Best Device For Audio Books (2024 Updated)

I purchased this device out of curiosity. I purchased my first Kindle in 2008 and over the years have upgraded. My next one was the Kindle Keyboard and after that was the Kindle Paperwhite. I actually had 2 different versions of the Paperwhite.

The most recent Paperwhite I purchased last November for Black Friday. I like the idea of a bigger screen, so I decided to purchase this. I picked this up over Black Friday at a reduce price. Set up was easy.

Started reading on it. About 20 – 30 minutes later, my fingers started to get cold. I like holding the device and not using a cover, so that aluminum got cold quick. I ended up purchasing a light case that doesn’t seem to add much weight to it.

Have extra reading real estate is great. I think I read somewhere that having a 7″ screen, adds 33 more words to the screen. But I guess that would depend on the font size. I liked to be able to turn the page with the buttons, that is one of the reason why I loved the first Kindle and the Kindle Keyboard.

The Kindle Keyboard would be perfect, if it had a back light. I don’t know if its the ergonomics of the devise, but my fingers felt like they were cramped, after about an hour of reading. It’s a different feel or hold when you hold the Paperwhite and hold the Oasis.

I feel like I have to grip the Oasis when I hold it and the Paperwhite, my hands rest on the device. The battery life is good. When I set it up, It was about 78% charged. I charged it up to 100% and have been reading on the same charge since.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it. I really like having the extra real estate to read more words and the page turning buttons. Except for the coldness of the aluminum, I don’t have anything bad to say about this device.

I do wish Amazon would think about making a 7. 8″ device for reading, otherwise I guess this one will have to do. Purchasing this at a reduce price, is the best way to do it.

I have had a Kindle for years i upgraded whenever i could. I got my whole family hooked and even went to kindles for online use. My Mama loved hers until the day she died. I love to read and with kindle unlimited I have gotten to read and love a variety of books I never would have known.

The newest has come a long way from my first one. It is light great to read from and text can be enlarged which helps my eyes as i have grown up as well and need a little extra help. It turns great and in its cover really feels like a book.

I can’t imagine life without it. The benefit is I already have so many books because it is so hard for me to let them go and I have ran out of room. My kindle holds so many books i have gotten and with unlimited it is a fabulous adventure into many types of literature.

You want be disappointed with this purchase, worth every penny.

Cutting right to the chase: the adjustable color temperature screen is the greatest advance in Kindles since self-illuminating screens were introduced on the first Paperwhite… period, full-stop. And, at least for this reader, there’s no going back after trying it out.

It’s that good, and that much of a game changer. With both warmth and brightness (they have separate controls) turned up to about the midway point, reading on a Kindle transitioned for the first time from merely reading words, to the experience of reading words on a paper page in a book.

This might sound like “Who cares?” nonsense to most people, but if you’re in that small minority of the public buying a high-end Kindle, you understand what I mean, and it’s that kind of difference that you’re paying for.

The new lighting also transforms the experience of reading in a completely dark room. On existing Kindles, I could never find quite the right light level. If it was as bright as I wanted it to be, that felt too harsh on my eyes.

But bringing brightness down to a level that felt comfortable seemed too dim. Now, by simply increasing the lighting warmth on the new Oasis, you can have brighter light with no harshness in a dark room, making reading much easier on the eyes.

Finally, I’m happy to say that Amazon seems to have (finally!) nailed the quality control issues that have plagued new Kindle lighting systems in the past: No splotches. No dark spots. No shadows. No weird color casts.

Just smooth, even, beautiful lighting across the screen. So, is this the perfect Kindle for me? No. The perfect Kindle would be this new 7” screen in a Voyager form factor. The ergonomics of the Oasis are still not great for me, although my satisfaction with the new screen appears to make the annoyances matter less.

The 2019 Oasis is not only a keeper for me, but I’m actually trading in both my Voyager and original Oasis.

I bought this to collaborate with band mates when we couldn’t meet up. After fighting pc audio latency issues, I bought this for the zero latency overdub feature. I love it! It can mount on a tripod.

It has many recording options so it takes some time to learn, but a few minutes into the instructions and I was able to set it up for overdub. You can record a new track separately from the original and they are perfectly in sync when you import back to the pc.

