though, it just takes a little bit more self-instruction.
As for the looks of the player itself, I like it a lot. The white goes with everything (but tends to stand out a bit, as well). The earbuds are a little large, but very comfortable (for earbuds) and actually sound pretty nice—some of the first I’ve used in a while that didn’t drive me crazy. You don’t have to use the bundled headphones, of course, but if you didn’t you’d lose a lot of the slickness.
Slickness you’ll pay for, too, as the 1GB version sells for something like $475—the price of a 40GB iPod plus some gear. Ultimately, for me, the features and form factor wouldn’t justify the price—wearing an iPod on my belt or in my coat isn’t a big hassle or anything—but if you want something that no one else has and have the money to burn, it’s a great little unit.
My only complaints, in fact, are that it doesn’t support AAC natively (not a big deal for most, but I have a ton of unprotected AAC files that don’t always transcode to MP3 properly for some reason) and that the little rubber USB port cover is sometimes hard to clip back into the side—it makes me wonder if it’ll just stop working at some point. It’s not quite a ‘pick up and go’ player, but if you’re willing to invest just a little bit of learning time, you’ll have one of the most unique music players out there.
The MP-400 is available in seven colors now, including the white I used. Also, if you go to the website, you can sample the new Jens of Sweden theme song, sung by the company founder Jens Nylander. It is sort of a beautiful disaster.
Home Page [JensOfSweden]
