RCA Pearl (512MB, gray)

Summary: Purchased this little guy from Walmart a couple years ago and I've had nothing but good experiences with it. The audio clarity is excellent and you can really tell when you load up a high bit rate song (320 kbps). The expansion slot makes the small looking internal memory almost meaningless since you can just drop in a microSD card and vastly expand upon the normal memory limitations.

One thing I've noticed about this player is that does not under any circumstances require software to load or unload the player. Everything is handled natively under Windows, including the microSD card reader. This means that ten years down the road you won't have to worry about incompatiblities with a new OS. Add on to that the removable AAA battery means you won't have to spend almost as much on the player again just to use it. This thing has some serious lasting power.

There are some quirks I've noticed with the player, though. The randomizer is more than a little problematic. If you turn the player on and turn the randomizer on, let it play a few songs, then switch it off, it'll play the same songs in the same order if you turn it back on and hit shuffle. Not really a big deal to me, but it doesn't truly randomize. It also has a funny memory. It won't always remember which track you were on when you last turned it off, so sometimes you'll hear the same set of songs two uses in a row. It can also start to flake out pretty badly when the battery starts to get low, causing the music to sound strange and it'll start skipping. Not a big deal, just replace the battery.

I picked up some rechargeable AAAs to go with this player and that's been an excellent pairing. It gets pretty good life out of the AAAs it uses, but it'll still eat the things. $20 extra now on a set will save you a lot more in the long run.

For anyone like me that would prefer to manually drag and drop files or for anyone looking for a device that's honestly future proof, I'd highly recommend this line of players. These are also compatible with slotMusic, so if that ever gets off the ground you'll be set.

Summary: This RCA Pearl is the best mp3 player I've ever had. It's lasted longer than anything else that I've had with very little problems. The biggest problem I had with it was when I went to put songs on it for the first time. After the songs were loaded onto it, it would freeze at the "please wait...". I would have to take out the battery to turn it off. The problem was fixed with a simple format and reload of music though. It's worked ever since. One thing I like is that it takes ONE AAA battery. They are easy to replace. I bought the rechargeable ones so it would be cheaper. I also like that I can change the back-light color on it. The DSP settings are pretty good. I have mine set on bass right now and it sounds awesome. It has a way to expand memory as well. All I'll have to do is go to Wal-Mart and get a 1gig micro sd card and slip it into the slot on my player. Sure beats the iPod Shuffle in the long run (I also have a shuffle that doesn't work for music anymore). I hope to continue using this player for the next few years if possible. I enjoy this little thing. BTW, don't use the "My Selections" feature if you want it to be remembered. You'll just be wasting your time.