Aim 2GB MP3 Player/ FM Tuner/ Voice Recorder Review

Not the greatest, but not the worst either

"My 3 kids (all under the age of 11) got it in their heads that they all needed an ipod for Christmas. There is no way I am going to spend the dough to get them an ipod. I was excited to see these MP3 players listed for such a good price. I agree with all the other reviews, the instructions are laughable. I quickly glanced over them and was able to figure out most of the operation on my own. It comes with some software, but don't even install it. The player itself is like a flash drive with a USB port. Pretty easy just to pop the end off and plug it in. I simply created some different named files and starting dragging my music into the different files. Pretty easy. When you turn it on, trying to scroll through the options is "klunky". You're inclined to want to push the two silver buttons (one of them is the play/pause button) but the key to driving this thing is the black "mode" button on the bottom. It's a precarious mix of quick pushes and longer pushes that gets you from file to file. You gently flick it from side to side to go from song to song. After a few minutes of practice, my 10 year old had it figured out. My kids absolutely LOVE the voice record option. The FM radio is pretty cool too (no AM). Once you program in the stations you push the play/pause button to toggle through each station. I personally don't like the sound quality of the MP3 player all that much. It's not horrible quality, but I could hear very faint pops and whistles that you wouldn't hear on a higher quality player. I could only hear these noises when the song faded or it was in between songs. When the music is playing, I can't hear the noises. My wife and kids however hear none of those noises (I might just have super sensitive hearing, who knows). It takes a triple A battery and each kid burned through one battery today. Tough to tell if that is a good measure of battery life since today is Christmas day and the kids have been using them since this morning. Overall, I'm happy with these MP3 players. I probably wouldn't buy one for myself, but for my kids they are perfect."