Digital Trends

Digitalway MPIO FL100 256MB

January 28th, 2004 | by Brian Bordenave

Battery Life

One of the most important aspects of a portable digital media player is its battery life. Power usage becomes so much more important when you are talking about a device as small and compact as the FL 100.

The FL 100 runs on a single AAA battery. MPIO states that a single battery can power the device for up to 11 hours. Our tests found the battery life to be closer to 9.5 hours, but that is still quite respectable. On a five-hour cross-country flight, the battery indicator was at about the halfway point.

We found that the battery lasted longer when it was just functioning as a radio than when it was playing back MP3s from memory, but it was not a dramatic difference in prolonged life.

As with all portable devices, we recommend that you use rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries often last just as long as conventional batteries and are much less expensive over time, as well as being better for the environment.

Managing Your Music

Digitalway put a lot of thought into the construction of the software interface with the device. Known as the MPIO Manager 2, this little piece of software provides handy Windows functionality like drag and drop. This software features an ID3 tag editor, an intro logo editor, an FM Station name editor, a skin switching function, display size control function, and an auto Firmware upgrade function.
 
With a USB 1.1 connection, Digitalway states it can transfer at up to 4.5Mbps. Our tests found it to be closer to 1.5Mpbs, which is typical for a USB 1.1 device. We would have liked to see USB 2.0 implemented in the MPIO FL 100 but understand it would have increased the cost of the unit. Transferring WMA files seemed to slow the speed the most — they took significantly longer to transfer in our tests.

The included software gives the user the ability to organize and store music in a multi-folder environment; even allowing you to cluster them into files. Any user can now have their workout music in one file and their study music in another and their daily commute tunes in yet another. The software even allows the user to tailor the ID3 tag that reads out on the LCD display for each song.

We did come across a few quirky issues with the software. For one, the device does not register on Windows as an external drive. Only the MPIO Manager 2 can recognize the device when it's connected. When a unit is promoted as being able to act as a portable drive, we'd expect it to be usable from the Windows file system, not only through the proprietary software. This makes ransferring data from one computer to another quite cumbersome, as you need the MPIO software on each PC. Also, the software does not allow the upload of MP3 to the computer, apparently for copyright reasons. Lastly, we experienced several instances where MP3 files did not transfer completely and the songs were cut short.

Having the ability to record anything you need to, on a moment's notice is very easy with the FL 100 recording capability. The built-in microphone is a barely visible dot on the face of the FL 100. It does not provide studio quality recording, but all recordings were clear and every word could be understood. Using the record feature in conjunction with the FM tuner did create decent reproductions of broadcasts, yet sound quality had degraded noticeably.

Conclusion

The Digitalway MPIO FL 100 is a quality digital audio device in a good-looking package. It's not that the FL 100 is a breakthrough in new technology but rather it is a well-bred device that combines features that many other competing products lack. The minor issues this device has don't drastically take away from the many strong benefits it possesses, however, it is the minor imperfections that prevent the FL 100 from obtaining an Editor's Choice award.