• About

LIVEdigitally

Lexar LDP-600

Posted on May 10, 2005 by Jonas Review Editor

Lexar’s LDP-600 is another fuller featured portable flash based music player. Lexar has traditionally made flash memory chips (see this for a comprehensive review), but recently they have branched out into making flash based music players. For the evaluation, I reviewed the 512 MB model, there is also a 256 MB available. They retail at $149 and $199 respectively.

What’s In The Box

The 512 MB Lexar LDP-600 included the following:
-black music player
-Sennheiser ear buds
-quick start pamphlet (full manual on website as PDF)
-USB connector cable
-lanyard
-antenna
-the lithium ion battery is preinstalled
-clear carrying case
I used a 128 MB Secure Digital flash card during the course of my testing of the device.

The unit itself is a mere 3.2 by 1.5 by 0.7 inches. This makes it slightly larger than the iAudio 5, but still quite small. I can put in my shirt pocket all day and not even notice it. The LDP-600 is made of a matte black rubberized plastic and is accented with silver switches and buttons. The top of the unit has the headphone jack, the microphone, and the slot to attach the necklace. The right side has two toggle switches for on/off, play/pause, advancing tracks, volume control, and menu navigation. The left side has three buttons for controlling the recording, the FM transmitter, and toggling into FM radio mode. The back has a recessed switch for adjusting the FM transmitter strength, a recessed hold switch, and a reset pinhole (like on a Palm handheld) is there as well. The bottom of the unit has the connector for the USB cable and the slot for a Secure Digital card. Again, both were covered in rubber and attached to the unit to prevent loss. I found the switches and buttons slightly larger than on the iAudio 5. They also felt significantly more refined and solid; like a Lexus on the Lexar, versus a Hyundai on the iAudio 5.

Features In Use

The Lexar LDP-600 is powered by an included lithium ion battery. It is claimed to provide a 14 hour battery life. I think it is closer to 12 hours in actual use. It is great to have an included, rechargeable battery for obvious reasons. However, there are a few downsides. When the battery won’t take a charge anymore, be prepared to throw the whole thing out as I doubt it can be swapped out and replaced (this may be a good reason to buy that extended and overpriced warranty). This limits the long term usefulness of such a device. Also, the only way to charge the Lexar unit is through the USB port, there is no way to charge this from a wall outlet or a car power source. If you take this as your music player on that cross country road trip, than you better bring your laptop as well, or you’ll be dead on music once you get 14 hours away from home. And you don’t buy an MP3 player to listen to sing-a-longs so plan accordingly.

The music formats played by the player are limited to MP3 and WMA music files. It is not specified in the manual what bit rates playback is limited to. The LDP-600 records into WMA format, with the choices of 32 kbps (mono), 64 kbps, or 96 kbps (stereo).

The display is large enough and readable, although with a slightly pixelated appearance. The largest two lines show artist, and track name information. Above it shows the track number, the play triangle, whether internal or external memory is being used, and a battery life meter. The bottom shows time information, the bass boost, and the volume level. The display is illuminated with a choice of colors, including violet, yellow, white, blue, green, indigo, and red. Unfortunately, only yellow, white and red are really bright enough to be useful, the rest are rather dim even viewed in total darkness. I was a little disappointed to see that white appears very yellow. The iAudio 5 clearly has a better display with the colors much brighter and richer. Even with the duller colors, the Lexar unit was more readable while on the run or in the car, because the text is larger and darker.

The player boots quickly, and turns off quickly which means you can hear your music with minimal delay. Files can be deleted and playlists up to 20 songs can be created from the unit itself, without using a computer. The menu system is somewhat complex, and requires a steep learning curve. I referred to the PDF documentation (which comes preloaded on the device) several times during testing and had to follow the complex key sequences line by line to accomplish some tasks. Aside from play and volume control, everything else is buried in menus. An example: changing the background color is under the category “system,” and under the designation “light source.” These types of things are not intuitively obvious to most users.

The LDP-600 also has a built in FM tuner that can be programmed with presets, and has a seek feature for use in unfamiliar locations. Like the iAudio 5, it is tuned in 0.1 increments. This can be annoying if you don’t leave the States, or can be a nice plus for international travelers. Like most personal FM radios, the headphone cable doubles as an antenna. The reception was adequate, but not spectacular equivalent to a Sony Walkman. The FM radio does keep users from running out of music during their airport layover so it is a nice feature to have.