Lots of options for internal and external mics. I’ve tried a few things like external audio mic, recording a practice session with the internal mics, plugging guitar multi effects directly. All worked well.

You have to check recording levels but there is a simple way to adjust sensitivity. The one negative is that you need to transfer audio files back and forth to the pc. But that’s a small issue in exchange for all my overdubs having zero latency.

For a versatile home studio recorder, this is pretty great. If you need to make professional quality recordings, maybe it’s worth investing in more gear, but for the amateur who needs to make some recordings, this is a great device.

Buy this over an audio interface.

Like David in his review, I also experienced major RF interference when using the built-in microphones on the Tascam DR-07X. When recording audio from my iPhone 12 Mini using an external mic there was no issue.

However, when I switched to the built-in microphones there was a loud pulsating static sound that basically drowned out what was being recorded. And I didn’t realize it until I had made several recordings using the built-in mics thinking they were as good as an external one.

I haven’t tested this recorder with other electronic devices or other phones. I can say that if your audio source is an iPhone and you are anywhere near it and using the built-in mics, your recording will be seriously affected.

I normally don’t write reviews but this interface’s drivers and mix software is so bad I thought I might save someone else from having to deal with it. I used it in windows 10. As of 11/21 in order to get the adat inputs to work properly and monitor through the mixer you need to change the sample rate to another rate and back to the one you’re using after powering up (every time).

I learned this after doing some research and apparently this has been a know bug for years. To add insult to injury the real-time mix/monitoring SW is terrible. Its divided into mixes per output pairs, which is fine/workable, but the solo is global and mutes all other busses.

So, if for example, you want only mic one on Adat 3/4 you’d have to mute or turn down every other channel instead of just soloing the channel you want and all faders are up by default. Maybe there’s a shortcut but I had to much to do to find it.

Also there’s no way to save monitor mixes. Also if the mixer is active I think you have to route the HW channels to the logical Adat channels going to the DAW rather through the mix SW then access them directly from the driver unless you bypass the mix software all together loosing no latency input monitoring which makes the solo implementation all the more worse.

I’m not sure I’m describing this properly but it was arcane and annoying. Also, there’s plenty of zipper noise pulling down the bus output faders. It’s pure frustration. The pres and build quality are fine and it comes with some nice bundled sw that I had no use for but would come in handy if you’re starting from zero.

I’d stay away from this box until presonus redesigns the SW. There are decades older options with better functionality and whatever money you’re saving isn’t worth it. Something like: “Presonus is our day job.

Designed by musicians” is proclaimed under the stock photos on the the box. It might be good for them to hire some engineers to work the bugs out.

I’ve had good sound experience with other CCrane earbuds, so when I needed a headset for my phone, I picked up a set of these. Sound quality from the earbuds is the expected CCrane quality, voices are clear and sharp, and the microphone’s quality is also great.

I tested the headset by recording voice memos before using it in phone calls. In testing music files, the sound is good (I don’t need aggressive bass speakers tuned for music tend to put out), but I encountered something with the control buttons that’s likely an Android OS peculiarity.

While working with the control buttons to advance tracks, several times I’d get a “file format not supported” message on my phone. The files play fine, so I suspect that’s something related to the inconsistency of the Android OS from version to version, and device to device.

Received 3 earbud sets for price of two with 6 replacement earpieces each. First thing I noticed was how comfortable they fit and found sound quality to so much better than I was used to with others.

Also antenna function improved (I use indoor walking track with steel structure and one weak channel I like has poor reception there but much better with CCBUDS PRO). I use with my CC pocket radio (I have 3- one in each car so I won’t get to walking track without one) and the sound quality improvement was very noticeable (even for music with me).

Cost about same as what I was paying for cheap replacements at Walmart.

I totally love these earbuds! They come with 6 pairs of of extra covers so fit is sure not an issue. The sound quality is perfect for me. I listen to shortwave but also music and both come through great.

The bass is plenty for me without booming and voice is very good while listening to AM and shortwave. The longer 4′ cord is a plus too. The controls all work as they should on all my devices and they are so comfortable, I forget I’m wearing them half the time.

So, what more could I ask for?!.

Purchased this to donate to church facility. They had an old Mackie CFX12 12 channel mixer that had some channels that were not working. Also 12 channels were just not enough. This mixer takes us up to 22 channels so we don’t have to keep switching cables.

