Meritline Musix 5 in 1 review: Meritline Musix 5 in 1

Meritline Musix 5 in 1 Watch MP3 Player/Digital Recorder
The Meritline Musix is a flash drive-cum-digital watch that, besides keeping time, can store and transfer files, play MP3 and WMA music files, and make voice recordings.

The watch is quite large--a hefty 0.75 inches thick, with a face nearly 2 inches in diameter. The adjustable band can fit a large wrist or a small one. The Musix has a high-tech, somewhat nerdy look. Made of black plastic, it has a silver-colored faceplate with an LCD big enough to display scrolling song names. There's a mini-USB port on one side of the watch and a tiny microphone on the other. The Musix has four buttons: one to switch between time and music modes, one to play and pause music, one to control the volume, and one to advance tracks. The interface is not particularly intuitive--it's hard to tell what mode you're in. The watch comes with a decent user manual, a driver-installation disc, a battery charger that plugs into the mini-USB port, a mini-USB interface cable, and a pair of no–frills, earbud-style headphones that plug into the mini-USB port.

The Musix is powered by a rechargeable battery that takes three hours to charge for about five hours of continuous use. (The initial charge takes about six hours.) You'll have to install the driver software before you can transfer files to the watch. The LCD shows a "ready" message when the Musix is connected to the computer and "send" when the PC writes files to the watch. We transferred files back and forth to the Musix without a hitch. Both MP3 and WMA files played seamlessly and with decent sound quality. At this time, the Musix is available with only a USB 1.1 connection, but Meritline plans to release a USB 2.0 version in the spring.

The Musix has a 128MB storage capacity and costs about $140--a price more in line with dedicated flash-based MP3 players.

Return to CNET's USB flash drive roundup.