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| I-JAM IJ-100 MP3 Player |
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Hardware Reviews December 1999 • Vol.2 Issue 12 |
I-JAM IJ-100 MP3 Player | ||
 If you're searching for a slim MP3 player that fits easily in your pocket, take a look at the I-JAM IJ-100 MP3 player from I-JAM Multimedia. This player is available in five eye-catching colors: Black Rhino, Silver Bullet, Lemon Drop, Razz Jazz Red, and Chi-Town Blue, and it's bundled in an attractive translucent plastic casing. It weighs approximately 2 ounces and measures 3 3/8 inches high x 2 inches wide x 7/8 of an inch deep. The first thing you'll notice about the I-JAM is that unlike other MP3 players, it uses a MultiMediaCard reader to record MP3 files to MultiMedia disks. These MultiMedia disks can be interchanged and used like a cassette tape or CD. You simply save the songs or audio files on the card and rather than deleting the files to create new albums, you can just insert a different card. The card reader is effortless to use; just plug the reader into a free parallel port on your PC and start downloading files to a MultiMedia disk. The reader works like any other external or internal drive connected to your system, so you can drag and drop files into the MultiMediaCard reader just as you would a Zip drive. The I-JAM includes two 16 megabyte (MB) MultiMedia disks and supports up to 64MB, so you can have a fairly large interchangeable audio library. Another enjoyable feature of the I-JAM is the FM radio. Very few MP3 players include an FM radio, but we found it to be a nice alternative to prerecorded MP3 files. The I-JAM doesn't include an antennae, and the reception of the FM radio is acceptable for listening to your favorite radio station, but it won't sound like your component stereo system at home. The headphone jack is located on the left side of the unit, directly across from the Power button, so it's easy to inadvertently hit the Power button when you insert the headphones. Additionally, the control panel buttons on the unit are fairly small, and a bit difficult to navigate for larger fingers, but we found other features to like on this little machine. The I-JAM player includes MusicMatch Jukebox software for recording and organizing files. It also ships with a nice pair of headphones that fit comfortably, a flexible carrying case with a belt clip for transporting the unit, and a 16-inch neck strap. The I-JAM uses two AAA batteries that should last for approximately 12 hours of constant play. Other buttons you will find on the I-JAM include a Play/Mute/Stop button on the top right of the unit, and the MP/FM/Hold button on the top left. By pressing the MP/FM/Hold button once, the MP3 player will initiate; press it again, and the FM radio tunes in. To utilize the Hold feature, which disables the rest of the buttons on the machine so it can be stored inside a pocket or jostled during a jog without interrupting play, press and hold the button for at least three seconds. The small buttons on the front of the unit offer controls for switching tracks, adjusting the volume, and storing FM stations. We tested the unit by connecting the MultiMedia Card Reader to an IBM 400 megahertz (MHz) Intel Pentium II 300PL system with 128MB of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) running Windows 98. I-JAM includes detailed documentation for attaching the card reader to a PC, but it has vague information about recording files to the cards, so it took some extra time to transfer MP3 files. The PC recognized the new hardware immediately, and it took less than 30 seconds to transfer individual files to the MultiMedia card. MP3 files sounded great on the I-JAM, and we really liked the idea of recording files to a MultiMedia disk using the disk reader. For those who want a stylish MP3 player with an integrated FM radio, the I-JAM is a sound product. by Buffy Cranford-Petelle
$179.95 I-JAM Multimedia (888) 326-4526 http://www.ijamworld.com
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