It has 3 Aux outputs instead of just 2 on the old one. This third Aux output was sorely needed. Setup and use were very easy. The users guide (a download from Mackie website) had adequate information and was easy to understand.

Sound quality is great. It connects to and handles all the instruments and vocal mics we are using without issue. There is a USB input/output channel with is especially great if you need mixer output to use for a stream.

We don’t use any of the FX but I did try them out during initial testing of the mixer and it works great. The only thing I wish it had is built in Bluetooth as an input channel so we can use other various devices for audio if needed.

But that is a minor thing since there are so many affordable good quality Bluetooth adapters available. Very, very happy and satisfied with this product.

While I like the Yoto for many reasons there are many aspects I’m not fond of. The room light is a great feature but you have to choose whether you want the light or the time displayed, can’t have both on at the same time – clock faces down when light is on, light shuts off when clock is showing.

Wish the base device’s buttons were more customizable, only a few options to select from like the main Yoto radio station. Requires inserting cards or accessing the app on another device to turn on different radio stations (rainy car ride sleep station is a favorite).

Without remotely controlling it, it’s not even possible to stop the radio from playing – pushing the device buttons does nothing, have to use the power button and shut off the whole system to make it stop.

Besides the sleep stations, I’m not a fan of the radio options – lots of obnoxious music or stories read by narrators with strong accents which can be hard to understand. I love the blank cards to make your own recordings and/or copy radio stations onto them.

While I assumed it’d be needed for the radio to play, I hate that an internet connection is required to play newly inserted cards and not much can be saved to the base memory for offline listening, constant internet is pretty much necessary.

The Yoto app/radio is free to everyone including those without a Yoto device- can stream from anything you install the app on. If Yoto base’s buttons were enabled to have more control functions and more features worked without internet, it’d be so much easier to justify the price.

Since these aren’t current features, the base is simply an expensive Bluetooth speaker with a clock or nightlight. If I had known yoto was so dependent on being remotely controlled I wouldn’t have bought the base, I’d be streaming the app from a device I already owned.

Hopefully the company will do updates to the app and give more control to the actual device instead of leaving it fully dependent on remote controlling and internet, I’d like it SO much more if that happens.

Till then, it makes way more sense to just stream the free app and not waste $ on the almost useless base.

This is the radio for a new generation. Incredibly, this achieves what so many smart speakers and DAB radios fail to deliver – simple controls, consistently reliable performance, robust build, and more features than you could shake a stick at (podcasts, radio, mp3, white noise, soundscapes, bluetooth sound output), and almost all can be set up to use a simple card if you didn’t want to rely on your phone.

And it is made for children. Primarily used to enhance the bedtime ritual for our toddler, though I often just use it as a little portable podcast player. We love the daily yoto podcast (he’s very fond of BEAT.

THAH. BUZZAAAAH!), and he then takes over to choose a book. It helps him get involved in going to bed, rather than being told! He also insists on having the books to read along with, which I’m highly encouraged by (even if it means buying a book twice).

Sleep Radio and night light then finished off the job as I read to him from something without pictures. The LED display is a nice touch with book chapters usually having a custom icon. You could even design your own – 16×16 pixels are plenty to express yourself, while not daunting if you aren’t artistically inclined.

Older kids could even make their own if you printed a grid for them to colour. The books are controlled by cards and downloaded to the speaker either the first time you insert them or almost immediately after buying from the Yoto store.

They’re also accessible from your phone so you can play them without the speaker, or link the book to another card (should your little monster chuck one down the back of the radiator). The range of books covers a huge age range from 0 to 12, so I’m hoping this will be part of Little Man’s life for a good long while.

If there’s a downside, I think the battery could last longer. It seems to be shorter than the Mini player which is also much smaller. It’s not a deal breaker, there are many options to throttle energy usage, and it sits in its dock when not used anyway.

I’m already thinking of getting one for my nephews and nieces.

Absolutely LOVE! We love listening to the music and story cards as well as the Yoto radio. The two settings for night time on the radio – one with toned down but more lively music for older children who perhaps aren’t quite ready for bed, and one for soft, mellow, peaceful music for drifting off to sleep is just pure genius.

