- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 44 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"For the person that loves to listen to music"
Pros: Excellent audio quality and interface, does not crash
Cons: Why can't I totally power it down? Interface sleep is no fun if you like to push buttons a lot
Summary: The Excellent:
The 4gb Clix is a fine example of a quality product with innovative design. I am very pleased with the sound quality, customizability, and ease of using the interface if I?m carefully manipulating the device. It truly should make a person that loves to listen to music a happy owner. I can find the music I want fast. The player feels of quality, and the neat things like randomly using your pics as a background is neat even for an old guy like me (30?s). I fully recommend this player, but read what could be improved below.
What I think you should compare it to before buying:
If you want something to compare the Clix to, I?ve considered that I should of investigated the Sandisk e200 series players, but I did not because they didn?t have video capability? turns out the Clix video feature doesn?t really work. The converter they recommend did not work for me. After many hours I had inconsistent results with several different converters and gave up. I did get some videos to play, so it is possible, but if you are not well versed in video formats and expect to just plug and play you are in for a big disappointment. I think the video feature was thrown in to push it up to the video capable class (which is why I bought it and didn?t investigate the e200 series), but it really isn?t in that class IMHO. That?s why I wish I had not thrown out the e200 series since really this device is just to listen to music. The techie in me got the best of me!
What I find inconvenient and how it could be improved:
This section is long, but only because I?m trying to explain what I find less than ideal. This truly is a great player, I?m just trying to put this info out their so you can see what I think is less than perfect about it, that way you can compare its short comings to your needs/values. This is detailed and explains what I think it needs to be perfect.
The player never seems to turn off. Since I don?t charge my player and then listen to it for 24 hours straight (up to 24 hours indicated bat. Life), the fact that it stays in standby mode leaves me with pretty disappointing battery life. For example, I use my clix at the gym for 45 min. each night. I only get about one week of use out of the player before it ends up dead in the middle of a workout. I would like to see the option to either go into stand by or total power off in a firmware upgrade. Also am I crazy or does it not charge when I want it to sometimes?.... almost like it decides on it?s own if it needs to recharge, but maybe I?m just mistaken. In contrast my Samsung player would last a very long time on single battery (granted it didn?t have a nice color screen like the clix). As I understand it batteries have a limited number of charges, so for what ever reason Iriver did this it ultimately makes it where the player will be viable for a shorter period of time if I?m correct about limited charges.
The interface is thoughtful and intuitive (for me), but if you are like me you will find it frustrating. I often need to pause my music or want to advance to the next song. While some may consider this a personal problem, it is bothersome to me as follows. Since the very nice color screen drains the battery it must be turned off, and since the music controls and volume don?t work when the screen is off, you must first push the screen or vol buttons to get the screen to activate (1.5 seconds), then the player starts to respond to inputs. This can be fixed by forcing the screen to stay on all the time, but then you have a serious battery drain and the screen buttons always being active is bad because you end up pushing them when you don?t want to since they are part of the ?body?, especially if you carry it on your person. Since the screen buttons (4 in each of the four directions) control the menus, if you don?t push exactly to the right which is pause, you end up advancing the song or going back in the menus, meanwhile the reason you wanted to pause the player is waiting or passing by. This is no fun when somebody starts talking to me because I inevitable push the wrong direction in the process and get in the wrong part of the menu (imagine scenarios when it?s in a pocket ect.). I think this could be improved by allowing the vol buttons to function independent of the screen so it increases or decreased at the moment I push the button the first time. I?m always waiting for the screen to come back on! Also dedicated pause and song advance buttons would be nice.
The video is really not a viable feature as described above IMHO.Updated
the e200 series is not comparable in sound quality based on others opinions if you look up e280. Turns out the e280 does have video capability?. I was incorrect.
What I find inconsistent is Cnet points out the short comings of the video feature in the e280, but completely overlooks the same problems in the clix.
- 2 replies to this review
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Sounds like you were interested in video on a feature rich, large screen, touch screen MP3 player (the techie in you)and were a little let down by the Clix video offering. In that case, a good one to check out is the Cowon D2. About the same price, same big screen, great sound, expandable card slot, actual touch screen (good thing or bad depending on preference), and longer battery life. It is heavier though. Clix's fatter brother. Just a suggestion.
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i thought your problem with play/pause, volume, and song advancing was good to know about, but couldn't you have just set the hot key to cover one of these functions? if i'm not mistaken, that is possible, and would make it a lot more convenient.
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