The BenQ Joybee 102R resembles a peppermint (41mm in diameter and 8mm thick) and, as indicated by the included lanyard-earbud combo, it's meant to be worn around the neck. Because of this design decision, the Joybee 102R's miniature headphone jack is designed to work only with the earbuds shipped with the product. So if you, like many of us, have a favourite set of headphones that you prefer to use, you'll have to trek down to get an adapter. Of course, this also means that you'll go without using the Joybee 102R's lanyard and probably keep the device in your pocket. This would forego the only reason why anyone would want the thing: to show it off. The player's sleek metallic casing, available in purple (128MB and 256MB) or green (128MB only), certainly makes it worthy of being sported like a piece of jewellery, and at a 16 grams, it's not much heavier than most necklaces. However, we would like to see it come with an armband, considering its fitness-friendly form.
This brings us to another point. When it comes to audio players, many users prefer function over form, or at least give the two factors equal weight. While the Joybee 102R performed about as well as any other flash-based player in its price range (AU$139 for the 256MB version), it lacks an LCD so there's no way to really know what's going on with the device. As such, the device has no advanced features and few controls. On the left spine is a volume rocker, while on the right spine you'll find another rocker-type button that functions as the fast-forward, rewind, and play/pause/power controller. Because of the Joybee 102R's diminutive size, it's often difficult to distinguish which action you're affecting when you hit the various buttons, and if you have large fingers, you will have problems.
The Joybee 102R supports MP3, unprotected WMA, and WAV files, and it shows up as a removeable drive in Windows Explorer, so getting songs onto the device is a simple drag-and-drop affair. The included USB cable plugs into the headphone jack and the unit supports USB 2.0, but tunes transferred at a relatively slow 0.69MB per second. The player has a signal-to-noise ratio of 90dB, so it sounds good through the included earbud headphones.
In CNET Labs' tests, the BenQ Joybee 102R's rechargeable battery provided inconsistent results, but never lasted more than 6.5 hours, which is significantly less than the manufacturer's rated time of as much as 10 hours.
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27/10/2006, 12:50 PM
rating
9/10
cute and stylish
Pros: sound was gr8 to me,the uploading music was fast and simple,everything about the set up was simple for anyone to accomplish. i use it at work and for work its gr8 for me. cheapalso i won it on ebay. only paid 99 cents for the item 19.99 shipping. but purchased the insurance in shipping so i paid all in all 25 bucks not bad .i think its funny people are paying 100's of dollars for something although the storage is not large so what i can pick an choose as often as i like uploading.
Cons: none yet ill get back to ya
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stanislov
09/03/2006, 07:16 AM
Small, functional and cheap
While limited in functionality, the Joybee 102R delivers what it promises - convenient size with a fun style.
The player loses bass in the lower ranges, and has trouble at both high and low frequency extremes, resulting in a middling audio quality.
The simple operation and drag-and-drop interface make it uncomplicated and luddite-friendly, though the bundled QMusic software is worse than useless.
I got this player for $20, so I'm understandable satisfied. If you can find it for under $50, it's a good buy, but otherwise you can get more bang for your buck - although it performs admiraly, don't expect it to be the little MP3 player that could.
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dicko
13/01/2006, 04:10 PM
nice and small and excellent for workouts
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31/03/2005, 06:41 PM
Rip Off
Dont waste your money, spend an extra $40 and get a 512MB iPod shuffle. 5x the storage an looks heaps better.
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