In the mp3 player battleground, Transcend has been known to provide value-for-money players that are good enough to do the job. Does the latest MP330 fall in the same category? Read on to find out!

This is probably one of the smallest mp3 players that you can get which provides a decent OLED display. Shaped like a pen-drive, the left side is a USB connector with a cap, which is meant to transfer data and also charge the device once plugged into your computer. There’s a 1 inch-wide White Monochrome OLED display with a resolution of 128x32, which can be seen in any kind of light. On the right there is a four-way key with a play/pause button in the middle. The up and down keys are for the volume while the left and right keys are for navigation through tracks and in the main menu as well. Also on the right side are the audio and line-in ports. On the top of the player there is one button for recording, one for going back to the previous menu and there is a button to lock the device when you’re playing it. The player is quite light at 25g.

You get a pair of earphones, a neck strap, a sport clip and a line-in cable bundled with the player. Overall, it’s portable and sleek and easy to carry around, especially with the neck strap and the sport clip which ensures you don’t just lose it on a crowded train! 

The display of the screen is quite clear and bright and the fonts are quite visible to read, so even if you are out in the sun, you don’t have to shield the player to see what to play! With a capacity of 8 GB, there is no dearth in the amount of music that you can store, and which also means that you can use it to transfer data!

The quality of music playback is one of the good points of this player and could have been even better but for the bundled earphones. With a better quality of earphones, the music is loud and clear, though the base is not too high. Playback time is a good 11 hours and 30 minutes. The FM receiver doesn’t do too well either, for the fact that there’s a lot of trouble in getting clear signals in open places. The recording is done in WAV format and is quite nice as it picks up sound from a distance also. It plays MP3, FLAC, WAV and WMA-DRM10 formats which are the common ones. The downside is the time it takes to transfer files to the device, which can be a little longer than expected. 

Apart from the earphones and the time taken to transfer files, the MP330 surely gives you a neat performance.

At a price tag of Rs. 3,450 you can’t ask for more than this. Probably if you shell out some more and buy a different pair of earphones, the experience can be very satisfying! A downside can be the transfer time but a capacity of 8 GB is quite nice for any mp3 player. It’s worth a buy from your first salary to a loved one or even to yourself and with two years of warranty you won’t have to worry too much for some time!