The Yoto news station is fantastic – all our children love tuning in and learning new facts. We LOVE the child friendly music they play too. It’s so varied, across so many decades, so children really get a great array of music from all backgrounds, cultures and time periods.

But it’s child friendly too – nothing you have to worry about them listening to. It really is genius. I hope Yoto never lose their way with this because they really have tapped in to the pure wonderment, innocence, creativity and excitement of childhood.

It’s such a hard thing to find these days. More and more children are growing up staring at screens, not thinking about the world around them. Yoto encourages children to do just that. It encourages them to use their imagination, to keep their attention fixed and not scattered around every few seconds like screens do.

It opens their hearts and minds to the world while still keeping their innocence in tact. I love it. We all do.

My boys have enjoyed every minute since we got it. It was the first thing they wanted to do when they got up the next day. Even today, in lieu of his tablet, one of my boys brought the Storypod to grandma and grandpa’s! That is a win in my book! My boys love it because each Craftie has a different story or activity.

Their favorites are Elinor from Elinor Wonders Why and Daniel Tiger, both from PBS Kids. I love it because the iCraftie that’s included is customizable. You can record a special message to your kids right from the app and it will play it every time they put the iCraftie on the Storypod.

You can even purchase more than one so each kid gets their own special message. I would definitely recommend the Storypod for anyone with young kids. I think it is a great SCREEN-FREE option to keep kids occupied and learning at the same time.

I bought this to upgrade from an ancient M-Audio interface, and I wish I’d done it years ago. I’ve had problems with audio drivers in the past so I was pleasantly surprised that this one was recognised immediately, and I didn’t have to fiddle with any settings for my DAW to recognise it.

But it’s not just great for recording. I’ve connected some monitor speakers to the outputs and my phantom powered XLR mic, and my guitar effects to the inputs so I can use it as a mixer and bypass my computer altogether.

I have guitar lessons online and I use the AudioBox as a mic in Zoom and balance my guitar and voice. I can use also the input/playback control to adjust the noise I make and the voice of my guitar teacher in my headphones.

The latency has improved over my old interface, and it sounds crisper too. It’s also really compact so it sits nicely on top of my desktop PC and it feels robust too. I can’t fault it. I bought it for one purpose, and now I use it for almost everything – instead of having to use my PC settings to change mic/speaker/headphone outputs I just use the AudioBox.

It wasn’t a very exciting purchase – not like a new guitar / amp / pedal – but it’s surprisingly rewarding.

Firstly I’ll admit that cost (69) was a key factor in my choice here, as I hadn’t budgeted on requiring an audio interface to do what I was intending. For many years I’ve had a Boss device with an enormous array of effects and features for guitar, bass and vocals which (through the wonders of USB) would/should have linked my physical instruments with Garageband software on my iMac.

Unfortunately the Boss is no longer supported by the manufacturer and so its device drivers are outdated. I can’t afford to shell out megabucks for a replacement, especially when it’s otherwise perfectly good, which is where the Audiobox comes in.

This little box of tricks sits between the musical interface and the computer, and is powered via the same USB that connects it to the latter. It’s very easy to setup and just needs a few leads to be plugged in.

It’s also Core-compliant, meaning it doesn’t require device drivers or a power cable and is therefore as good as future-proof as far as Apple and Microsoft are concerned. There are sufficient input sockets to take 2 x 1/4″ jack leads for real instruments, plus MIDI in/out cables, and will accommodate headphones and external speakers.

Although it only has 1 x USB port (which is it’s means of connection with a computer), the only reason I haven’tawarded it 5 stars is because it needs this connection to be direct and dedicated, therefore it can’t be powered by a USB expansion hub.

Ports are often in demand (even more so with laptops), so this might be a slight irritation. Otherwise this little box of tricks is a winner and is a great and inexpensive solution to a potentially costly problem.

Highly recommended.

Compact solid unit. Well designed and made. Great provision of inputs and outputs. Sits on the desk nicely alongside the computer. Really good price with masses of usable software. Be aware the software is a mixed blessing.

There is so much it is tedious to download. I am really happy. It can do much more but I just wanted it for basic multi-track recording at the work desk.

I’ve had it about two weeks. Needed a replacement for my first Bluetooth MP3 player that had too many irritations. I have two wired Sansa players that I bought years ago and that worked very well, so I wanted to try this one, they just didn’t have Bluetooth.

