I got Apacer Audio Steno AU231 from Citibank as a free gift. It is a nice gadget. It is not only a MP3/WMA player but a SD/MMC card reader too. It has an expansion slot supports cards sizes up to 2 GB. The version I got was 512MB. Therefore, the expansion slot will be needed soon if I need to put a lot of MP3/WMA.
Below are the specification taken from Apacer website.
| USB Interface | USB 2.0 High-speed transmission rate |
| Memory Capacity | 0MB,128MB,256MB,512MB,1GB |
| SD/MMC card supported | 32 MB ~ 2 GB |
| Display | 7 Segment display with blue LED backlight |
| Supported File Formats | Music playback: MP3/WMA |
| EQ modes | Normal, Pop, Classic, Rock, Jazz |
| User Interface | English |
| Audio output | 3.5 mm earphone Jack |
| Power | 1.5V Alkaline battery (AAA) |
| Battery Life | While playing music files stored in SD card: up to 6.5 hours / While playing music files stored in flash: up to 7 hours* |
| EMI Certification | CE, FCC, C-Tick, BSMI |
| RoHS | RoHS Compliant |
| Dimension | (L)62.2mm*(W)56.2mm*(D)13.7mm |
| Weight | 31g (excluding battery) |
| Operating temperature | -5°C ~ 40°C |
| O/S support | Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, Mac OS 9.2+, (Win98SE users must install driver enclosed on installation CD) |
| Accessories | User manual (4 languages), Earphone, 1 AAA Battery, USB extension cable, Installation CD (Multilanguage user manual & driver for Windows 98 inside) |
* Battery life will vary depending on temperature and usage.*
The package contains the player, user manual, earphone, AAA Battery, USB extension cable and Installation CD.
The player is not small as other MP3 player. Most of the MP3 player are small and slim. However, it is still light to hold and hang around the neck. Too bad the earphone is not design to do so. Besides, the earphone I got from Citibank is faulty. Poor Apacer quality control. They missed out to test my earphone. Anyway, the earphone is cheap in quality too.
I tested the player with Sony MDR-Q67LWW earphone. It use a simple decoder and normal equalizer. However, it can produce a nice output. I cannot compare it with price/value due to I do not know the price. Anyway, it is a nice to have player. 🙂
