This sort of control engineering (sometimes) works fine in video games, but it doesn’t work well for a MP3 player – even the Hold button is multipurposed in this design. Hit it two times quickly and it does something else. Hold the button down for two seconds and it does Z. Other companies have tried to map multiple functions onto single buttons. That’s one of the mistakes that Apple’s been wisest to avoid in its devices. And sometimes – often times – you’ll need to press them twice to get the Cube to do what you want. Unless you have tiny fingers, you’ll need to press the dime-sized control pad’s buttons with a fingertip or fingernail. A small lock-iconed button next to the Menu button lets you put the Cube in hold mode to prevent accidental button presses.īut what about the first three points we raised above? Well, they’re undeniable, but they’re also acceptable – at least, until someone does something considerably better. It’s not as good as having an automatic gain control setting, as on Griffin’s iTalk, but – wait for it – it records, and the shuffle does not.
#Qube mp3 player manual
Bitrate settings range from 64Kbps to 160Kbps (monaural), and there’s a manual gain control setting ranging from 1.5 to 22.5db, defaulting at 6db. We were especially amazed that the Cube’s microphone works well from all directions even though it’s hidden on the unit’s bottom – you don’t need to plug anything (microphone or peripheral) in to record. You start at Music, go to FM Radio (yup), then to Setting (a sub-menu with its own set of iconic choices), then to Recording (yup, again), and finally to Listen, which lets you hear stored recordings. Holding down a Menu button on the unit’s left side brings up a scrolling icon-laden menu (big plus) that lets you go through five options. Mobiblu also has a “fade in” feature for songs that works nicely. A five-band graphic equalizer, easy to see on the screen thanks to a bright OLED display. There are also nine equalizer presets – normal, rock (the default), jazz, classic, pop, SRS, Trubass, WOW, and User EQ.
#Qube mp3 player plus
The Cube features SRS (artificial sound enhancement) with focus, speaker size and volume controls, plus an adjustable level of Trubass enhancement. Though the unit’s lack of a USB plug limits its utility as a “go anywhere” storage device, we thought it was seriously cool (albeit impractical under some circumstances) that there is only one port on the entire Cube’s body.įor a device this small, you’ll be shocked to see how much control you have over your sound – more, in fact, than on even a full-sized iPod. All major pluses.Įvery Cube comes with a set of headphones, a single cable that charges and syncs the device from any powered USB port, and a little rubber edge-protecting box that we’d call a case, save that it exposes at least as much of the Cube as it covers. It supports MP3, WMA and protected WMA formats, as well as limited playlist functionality.
#Qube mp3 player software
The internal battery runs for 10 hours under normal playback conditions, and you don’t need any special software to use it – Macs and PCs recognize it as a USB storage device. It fit a 1GB digital audio player into a cube the width of a quarter, and an iPod shuffle-style controller the size of a dime on its right side. That’s what Mobiblu’s done with the Cube. So when another company really steps up to the plate and does almost all the right things – not ripping off an iPod, but thinking of smart ways to improve upon it – it deserves a pat on the back. Even a so-so Apple product generates enough interest and buzz to win more customers than a well-executed, less well-known competitor. And even when the company misses the design bullseye with certain products – as it did with the iPod shuffle, and more recently with the Mighty Mouse – scores of people still line up to buy them.
When the company does right – as with the iPod and iPod mini – it’s hard to argue that a competing product is better in any way that’s important to the majority of people. Yes, point four might not initially make sense in light of the first three, but that’s why it’s worth reading the rest of our quick review of the Cube, which you’ll find by clicking on Read More below.Īs a general but regrettably not universal rule, Apple products are polished to an impressive level of physical and user interface perfection that competitors have struggled to duplicate.
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