It paired easily and quickly with the Bose QC bud system, which is the only device I’ve tried it with. It has to be set to “international” to get immersive levels of volume through the Bose, and the highest volume is usually plenty and too high on many recordings.

The user interface inputs use buttons only, which I prefer because the touch screen MP3 device it replaced is virtually unusable in bright sun, plus there aren’t any inadvertent song change or volume change inputs with these physical buttons.

This SanDisk display is bright enough to be usable in the sun – similar to the other Sansas I have. The sound quality is very good – I use FLAC files and high-sample-rate MP3 files. I wished it had the ability to plug in the mini SD cards I already have, and that the connector was USB C instead of mini USB, but these are things I can work around – if it had those I’d probably rate it a 5.

Would recommend the 32GB size storage. Glad I found this device and would buy it again.

Had an old Sansa clip 4GB which unfortunately got left at my desk at work when COVID hit. Thought I’d be back in to retrieve it but didn’t happen. Found a cheap thing on eBay and thought it would suffice but not enough options.

Tried to find another Sansa clip but seems not available now and this model kept popping up. Not positive but think it replaced it. I like the 32GB size, plenty of room for my music. It also has the shuffle option which I prefer and the cheap other one didn’t have.

Battery life has been great and it’s easy to just copy and paste the mp3 files from my PC to it. I’ve always preferred using this type of thing for listening while out walking compared to using my phone.

It just works for me.

My wife and I love these MP3 players. We’ve each owned 2 over the years, with varied memory capacities. This unit, with 32gb, will never be completely full, but it won’t be for lack of trying. I really like the Bluetooth capability in this generation of player.

The only thing that could be improved would be to add an internal antenna for the radio function. It currently uses the wire from the ear plugs as the antenna, so listening to radio with Bluetooth ear bugs isn’t an option.

Long lived and durable. Love this player! Highly recommended.

Have to say first that after a trial, I decided to return the devise, because 1) I still need to read some kindle books, which are not easy to get on pocketbook. Although I won’t buy a kindle (don’t like its monopolised marketing), I will consider an android e-reader that can at least run a google play.

2) I prefer a bigger screen. However, I think this is a very decent E-reader. 1) It is not linked with any book-store (like kindle or kobo). 2) you don’t have to register (which is good for privacy).

3) it is compatiable with most of the formats. 4) It has audio option. So it’s up to you to decide which function matters most to you.

Excellent product. Pocketbook is one of the top ebook providers – this is now my third model of theirs and they are the best available. The best thing is that they are customizable. I replaced the stock epub reader, for example.

Screen back light blinks ever time I flip the page, supper annoying, I gave one star extra only for the PDF reader voice.

I bought this as I wanted to see what the new touch-screen, back-lit Kindles were like. I’ve had a Kindle 4 (with buttons) for many, many years and love it. Although this Paperwhite is a very nice machine, and I do like it, Amazon have really messed it up! On my other Kindle I’ve always used Calibre to look after my ebook collection, creating book collections and series which get transferred to the Kindle 4 making it easy to negotiate my large library.

Amazon, in their infinite wisdom, have locked down the Paperwhite so that the Collections plugin in Calibre can no longer create them on the Paperwhite! The Paperwhite just shows pages and pages of book covers making it difficult to find the one you want.

In conclusion, the Paperwhite in a very nice ebook reader, just keep a small selection of books on it at a time.

I read a heap of books, and my Kindles get a hammering, I take them wherever I go, use and abuse them, and here I am coming back to get my next one! I needed a new one because the previous version wasn’t charging properly (apparently the USB ports can be repaired – but it’s probably more expensive to do that than simply replace it).

This version has more memory, a slightly different screen that’s seamless with the cover, and offers the usual excellent paperwhite screen with backlight. It’s waterproof to splashes and possible a bit of rain but I wouldn’t be testing it in the bath or spa.

It’s the same size as previous versions, and the controls are pretty similar as well. It definitely charges, and holds its charge, far better than my late, great and now retired one! If you’re a Kindle user, it’s worth it.

If you’re not and you read a lot – despite being limited to Amazon books (with some exceptions), it’s so much easier to carry one of these when travelling than a bag full of heavy books, just do it already.

