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General discussion

Wal-mart ilo 256 MG - Any thoughts?

Jul 1, 2005 5:54AM PDT

Discussion is locked

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remember you get what you pay for...
Jul 1, 2005 9:37AM PDT

Would you buy food from Home Depot, probably not. Mp3 player made for Walmart, should have great sound and features. NO, there are many flash mp3 players on the market for very good prices. iRiver, Creative, Rio, etc. all make very good players, any of those players are much better than a garbage walmart brand player.

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Well...
Jul 1, 2005 1:48PM PDT

I did a little searching. It turns out that the iLo MP3 player is made by Rave-MP, based out of Arizona. (I checked the ''product warrenty'' supplied on the Walmart site, found a customer service phone number, and ran it through Yahoo search. Amazingly, the two companies have the same phone number, even though they're supposedly not related. Wink) While I've never heard of Rave-MP before, Cnet has given them fairly good reviews on the Go Video rave MP Sport and the GoVideo Rave MP Style Arc 5.0. Note, however, that these represent the "Rave MP" brand quality...the iLo MP3 players are made in a different plant, so the quality may vary.

Back to the Ilo version, I was only able to find one review, but it contains more information than you'll ever need/want. (Click here for the book Wink) Some would consider its 90-day warrenty a turn-off, but I had a TV with a 1 year warrenty last 14 years (perfect picture until it was struck by lightning), so it may outlast its more expensive competition...who knows? Overall, the review is pretty good considering the price, so it's worth taking a look at. Worst case scenerio: you purchase it, take it home, find out it doesn't work the way you expected, and have to return it.

Hope this helps,
John

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Thanks for the replies, guys....
Jul 1, 2005 5:10PM PDT

I actually had narrowed my choice down to the Creative Muvo Tx FM, but when couldn't find the "color" skins at our local stores, I started searching on the net again and saw the Ilo and just wondered if anyone had ever heard of them...I will probably just hold off on the purchase and learn a bit more and make the decision based on my needs rather than hurry and buy an MP3 player for my daughter (who actually hasn't begged for it in the first place...just mentioned that she'd like an Ipod when someone asked her what she wanted for her birthday...that and a puppy or a TV for her room!)She hardly even uses her little CD player! I will probably order the Muvo Tx for myself...Thanks again for all of your advice!

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Just a little tid bit
Jul 17, 2005 3:01PM PDT

You could get the mp3 player you have listed and just get an FM MODULATOR. This way the mp3 player can be played on any fm radio. They also sell these at walmart

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mp3 players
Jul 18, 2005 9:54PM PDT

MP3 players can be hard to use because you have to upload files via a USB cable, and they might not always be plug-n-play, etc etc. You should hunt down one that plays MP3s off an SD flash-memory card... these can be had for as little as 40 bucks, although you're going to end up paying another 25 for a flash memory card. This is perfect if you have a flash drive in your computer already.

Here's one I found for 50 bucks:

http://www.proporta.com/F02/PPF02P05.php?t_id=1187&t_mode=des

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Found another site with a fairly good review
Jul 21, 2005 11:58AM PDT

I found another site which has a fairly good review.

The shortened URL for it is:

http://tinyurl.com/6e6kj

The basically claim the sound on it is fine. The FM tuner is a bit stacticy on some stations which are normally clear. The sound recording capability is primative. The display is good and easy to read, and has a back light. And it's only expandable to having a 512MB external card.

But for the money they claim it's good as a player.

Also Wal-Fart claims that it cannot be used for data storage, but it can - just like a digital camera can also.