Bob Crabtree sets the scene for the upcoming HEXUS.lifestyle review of MPIO's PD100, a digital music player that can pick up DAB and FM radio, record from both (and from its built-in mic and line-in socket) and handle MP3 files with style.
It's near impossible to name all available MP3 players, and only a little more practical if the shortlist includes only models with voice-recording. However, things start to get manageable if FM radio is added to the required features-set, and easier still if line-input is included, too.
Add DAB radio, though, and there's no problem at all drawing up a list. As best as we can make out, it would be a list of one. The sole entry would be MPIO's PD100 and, in truth, that's not actually available right now, it's due in a few weeks.
HEXUS.lifestyle has managed to get early hands on with a PD100 and first impressions are very favourable - starting with the appearance; silver and gunmetal grey with a backlit LCD information panel.
Size is about that of a packet of 20 cigarettes and weight a little over 100 grams, so the PD100 isn't ultra-small, nor ultra-lightweight. But what it is ultra-desirable.
DAB radio, of course, is the headline grabber. If you've never heard DAB, you're missing out big time. The quality of the digital sound can be astonishing even on voice-radio. There's none of the hiss or other background noise found with analogue radio, and the MP100 can record DAB in MP2 format - retaining much of the quality, but taking up more storage space than MP3 would do.
But DAB is massively dependent on getting a decent signal - without it you hear nothing - so it's great that the PD100 can pick up FM radio as a fallback, and record that, too, as MP3.
MPIO's baby works fine as dictation machine or note-taker. Voice-recording to MP3 sounded better with the PD100 than we get on most PCs paired with a decent headset/mic combo.
And having line-in recording is a massive bonus, from our viewpoint, anyway, since it let us easily convert some favourite LPs into MP3s. All that's involved is connecting the PD100 to a hi-fi system's headphone socket using the supplied double-ended 3.5mm stereo lead. Our hi-fi, though, had a quarter-inch headphone socket, so we had to dig in our diddy-box to find a quarter-inch-to-3.5mm adaptor.
A lot of people would like to digitise their LPs and would find it far less hassle to do it this way than to getting their hi-fi systems mated to their PCs. Anyway, the quality of the MP3s that the PD100 creates is likely to be better than they'd get going the hi-fi-to-PC route.
Clearly, the PD100 has a lot going for it - so watch out for HEXUS.lifestyle's full review.