Being able to enlarge the print, use reverse lighting (ie white letters on black background) in the dark so as not to annoy your sleep partner, and adjust font to what suits you makes this very useable.

Recommended.

Pros: Holds a decent amount of booksIs easy to holdFeels very nice in the handsSmaller size makes it easily portableHas a wonderful adjustable backlight for nighttime reading. Has Bluetooth!Has a web browser.

Easy access to hundreds of books!Easily accessible library. Amazing battery life!Just overall very simple and easy to use. Cons: Screen is sensitive so if you barely touch it (even accidentally) it will turn pages.

Reaction time is kinda slowweb browser isn’t actually that goodDoesn’t have speakers, so unless you have bluetooth headphones/earbuds, you can’t listen to audio books. exiting out of a book can be sometimes difficult.

My stepmom bought me one of these last November for my birthday, since I enjoy reading from time to time. Its mostly a good product. I enjoy using mine. It does, however, have a few inconveniences. But, I’d say, overall, it’s a good product.

Would definitely recommend, especially to the avid readers out there.

Wonderful, now I use it since more then one month and I’m really satisfied of this product.

A nice product overall!

I help to run a community podcast radio station and there are four of us who regularly interview people ‘in the field’. We have collected a number of different Olympus recorders over the years that we have been doing this, and I would recommend this model as the highest sound quality one that we have come across.

It’s stereo and on the HQ setting good enough for recording live music to ‘podcast’ quality. The only slight disadvantage is that the files are in Windows Media Audio format, and for most purposes will need to be converted to MP3, but this can be done using freeware download programmes or in our case in the editing suite.

Not manufactured any more but very good value when they appear on eBay.

Very solid little device that feels expensive when you hold it! The all-metal buttons offer fast and easy access to all functions of this voice recorder, whilst offering a range of options for best combination of recording time and quality.

The highest quality will blow you away with its unbelievable crispness and will provide you with just over 4 hours recording time. 4 quality options offer a range from this, to ‘slow quality’ offering 66 hours at still good sound reproduction.

The menus are read aloud by a neat, crisp voice for those that are not looking at the recorder, or for the visually impaired. 3 recording settings offer different mic sensitivities, for everything from lectures to dictation so you’ll never miss that quiet sound in the distance.

I was instantly and am still amazing by the fantastic recording and playback quality of this product and would not hesitate to buy again!.

I looked around like mad for one of these models. Finding one at a good price was my first challange, but I was in the right place at the right time in the end, and managed to get my mitts on one. I couldnt believe how tiny it is.

They have come along way from the massive tape recorders. It is very easy to use, I have figured it out without even reading the instructions. It was easy to upload the sounds to windows media and the recording quality was spot on.

Not much background noise and the voices were very clear. Has loads of features I haven’t tried yet, but so far I am very impressed. Perfect for uni and meetings.

I have been reading positive and negative reviews about these Finis before buying until I decided to give them a try. I am a swimmer and I have used other conventional mp3 players at the pool, with poor results, especially when it comes to flip turns (I like my current wireless Sony nwz-ws615 series, but the sound is dull when using the water pads, and most annoyingly, water gets into my ears when flip turning.

Therefore, I ended up using them when I am “out” of the water, because they are very confortable and the Bluetooth feature is useful. so, it is pointless when it comes to swimming). I must say these Finis Duo are the very best so far.

Really comfortable to use, excellent clip to the goggles, no problems with flip turns AT ALL, the sound quality under water is AMAZING taking into consideration that my ears are absolutely free and I can still listen to the environment and/or people talking to me with these on, and I am not using earplugs, only the swim cap is more than enough to me.

Regarding the magnet charger, I experienced no issues with the charging process, the magnet on my unit is very powerful (note that I have the new model, I think, which is number 011116, probably some improvements were made).

To sum up: I am REALLY satisfied. I have never expected such a positive combination of comfort, sound quality (of course, listening to HI FI mp3 tracks) and long-lasting battery (only charged it once and have used it for 3 whole sessions of 2-3 hours each so far, and no “low battery” indicator).

I will keep on using it and let you know how it performs – My best underwater set, to date!.

I compare this product to another one I use in the pool. The other product comes with the “classic” earbuds and the usual troubles one can encounter using it: no matter how fit they are to your ears, eventually the water will protrude under the plugs and you’ll need to stop to re-fit them.

