I had the opportunity this week to check out another site where you can search for and buy mp3 songs on the cheap. At 16 cents a track, iomoio.com is a fraction of other sites, leaving you to ask, “What’s the catch?”
What’s The Catch
The first thing most people wonder about a site offering cheap mp3 music downloads is if it is legal. According to the site’s FAQ, it is. The reason they can offer these tracks for so cheap is because they’re outside the U.S. and have different licensing rules and agreements. Giving your credit card to a site outside the U.S. might make some people nervous, but I didn’t feel that way with iomoio.
Features, Selection, And Quality
Any time I visit a music site that I haven’t been to before, I look for three key components: site features/usability, music selection, and quality of the music being played. I give iomoio.com a 90/100 for features and usability. The site was very easy to sign up and navigate and finding tracks was easy with a comprehensive search that auto-completes for artist, album, and track. In my searches, I found most of what I searched for, and I have an interesting taste in music. Even though it didn’t find one of the tracks I was searching for, it did find a few artists I didn’t expect results for, like Faderhead and Stromkern. Of course, iomoio had plenty of the top artists like Rihanna and Lady Gaga too. I gave iomoio a 95/100 on selection. Out of the 10 tracks I searched for, it found nine, but the site had two out of three albums for the one it didn’t find.
When viewing a list of tracks, you are presented with a play button to preview the track, but the music preview plays about four different parts of the track rather than just the first 30 seconds, providing a better sample of what you’re buying. In addition, the preview lets you skip ahead by clicking the outer ring of the circle. When you purchase, you get to download mp3 songs without any DRM, so you can add them to any of your devices and listen wherever you want.
When a track or album is purchased, it’s placed in your Downloads page, where you can download a .ZIP archive including the song or album. Downloaded tracks included the important track information like album, artist, track number, etc. and are 256k, earning a 100/100 for quality. The tracks I listened to sounded perfect.
As a bonus, when you sign up, you get two free tracks. I give that 100/100.
Conclusions
Like a lot of people in the U.S., I’m a little sensitive about who I give my credit card information to. Being a site in a foreign land may turn people away, but the trade-off is really cheap tracks at great quality with fast downloads. Even if you’re not ready to make a purchase, just head over and pick up a couple free tracks.
Although the preceding was a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.
A few weeks ago, I was busy trying to make an old iPod shuffle ready for dirt and water and whatever else might happen to it over the following seven days. As I was devising ways to make an iPod waterproof, the FINIS XtreaMP3 waterproof digital music player arrived for me to review. I dropped my special project to open up the box and see what it was all about.
XtreaMP3 Technical Specs
Often, when I find out something is made to be rugged or, in this case, waterproof, I fear for the loss of traditional features. The first thing I noticed with the XtreaMP3 was the lack of any digital screen to show me a playlist or even what song is playing. I may be a bit spoiled, but I wasn’t much surprised. This, after all, is meant to be waterproof and I guess no digital readout is the trade-off. Moving along, I found this player to have many of the standard features expected of an MP3 player, including:
• 1GB of storage
• MP3 and WMA Compatible, iTunes Convertible
• Playlists
• Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery
• Basic play controls
…and, of course, a couple unique to a sport or waterproof player:
• Air-tight, waterproof ear buds
• Neoprene arm strap
Like some car MP3 players, playlists on this device are created by just dropping music into a folder. This is a little less convenient than creating a playlist via software and it means you’ll have to be creative if you want to put the tracks in a specific order. The 1GB of storage seems a little low from the perspective of someone with a 64GB iPhone, but for its size and durability, it gets the job done.
The River Test
This product arrived with exceptional timing for a proper test. Why just play with it near water for a day when you can fully immerse it into the type of activity that its creators had in mind? After charging the XtreaMP3 up fully and squeezing as much music as possible onto it, I took it with me on a seven day hike. Starting in Utah, two friends and I followed the Paria River 53 miles into Arizona, enduring cold, heat, mud, water, climbing and a lot of dirt and sand throughout. For those seven days, the XtreamMP3 tagged along in my pocket, surviving the same elements, and occasionally making the trip easier with music.
The picture above is not just of me on the river. Below is a close-up where you can see a wet, dirty, mud-covered XtreaMP3. Towards the end of our hike, I stopped to relax in the river with the best of Johnny Cash.
Although the waterproofed controls of the XtreaMP3 took some getting used to, the waterproofed ear buds sounded much better than I had expected. The arm band (which I did not take with me) takes some practice the first time to get the music player to attach to it and stay attached. One of the more unique elements FINIS included was the way in which the XtreaMP3 is charged. There’s a small waterproof sleeve that covers the tiny USB connector to keep water out. I’m not sure if any water got through, but I never had a problem with it working, even submerged in the river.
Conclusions
At about $90, the XtreaMP3 is a little less than most iPods, but you’ll trade some features for the peace of mind that a little dirt and water is no match for your music. Even accidentally throwing this player around didn’t phase it. The XtreaMP3 is the easy choice for the outdoor adventurer, surfer, or swimmer.
Although the following is a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.
I’ve reviewed some sites in the past that allow you to search for all kinds of things, but what if you’re just looking to download mp3s? There’s a site for that, too, and it’s called MP3-2000.com.
Download Music For Free
The site works in a few ways. If you’re looking for free music downloads or just wanting to purchase tracks, you can browse music by the most popular downloads, newest added, or most recently searched. If you know the artist or song, you can click on a letter of the alphabet at the top of the screen to browse for it or you can search for it by name using the search box. I performed several searches with mixed results, starting with a few local bands. Having no luck with the local bands, I moved on to some just barely more known music like Bigod 20, which surprised me with a few results.