Leave it to a memory company like Lexar to build an MP3 player with removable storage. In my mind this is a stand-out feature. The player supports Secure Digital cards up to a capacity of 1 GB. I am of the opinion that Secure Digital cards are the new dominant flash card, and this is an example of why. (LINK TO FLASH MEMORY PIECE) This allows the player to expand its memory using inexpensive and reusable cards. When the player is connected via USB to a computer it shows up as 2 drives: one for the internal memory, and the other for the SD card. Unfortunately, you need to go into the menus to switch between the 2 memories, not something you should do while cruising down the interstate. Also, there is no way to have it play from both the internal memory and SD card as one large collection. These shortcomings almost overshadow this otherwise exemplary feature. A dedicated switch to access the two memories would go a long way to remedying this deficit. One more annoying quirk: after listening to music on the SD card, and turning off the player, it reverts to the internal memory when rebooted.

One other significant shortcoming is the USB 1.1 interface. This is rather outdated, and really slows the loading of songs down. The bottleneck speed took over five minutes to load 53 MP3s. To fully load the player takes over 20 minutes, and that is just for the internal memory. Most current players utilize the faster USB 2.0 connection, which is at least four times faster. I believe the newer players from Lexar will use the faster connection. In the meantime, a possible work around (for inpatient users) is to load a permanent set of songs to the internal memory, and a rotating set to the SD card via a dedicated flash card writer thereby bypassing the player. One bonus feature is that the player can be used as a SD flash card reader/writer which makes it easy to justify a place in your notebook bag with the cable.

The other notable feature of the player is the FM transmitter. The package includes a short antenna that is placed into the headphone jack. The player then can transmit over the FM radio band on a frequency of the user’s choosing (although finding an unused band in metro areas can be a challenge). The headphones can also be used as a transmitter, but my results were definitely better with the antenna. I could transmit music to a Sony boombox from as far as 10 feet away. Also, in a car with no cassette player the results were equally good. The sound is as good as any other FM radio station, less than CD quality, but still quite good. This FM transmitting feature injects new life into old radios. It takes MP3 listening from a solitary experience through headphones, and makes it social through a set of speakers. Sure, there are accessories that can do the same thing, but having it built in is very convenient. Show up at your next party with the Lexar loaded with music, and you’ll get to be the DJ with your own radio station!

The recording was similar to the iAudio 5. It was more than adequate for voice into the microphone, and barely adequate for TV across the room. You can record from the FM radio, but there is no line-in jack to record from other sources.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Reddit

Related

Posted in General, Product Reviews | 3 Comments
« To Stream or Not To Stream
More Than Meets the Eye. »

3 thoughts on “Lexar LDP-600”

  1. Pingback: LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » Two Feature Rich Flash Music Players

  2. Alvino says:
    March 5, 2006 at 4:50 pm

    Hi.. do you have only antenna to transmiter mp3??

    thanks.

    Reply
  3. Ben says:
    March 22, 2006 at 7:36 pm

    Is the LDP-600 able to use a 2Gb SD card?

    Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About

Jeremy Toeman is a seasoned Product leader with over 20 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include CNET, Viggle/Dijit/Nextguide, Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies. This blog represents his personal opinion and outlook on things.

Recent Posts

  • Back on the wagon/horse?
  • 11 Tips for Startups Pitching Big Companies
  • CES 2016: A New Role
  • Everything I Learned (So Far) Working For a Huge Company
  • And I’m Back…

Archives

Pages

  • About

Archives

  • January 2019
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • June 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004

Categories

  • Convergence (81)
  • Gadgets (144)
  • Gaming (19)
  • General (999)
  • Guides (35)
  • LD Approved (72)
  • Marketing (23)
  • Mobile Technology (111)
  • Networking (22)
  • No/Low-tech (64)
  • Product Announcements (85)
  • Product Reviews (109)
  • That's Janky (93)
  • Travel (29)
  • Video/Music/Media (115)
  • Web/Internet (103)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

CyberChimps WordPress Themes

© LIVEdigitally
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.