Finis duo eliminates the problem by using a so-called “bone conduction audio method”. The speakers are held pressed on the temple bones by the goggles’ strap. On the left speaker are the controls, very easy to reach and to use, once you get accustomed to them.

The sound is clear and loud enough, even louder when both the player and the ears are immersed. Risking to repeat myself I have to emphasize that the sound quality (or intensity) doesn’t suffer if some water enters into your ears.

The memory is large enough to store hours and hours of audio content in mp3 and wma formats. Those were the “plus-es” of the Finis Duo; as for the “minus” parts, I’d mention two: 1. You can’t make a playlist; it would be useful to organize your music according to the training routine: let’s say you’d want to listen to some slower tunes during warm-up and cool-down and a more alerte/motivating ones during peak effort.

You’ll have to make do with whatever songs you loaded, played in a row or randomly. 2. The battery is advertised to last up to 7 hours; however, I never got mine to last past 3 and a half. I can tell that because I swim precisely 90 minutes daily and – if I forget to recharge the Finis Duo for two consecutive days – the third swimming session will be veeeery noiseless :).

Overall: a very good to excellent product.

A fellow swimmer recommended the Finis, so my expectations were high. It was fairly straightforward loading it with music – but the “1,000 songs” claim overstates what it actually holds: my 645 pop songs took 3.

4 gb (85% of the space). It attaches well to the swim goggles and stays in place during flip-turns. I don’t use earplugs, so the normal splash sounds from swimming are more noticeable when you’re trying to listen to music on Finis Duo.

The product seems solidly built and well designed, but the quality of sound is so-so: like those old transistor radios from the 1960s. The sound changed depending on head position; underwater had better sound than above the water.

Vocal parts usually came through reasonably well, but the background music/band/orchestration turns into one big mess. I have not tried a podcast.

This product is a fantastic little device. I bought it because I needed a way to play music in my car because the dongle I have for my phone broke and the replacement I got doesn’t work well and sometimes cause music to randomly cut out, so I figured rather than spend more money on another probably defective dongle, or an expensive USB-C to Aux cord why not buy this little handy guy.

This device hasn’t failed me yet, and shows no sign of doing it anytime soon either. It allows me to make calls and be heard in my car, plays my music and can also be taken on the go and can make any pair of headphones “wireless” should that be something you want.

A fantastic little product.

I wanted this to be able to play my Bluetooth phone without an audio jack in my older 2009 Hyundai with an aux cable. This did what I wanted it to, and now I can listen to the phone audio through the car speakers.

The microphone on it isn’t practical and my wife couldn’t hear me through it, so keep that in mind that this is probably only good for the one direction and may not work as a true hands-free device to be able to make phone calls.

I bought this to replace a failed receiver of a different brand in my car. If you have a decent stereo in your car, this receiver will produce good sound. It does work while charging. The only thing I don’t like about this is the fact that I have to connect it to my phone manually every time I turn it on.

(I don’t have to re-pair the devices, just go into my phone’s settings and connect to this device. This is the only Bluetooth audio device I’ve had to do that with. ).

This is a good ebook reader within its limits, and probably the cheapest around that has a worthwhile battery life, but there are a couple of problems. Most notably, Barnes and Noble no longer support it or sell ebooks for it, so files must be acquired elsewhere and uploaded by USB – and the wifi in the reader is useless for anything else.

I strongly recommend using the user-supported Calibre ebook management program for this. You will also need to add a micro SD card if you want to keep a worthwhile library – 8GB should accommodate a couple of thousand books.

The second problem, which can be a bit annoying, is that it is very difficult to organize books other than in strict alphabetical order by author or title – and there is no quick way to jump through the lists of authors or titles.

You can create “book shelves” containing books by a particular author or on a particular topic, but you can only do that from the screen of the ebook reader, and the process is difficult and slow and often goes wrong.

Some other ebook readers give you e. g. a list of author names, so that you can quickly scroll through the list, rather than going page by page past multiple books by the same author. There are ways to fix both problems, which boil down to jailbreaking the Nook and installing Android and alternative ebook reader software.

It’s worth considering, but be very careful because you can end up with a “bricked” ebook reader and no come-back, or find that your battery life is suddenly a lot shorter. So far I haven’t quite found it worthwhile, but with several hundred books installed it’s looking more and more attractive.

