Final thoughts, award, HEXUS.right2reply
At a glance
Pros
* Incredibly small and
light for what it
does
* Good value for money, even if you don’t use all the features
* Almost no distortion even at volumes most people are unlikely to use
* Fantastic sound quality
* Support for asian languages
* 22-band equaliser that's genuinely useful
* Interesting extra features - karaoke mode, E-book and Tetris
* Large screen, considering player size
* Good build quality
* File-transfer requires no extra software on all OSs that support USB mass-storage devices
* Half-decent earphones come in the box. But an even better set will really let you hear what the player can do
* Bundled software easy to use
* Good value for money, even if you don’t use all the features
* Almost no distortion even at volumes most people are unlikely to use
* Fantastic sound quality
* Support for asian languages
* 22-band equaliser that's genuinely useful
* Interesting extra features - karaoke mode, E-book and Tetris
* Large screen, considering player size
* Good build quality
* File-transfer requires no extra software on all OSs that support USB mass-storage devices
* Half-decent earphones come in the box. But an even better set will really let you hear what the player can do
* Bundled software easy to use
Cons
* Looks like a bar of soap
and is almost
as slippery
* Rather fiddly, I found myself needing to use two hands rather too often
* Bitrate range for recording on back of box is quoted twice but they aren’t the same, the values settable in the player matched neither
* Voka player & editor functional, but leaving a feeling of sub-standard quality
* When the backlight is off, the screen is hard to read in low light and changing the contrast settings do not help
* Only USB 1.1
* Rather fiddly, I found myself needing to use two hands rather too often
* Bitrate range for recording on back of box is quoted twice but they aren’t the same, the values settable in the player matched neither
* Voka player & editor functional, but leaving a feeling of sub-standard quality
* When the backlight is off, the screen is hard to read in low light and changing the contrast settings do not help
* Only USB 1.1
[advert]
Rather to my surprise, the player thoroughly impressed me with its rich feature set and great MP3-playback sound quality. First time out, Sapphire has succeeded in coming up with a product that seems more than a match for others in its price-bracket. That's not to say it's perfect, it's not. To get close to that, it would need to have USB 2.0, less fiddly buttons, a better-quality software bundle and less noisy recording from line-in and the built-in mic.
Does that mean that Sapphire is onto a winner? Well, not necessarily with the more style-conscious buyers - looks could be its downfall. But if you are thinking of getting an MP3 a player, don’t dismiss the Sapphire on looks alone - afterall, it's going to spend most of its time out of sight.
HEXUS.award
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HEXUS.links
Sapphire - UK home page
Sapphire - Ivory Digital Player specs
Advance Technologies - MP3-player buying page
