There’s a really easy way to tell if you’d be interested in the JetAudio iAudio M3. If you like in-line remotes, give it a shot. If you can’t stand them – and I know there are some of you out there – don’t bother.
The iAudio makes a claim to be the World’s Smallest 20GB hard disk-based music player (there’s a 40GB version now, too) and it clearly is, as long as you ignore the inline remote, where the engineers have offloaded the LCD screen and most of the controls. It’s not a bad gimmick, really, and for somebody that uses in-line remote (I happen to love them), it really makes a lot of sense. In fact, if there are any serious failings of the iAudio M3, it’s in the controls and software, not the atypical form factor.
I write more words about the M3 after the jump.
The biggest problem with the M3 is that it’s sort of confusing to use. The bundled software for starters – it just doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense. I’m growing more stupider in my old age and even more obstinate in my refusal to read instructions. I had originally just copied a few folders over the M3 after Windows recognized it as a mass storage device and that seemed to work, at least until I tried adding some more folders, which the M3 didn’t index properly (making them unusable on the device itself).
Oddly, since I couldn’t get the “transfer” option of the JetShell transfer software to work, I ended up just copying and pasting about 13GB of music over in one fell swoop. That seemed to work, but it’s not going to make for the magical plug-and-sync that other players manage. To be fair, though, it may work with some tweaking, but I was too fussy and unconcerned to fuck around with it. I’m a bad person.
But once the music was on there, it worked fairly well, once you started to figure out the controls. The remote has not one, but two jog wheels, both with a push-in selection button. Add to that two more buttons – a ‘mode’ and a ‘record’ – and a hold switch and you’ve got a fairly convoluted system that is certain far from the most intuitive one I’ve ever seen. The seven line screen only displays about twelve characters across or so, as well, which is sparse to say the least, especially on a screen that’s only an inch or so across. But hey, that’s part of the deal.
The interface, though, is confusing. I’m only now starting to really figure out how to do everything, like switching up equalizer patterns on the fly while a song is playing or recording FM radio to a file without completely screwing everything up. The lack of a retard-proof ‘menu’ or ‘back’ button is really a problem, and the steep learning curve is probably the main strike against an otherwise quality device.
But in general, I like it. My main music player has been hijacked by a girlfriend with a commute, so I’ve been using the M3 on my occasional jaunts into the steam tunnels that happen to have subway trains in them. And I liked it, at least once I got over the weird interface hump. It’s really nice to drop the tiny hard drive/battery unit into a pocket or bag – and it’s actually pocketable, unlike other hard disk players – and then just handle everything else from the remote. If I could find a better case for my out-of-production headphone amp, I might not look like quite the bondage fetishist when just trying to listen to some songs on the go.
Oh, speaking of amps and sound quality and all that, let me just leave the M3’s as “good enough, or great, or great enough.” It was fine. Despite nerd gear like a headphone amp, I’m really not much of an audiophile – I just like music that sounds good, and M3 definitely does the job.
So yeah, check it out. It’s not for everyone, and it certainly has some rough edges, but considering the price – they list for $350, but Newegg and other people have them for around $300 – it’s definitely not a bad deal. If you want simplicity, though, look elsewhere.
Read – Product Page [JetAudio]
Update: Reader and JetAudio M3 owner Guillaume Jamet sends in these handy tips:
Got my Iaudio last month myself and here are a couple more things that can be usefull :
– The remote can be fragile (duh!) – Because of the easiness of carying the player in the bag I usually leave the remote on the strap of my messenger bag… which was not such a great idea as I broke the lcd after I inadvertently sat on it (well who sits on their bag, really?). I wish they had also made teh remote out of metal.
– Use MediaMonkey instead of the bundled Jetaudio software – MediaMonkey works like a charm with the Iaudio and really help inkeeping all folders organized.
– You probably know it but they released Firmware 1.22 a couple days back – That’s one great thing about the player, they keep updating the firmware like every other weeks.
The M3 was my first music player since that Sony Walkman (tape) in 1990 and the learning curve was quite easy, took me about a couple day to figure out how to properly navigate through songs and going “back” without actually stopping a song.
BTW you should also mention the included carrying case which I found to be a nice “freebie” compared to my wife who had to purchase all the extra accessories for her Ipod.
Finally : amazon.com has the cheapest prices ($289) if you click on “buy used or new” – its directly from Jetaudio and they are brand new player – plus you can get the “charcoal” color which is quite a nice break from all these silver players.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=gizmodo08c-20
