Versatile and well behaved player. More than an MP3 player.

I’ve had and reviewed several digital players in the past. Most MP3 players come across as following the same cutting edge trend. The first thing I noticed with the Truly MP310 is its more sophisticated look. It’s solid and seemingly well built. It doesn’t strike me as a toy or a plaything.

Now grant it, this is more than just an MP3 player, perhaps a bit too versatile for the casual music listener. It supports music, digital books, FM radio, voice/line-in/FM recording, games and photos. You can set your wallpaper or theme, similar to windows. The menus are as easily navigable as can be expected for a multipurpose gadget. Keep in mind that this kind of versatility comes with a learning curve. Expect to use the reference manual once in a while. It comes with a quick start guide which is of limited help. The full manual is on a disk.

I like the style of the earbud headphones. They’re comfortable, built solid and look sharp, but the sound is a bit bassy and I’ve also noticed that, with their headphones, you can’t hold the player in your hand down by your side while walking. The cord is just a few inches too short. With that said, go out and get whatever headphones suit you.

The player does come with some well built accessories; particularly the carrying case and arm band. They’re made with a heavy black nylon. This is to say the player can be worn on the belt or arm. All the buttons and display are accessible while in the case.

Speaking of the buttons, they’re responsive, well laid out but a bit small. The volume, forward, back and menu buttons are on the front and the equalizer and A/B buttons are on the side. I like a player that you can just reach down and operate without looking. You’ll need to look at this player to hit the correct buttons. As mentioned, there’s a dedicated button to access the equalizer. This is a bit uncommon but a convenient feature. I find myself using it more than I thought I would. Usually the equalizer is buried in the menu. There are standard genres settings for pop, rock, classical, custom and so on. The player locked up on me once while downloading but playback seems to work well so far.

The FM reception is much better than expected. Frankly, most FM receivers in digital players don’t work well. You can select the quality of stations you want (how strong a station you want the thing to pull in), low, medium or high and then scan and this puts the stations into memory. I pulled in the two strongest stations in high and 19 in low. Stations come in decent in low with a minimum of fading in and out when moving about. I’m impressed.

The LCD display is great in the MP3 mode. It’s big, bright, colorful, and easy to view in bright sunlight. It very clearly gives all the expected information including artist and song name, track number/total tracks, volume level, play mode, equalizer mode.

For the pictures, there’s software on the disk for cropping and converting to a useable format. Pictures need to be converted to an LGO format in order to work well. After a little playing around, the software is simple, easy to use and relatively straight forward. The pictures appear a bit grainy but viewable. Pictures with good contrast work best. The ability to crop helps too. The player comes with some pictures already loaded, more for demo purposes than anything else.

You can listen to music while reading an ebook. There’re options for a slideshow, the ability to name preset radio stations, an adjustable timer for power off, display options and so on. All and all, this is not just an MP3 player that you would load music and go. If that’s what you’re looking for, there’s plenty out there. This is a digital media player (pictures and sound) that should be learned to be fully appreciated.

11/12/05 Update:
I've been using the player for a few monthes on and off. I have to mention again the display, bright, colorful and great resolution. Way better than any other I've seen in this $ range. A great little 512 meg player. USB's a bit slower than I'd like though. I have several players and this my primary player.