iRulu Brand 8GB USB MP3 WMA Music Player FM Radio Voice Recorder (Black)

For the price... Cant be beat. I like the ability to use standard in this case 1 AAA battery. I use rechargeable batteries but if on the go or traveling one can readily buy retail AAA's just about anywhere... no waiting to recharge.. and if the battery fails you dont have to replace of fix the whole unit... just put in a new standard AAA.Sound quality is very good with menu options for different EQ. sound preferences - I like the rock setting myself. Be aware that each folder of MP3's can hold only up to 999 per folder. Or if you load all the songs onto the root memory it will work with only up to 999 songs unless you make separate folders. I make a folder for each band and sub-folders for each album. The sound quality is good.. in fact better in my estimation than the 4gig Coby..and far better than the iPod mp3 plays I have owned. Easy in the way you can connect via USB port and just drag and drop folders of Mp3 songs or albums. The quality hinges upon using a good and different set of earphone than the ones that come with the unit. The radio has good reception for my area which usually does not get good reception, and can auto-detect stations that have good signal strength. Wish they would come out with a 16gig version or a version that would allow SD cards to interchange. But this is a built in flash memory only unit. The shuffle mode does not function properly at all so dont bother trying to use it. I do for the price think this is a great deal.. and stores about 7.7 gigs of mp3's. I tired to load and play a standard .WAV file but if crackled and shuddered - so I would have to advise not loading formats other than MP3's which seem to work just fine at all bit rates.The interface is a little weird and takes a small amount of learning curve... I do find it easier than the Coby units to navigate.. although the toggle can accidentally be moved or pressed the wrong way of time.. but overall I am very happy with it.. I bought 3 units just in case of breakage I have Backup units.. and at the price who can beat it?

I have a SanDisk Sansa Clip+ 8GB player whose un-replaceable battery will now not play for more than 3 hours on a full charge. So I when looking for a replacement.The new Sansa players were more elaborate and expensive. I came across the iRulu product and, after reading mixed reviews but noting the lower cost I decided to give it a try... It was a mistake!As noted in other reviews, it takes a while to figure out the Multi-Function lever [MFL] on the side of the player. Especially whether to press momentarily or press and hold. The lag time responding to MFL movement was a constant frustration. As reported in other reviews, the manual provides good guidance on some features. BUT is woefully lacking detail on others.OUT-OF-THE-BOX:Upon receiving the player, I loaded it with the same mp3 music with same folder structure as was on my Clip+ (49 folders by genre, 1,455 files totaling 4.63 GB from my PC). It took FAR, FAR longer to load the music than the Clip+. Then when navigating the folders on the player, it was frustratingly slower to respond to “up”/”down” folder changes when selecting a folder. At first, the lag was so much that I toggled the MFL again thinking I didn't push it far enough. I learned that it was just really slow.PLAYER USAGE:See iRulu photo. Compared to a dime, the display is small with incredibly small “text”. You need good 20/20 vision to read it. My clip+ is easier to read.See “A” in photo. As noted in another review, the MAXIMUM number of files it can manage in a folder is 999. As I began using it, I discovered that...THE SHUFFLE/RANDOM FUNCTION DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY!?!?!.As I worked in the yard, I began hearing the same music that had played an hour before. In my house, annoyed, using the user's manual I confirmed the settings were correct. Then I manually skipped forward and with each skip, the same music! I wrote down the song numbers and discovered that, at most, it was playing only 17 songs before repeating and then it repeated in the exact same sequence. Not random at all. I deleted everything from the player and reloaded it with music files all in the same root folder. Then I selected one and let the shuffle work. Only it didn't. It went nine (9) songs before it repeated. Arrrrggggghhh!I returned the unit to Amazon.Some other differences between iRulu and Clip+:Sound Quality...I selected the same song on the iRulu and the Clip+. Then as they played, using high quality headphones, I plugged and unplugged between them comparing what I heard. No matter what “equalizer” setting I put the iRulu on, the music was flatter, missing some higher frequencies that the Clip+ had.Radio...The iRulu FM tuner is better at staying locked on a weak station than the Clip+. But, using the same headphones (they are the antenna), the iRulu had more weak-signal hissing that the Clip+.Battery Life...The player eats up brand-name alkaline batteries. Even with the backlight off, I went through 3 batteries in just a few days.Bottom Line: I'm buying another Sansa Clip.

This isn't an ipod or something, so don't compare it to one, but it is a great option for class or church where you want to record what's going on. The quality isn't great, but it's good enough for the price.The interface is very simple and limited. Again, my mom uses it for church and it works great for her. If she was given a multitude of options it might be more difficult to operate, especially as she lends it to others in her congregation who couldn't make it to church. The battery life is very solid and the sound quality when listening to music or anything you put on normally is fine.So as an MP3 player who's primary function is a recorder, it's the most bang for your buck, but if you just want an MP3 player I wouldn't recommend this - primarily because of its size (It's significantly bigger than a full size flash drive). Sandisk makes some great tiny MP3 players that work better for that purpose.

I wasn't expecting much for $12; I wanted a small device to play music during gym workouts and let me listen to my local NPR station during morning walks. This device does both, sort of.I loaded up a bunch of up-tempo songs and set the play on "Random," only to find out this device has a special definition of the word. Playing the same song three times in a 30-minute span doesn't fit my definition of "random." Also, in spite of the fact that the device has a control that "locks" buttons (it's called hold), its Pause button is so sensitive that the slightest bump causes it to pause mp3 playback even when the hold control is activated.The FM radio has a regular tuning dial instead of scanning for stations, but it's not a great radio. I had to put up with a lot of static while listening to my station, and I was outside the whole time.And count me in the crowd that says battery life is a joke. I turn it completely off when I'm not using it, and I barely get 6 hours of use per battery instead of the 10 that was advertised.All in all, I got marginal functionality for my $12.