{"id":250,"date":"2005-08-15T13:30:29","date_gmt":"2005-08-15T21:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/songoose.com\/?p=57"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","slug":"perception-digital-pd-1000-review-amazon-rebates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/?p=250","title":{"rendered":"My journey to MP3 player bliss (or, Wisdom buys and reviews a gadget)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back around January I decided to embark upon listening to the unabridged Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/a> audiobook. Problem was, I had it in MP3 format and burning it to audio disc would require at least 40 CDR’s plus the time and hassle involved in burning. As a result, I decided it was time to get me an MP3 player<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Determined to spend less than $100, I shopped around for a long time, getting a feel for price ranges, flash vs. hard-drive players, feature sets, disposable vs. rechargeable batteries, and DRM<\/a> vs. non-DRM<\/a>. I visited my favorite tech-bargain sites like Dealnews<\/a>, Techbargains<\/a> and Dealdump<\/a>, eventually noticing the Perception Digital PD-1000 FuXion Minutemen<\/a> mentioned in several places as the best deal for the 1.5GB (about 250 song) capacity. At the time, Amazon had the PD-1000 for $99.88 base price minus a $30 Perception Digital Rebate, which landed me well within my budget at $69.88.<\/p>\n

At this point I started reading reviews about the player. There were a lot of reviews on Amazon saying, in effect, “it’s no iPod,” which to me is obvious considering the iPod costs 2-3x as much, is the best-in-class product, and comes with a well-marketed silhouette lifestyle that is supposedly cool. I wasn’t shopping for best-in-class nor cool – I wanted cheap and functional. Sadly, sites like c|net<\/a> and ZDnet<\/a> didn’t have any reviews of it, but I eventually found this independent, in-depth review<\/a>, a review on Epinions<\/a>, and more detailed product information both on the manufacturer’s website<\/a> and Tiger Direct<\/a>. Satisfied that it probably wasn’t an utter piece of crap and that the value proposition met my needs, I pulled the trigger and ordered from Amazon.<\/p>\n

The player came a few days later, and, while the manual was written in pidgin English and was difficult to understand, it wasn’t hard to figure out. It functions as both a player and USB drive, a handy feature for transporting files that some players don’t support. In addition, no need to load any special software, the player is recognized by Windows as a USB mass drive immediately and adding music is truly drag-n-drop. One very nice feature is the charging options – you can either charge the battery via the USB cable (slow) or with an AC adapter you plug in the wall (very fast). This is particularly nice if you’re not going to be near a computer or USB jack but want to listen. I charged it up, happily loaded 20 chapters of Atlas Shrugged<\/em> onto it (and about 200 other songs), and was on my way.<\/p>\n

I listened to it pretty much every day both to and from work and whenever else I had idle time to listen. The player proved itself for me in the following ways:<\/p>\n