Menu system and Sound Quality
The MP-P750s main menu screen is a neatly laid-out, icon driven affair, with each option coupled with a brief text description at the bottom of the screen.
At the very top of the screen we see a row of icons representing (from left to right) the status of the device (i.e. whether it is in play or stop mode), the equaliser setting used (There are several presets to choose from, or you can create your own custom settings), and the remaining battery life of the device. The three main icons on the top row represent the player's Jukebox, followed by the FM Radio option and access to the player's settings. On the bottom row we have the option to record using the built-in microphone, record using the line-in input on the device, or access to the File Manager.
Once you've picked a track to play, you'll be greeted with the usual artist and track name, as well as a graphical equaliser. As you can see, we have a nice bit of Blur going on here in celebration of my wife's favourite band.
Using the FM radio functionality is a simple affair, using the scroll wheel to scroll through the frequencies until you find the station you want. You can then press and hold the scroll wheel to set it as a preset, and name it if you so wish. Recording using either the microphone or line-in is just as simple - Simply select the option, name the file (hard to do with the scroll wheel, so not one for the impatient!), and then hit the 'New' button to start the recording. Hit 'Stop' when you're done, and you can then replay or create a new file. You can also pause recordings to miss out anything you don't want to record. The player can hold a maximum of five hours worth of recordings.
The settings menu allows you to change everything you should require,
from the language and backlight settings to recording rate and power
saving options. Finally, the file manager allows you to view all
of the data on the player that isn't available in the jukebox, so you
can see any non-music files you have stored or any music you
drag-and-dropped to the player from Windows Explorer rather than the
built-in software. Such items can also be played back from this
menu.
Sound Quality
Just the other day I was reading a magazine article lamenting how in this age of mp3 players, nobody cares about sound quality and all anybody is interested in is the storage capacity of the device. With that in mind, it seems only right to offer some (admittedly objective) thoughts on how the player sounds. First up, it has to be said that the provided headphones don't cut the mustard, and leaves you with a distorted, muddy sound that most likely won't impress anyone. Find yourself a better pair of headphones however, and things are much better, and I can have no complaints at all on the sound front. You'll most likely want to find yourself playing with the equaliser settings on the device, as the default setup doesn't seem all that great and you'll most likely want to eschew it in favour of one of the other setups or one of your own.To really check out how the player sounded properly, I hooked it up to my Denon hi-fi to see how it stacked up, and all in all it was pretty impressive - I had no complaints in the quality department with any of the varied pieces of music I threw at it.
Recording quality was also reasonably good - I tested out recording from both radio and CD on my hi-fi at the player's normal quality bitrate (Which is 128kbps), and the final quality of the recording was perfectly acceptable. Recording from the microphone was also surprisingly impressive - Although you need to hold the device right up close to your mouth to get a decent volume on what you record, the recording came out very well and would certainly be usable as a Dictaphone.
Finally, FM radio quality is, of course, variable dependant on the reception you can obtain - Getting a good reception was rather hit and miss for me, and I can't imagine it being too stable if you were travelling around while listening to it, but when you get a good, stereo signal the sound quality is fairly good.
