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MPMan MP - CS155 Multimedia Player
Price: £39.99 inc VAT

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 07/06/2007
Featured in magazine:
Issue 163
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: MPMan
Web Address: www.mpmaneurope.com


The broad range of portable MP3 players around at the moment can be roughly split into two categories: expensive models that play both music and video and cheaper versions that just play music – some even eschewing a screen to keep prices ultra low. At least, that's how it was until MPMan threw down the gauntlet with this new device – a player that can handle video and music for a sum that undercuts its rivals' lowest-priced models. It sounded too good to be true, so we put the MP-CS155 through its paces.

Features
Like most music players, the MP-CS155 can handle MP3 and WMA files. However, on the video front, only SMV video files can be played, although a software converter is supplied that will convert from AVI, MPG and WMV formats. Sizewise, it's thicker but shorter than Apple's Nano music player and it comes with two headphone sockets, so you can share your tunes with a friend.

Performance
We were expecting the worst when it came to sound quality, but it's actually OK – both music and video playback were impressive for the price of the device. The unit itself feels fairly rugged so it shouldn't fall apart in your pocket, although it lacks the design finesse of its rivals. The buttons are clicky and occasionally unresponsive – feeling the click doesn't necessarily mean a button has been successfully pressed, and you can be left hanging on for the device to do something. Music can be synchronised through Windows Media Player, as is the case with the majority of other Windows-compatible devices (practically every MP3 player except the iPod range). Converting video to the required SMV format is easy enough using the supplied converter, but you'll need to tweak the settings to have the images appear full screen and we also encountered some problems with very large files. The biggest irritant, however, is that Windows Media Player doesn't support the format, so you have to drop files directly onto the device using Windows Explorer. This is no more complicated than moving a file onto a USB memory drive, but as we were unable to create a video folder to drop the files into, things started to look a bit untidy.

Ease of use
Most people can pick up an MP3 player and use it straight away – the play, pause, back and forward buttons are universal, and browsing menus to find music doesn't pose much of a challenge. This device's usability, however, has been unnecessarily complicated – browsing through the main menus is a problem until you get used to the fact that the forward and back buttons make you move up and down rather than left and right. It doesn't help that the printed 'quick start' guide has little correlation to the player, though fortunately there's a more helpful PDF manual on the disk. The unit has a designated power switch but it can also be switched on and off using the play button which, incidentally, isn't used to start a track playing when you're choosing music from the menu. It's not impossible to get your head round, but it's far from intuitive.

Value for money
Here comes the crunch: the device is only £40. It may be clumsy to use and have virtually no refinement, but it works. You get video playback on a device that's £10 cheaper than an iPod Shuffle – Apple's music-only player that doesn't even have a screen, let alone the ability to play video. You can't really argue with that, can you?

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