Once you’ve found the track you’re searching for, a few options are presented within a couple tabs. In the second tab, you can obtain a link to share the track’s page with others. In the first tab, you can play the song right in the page or download it right from the source. In addition, there are links to purchase the track or turn it into a ringtone and if there’s more tracks from the same artist, they’ll be listed below. As well as all the links, an area for comments is provided and even lyrics if they’re available.
Buy Music Cheap
For those wanting to purchase the music they find, a couple options exist. The first is the ability to buy the song or album from mp3sales.ru. I did a little searching on the safety recommendations for mp3sales.ru and didn’t find anything alarming. Curious, I also checked their Legal Info page to see how they’re handling licensing. It looks like they are fine according to Russian laws. You may have to check your local copyright laws if you’re outside of Russia, though. mp3sales.ru offered the Bigod 20 tracks at €0.10 per track or €0.80 for the whole album, which is great compared to the $0.99 I normally pay per track elsewhere. Some browsing around gave me the impression that this pricing was pretty standard for most of the music selling on that site.
The ringtone link took me to a page offering up to 15 ringtones per month, but it was at a cost of $9.99/month. I’d didn’t sign up to get a hands-on experience with it, but if you have, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Conclusions
MP3-2000.com is probably the easiest site to download music for free, with advanced searching, related tracks, and instant downloads in most cases. Functionally, my only complaint would be the suggestions of other music I might like because it was way off. If you’re concerned about the legality, you’ll want to remember that you’re bound to the laws in your own jurisdiction, so do your research.
As much as I love my technology, my wife is pickier about hers. I just love trying new gadgets, but she wants to buy a gadget once and she wants it to work perfectly, or I’ll hear about it. She has an iPod Nano that I gave her for Christmas in 2005. It’s engraved and it has a special place in her heart, but now she has a new portable music player. SanDisk sent a new Sansa Fuze my way and I had it long enough to get some photos and some first impressions before she snatched it away from me, claiming it as a wifely benefit. Of course, she then asked politely if she could have it, but I knew how much she wanted it, so now it’s hers. Before I let her keep it, though, I took it back long enough to play around and regret giving it up.
The hardware
In my Sansa slotMusic Player review a few weeks ago, I noted that I was pleasantly surprised with the hardware. This time, I expected to like the hardware, and I did like it. The physical controls felt very familiar, having used an iPod Nano for so long, and the home button on the front is nice to have, too. Many of the phones I review have it and I think any product that lets you navigate more than a couple steps away from the home screen should have a home button. The right side just has a power/hold switch and the left has a slot to insert a microSD card for additional storage. The player I received came with 8GB internal storage, but they included an 8GB card to drive home the power of additional storage via microSD. Just in case you’re not sure what I mean, my wife’s whole music collection fits on the nearly 16GB usable storage space. Better still, we can buy a new 16GB or 32GB card in the future as the need surfaces. While they offer 2GB and 4GB models of the Fuze at lower prices, it just makes sense to buy the 8GB as more and more of our media is stored and carried digitally.
The bottom of the Fuze has the docking/charging connection and a standard headphones jack. A charging/syncing cable and a pair of decent headphones were included, along with a soft carrying pouch. The color screen is 1.9″ which isn’t very big for playing videos, but it’s pretty decent for everything else. The bonus feature I got excited about was the FM tuner. So many players pack in features for digital music and forget the FM tuner. This wasn’t a big deal until I showed up at my local gym and couldn’t watch the news while I worked out because I didn’t own a portable FM radio with headphones. Seeing this function on the Fuze was refreshing. The Fuze is available in blue, red, pink, black or silver, but I only got one of them, so you’ll have to hit the site to see it in the other colors. The battery is said to give you about 24 hours of music or 5 of video, though I haven’t fully tested the battery life yet. Finally, the Fuze has a microphone for the built-in voice recorder software.
Using the Fuze
The first thing I tried to do was copy movies, pictures and music to the Fuze to jump in and start playing with it. Much of it didn’t work, complaining that I needed to use the provided Rhapsody software to transfer content to the device. This was a disappointment to me because I like to be free from the ties of additional software. If you don’t mind installing more software, the Rhapsody software can help you manage everything, but it would be nice to have the option. The package included $50 worth of music from Rhapsody, but that’s only if you sign up with a credit card. I was generally disappointed with the Fuze’s ability to easily bring in my existing music. As I said, though, this was mostly because I have to be tied to software I don’t think I need. That has always been by big complaint about the iPods and the same holds true here, it seems.
The software on the player, itself, is a pleasantly different story. Navigating to and through the various menus and options was as simple as a flick of my thumb on the navigation wheel. The user interface doesn’t offer anything too crazy or overcomplicated. It’s just simple and gets you where you’re looking to go. Selecting media is a familiar experience in that I was able to drill down by artist, album, etc. The FM tuner has another nice surprise, too. I can record radio with it! The critical missing feature, in my opinion, from radio is the ability to pause and rewind like I can on my TV system. The ability to record radio and play it back on my music player is a nice feature and a step closer to perfect.
Can it kill the Nano?
Apple has a good grip on the industry, but wherever there is an industry leader, there’s an invitation to try and unseat them. I’ve seen a lot of companies try and some have made good products, but many just didn’t bring anything new to the table. The Sansa Fuze offers three things many players don’t. It offers voice recording, expandable storage via the increasingly popular microSD format, and FM radio with 40 presets. It’s nice to see a player on the market that could make the Nano sweat a little for under $100.
