Loading music on the Transcend T.sonic 610/612 series is a straightforward process. You can sync from jukeboxes such as Windows Media Player 10.0 or access the memory as a removable disk to drag and drop music files, as well as upload recordings. You are welcome to organize your music in as many folders as you like for transferring to the player, then navigate through them during playback to choose folders or files to play. However, you don't have the option to browse by album/artist menus, which many users have become accustomed to.
The Transcend T.sonic 610/612 series records voice and FM to uncompressed but lower-bit-rate WAV files, which are stored in separate directories. You can play these files back in recording mode only, and they are ignored during music playback; simply press the dedicated Rec button to record.
The Transcend T.sonic 610/612 series provides three recording levels: Low, Normal, and High at 8KHz, 16KHz, and 32KHz, respectively; mono for voice to fit 16, 32, and 64 hours, respectively in 1GB; and stereo for FM radio to fit 8, 16, and 32 hours, respectively in 1GB. It also has a helpful quiet/noisy environment setting for voice recording. Overall, recording quality was good, while playback of MP3s and WMAs was satisfactory though not stunning. Transfers over USB 2.0 were a bit sluggish at 1.64MB per second, and we were able to muster only about 12 hours of life per charge of its built-in rechargeable battery, a couple hours short of the rated battery life.