That’s the down side. The up-side is that it’s cheap, simple, rugged, works pretty well if you keep the screen clean and the battery charged, and very easy to read, with none of the drawbacks of LCD screens.

If you’re going this route and can live with its limitations it’s a very good choice.

[Review for UK Simple Touch] Released in 2011 these devices are now unsupported in the UK by B&N. Any Nook Touch (for the UK) will NOT allow registration because the UK registration servers no longer exist! If you have some technical know-how there are some very old and unsupported root apps which will allow access to the device.

Rooting using a US configuration seems to be successful for users of reset devices. US account servers are still running, but the process may be daunting for non-technical people. Reading PDFs works well and can be easily loaded over a USB connection to a PC or Mac.

ePUBs should also work if you have books in this format. If you are prepared to root the device then Android applications can be installed, but only Android 2. 1 applications will work, of which there are very few now available on the Android store.

Kindle and Amazon apps are so old they do not connect and work anymore. If you don’t mind the manual loading of ePUB or PDFs then this can be a cheap option to read books. Battery life is excellent. Eink screen is clear for reading and the button interface is intuitive.

In 2013 B&N sold this device for 29 so second hand versions should be available for bargain prices. If you expect to buy books directly on the device then I would suggest buying (at least in the UK) e-readers which are still supported by the manufacturers.

I’d only recommend the Nook Simple Touch to people with some technical knowledge and spare time.

This is the limited edition Nook simple touch with the white bezel (otherwise identical to the standard NST). Works perfectly, long battery life, was able to root successfully for basic web access to Wikipedia and other text heavy sites, takes a modern class 10 ultra 16 GB micro SD with no issues.

I highly recommend one of these, the e-ink screen looks great with little to no glare for long term reading, it has physical page turn buttons that can be remapped with root (for example, my top left is remapped to a a standard “back” button/function, and my top right is remapped to a “home” button function.

Works with epubs, pdfs, and even doc file types out of the box, rooting expands this to other formats such as. AZW or CBZ/CBR formats for comics. With the expandable memory card slot, and the freedom of formats, this easily beats most Kindles or Kobo’s in it’s class.

Only the Sony TRS 1 / TRS 2 is comparable, but they are kind of hard to find these days.

I needed an aux to Bluetooth adapter for my car so I picked this guy up from Micro Center. I couldn’t be happier! Works great, all I had to do was sync my phone once, and now every time I get in my car it connects.

These Echo Frame sunglasses do just what the description states. If the features of these sunglasses attract your interest, you’ll be very happy with them. The glasses do not have too much of a ‘dorky’ look.

They are lightweight, weighing about the same as a normal pair of glasses. I don’t think anyone will notice that these aren’t ordinary sunglasses. To operate them, you need to make sure you’ve got the Alexa app open on your smartphone, otherwise they’re just a normal pair of glasses which constantly remind you to open the app.

Listening to music is fun and very comfortable, with nothing in or over your ears and the stereo effect is great. Not much bass, but for casual listening it’s OK. To me though, it’s like the product was developed without anyone asking if there’s really a need for them.

If you have an Apple or Google Smartwatch, you can answer the phone or ask Siri or Google a question using your watch. If you want music, a good pair of earbuds will give you much better sound and many of them will answer your phone and give you audio as clear to the caller as your new Echo frames.

Something I noticed, which would trouble me more with the Echo regular prescription glasses, is that when I had them on around my house, and would ask Alexa to play a song, many times the music came out of the various other Echo devices around the house instead of my glasses.

Once even my Echo equipped thermostat started playing Katy Perry. Since you don’t usually wear sunglasses when inside your home, this phenomenon wouldn’t be too much of a problem with these, although many people have Echo equipped sound systems in their cars, putting them in the same situation.

Battery life was just adequate. If you listen to music or are on the phone for most of the time wearing them, your battery won’t last more than about six hours which means you’d be wearing them as ordinary sunglasses for part of the day.

The glass lenses are polarized and work very well in cutting down glare, although just like other polarized glasses you need to take them off when looking at your phone or a computer screen Bottom line, If you think you’d enjoy the features offered by these Echo sunglasses you’ll be happy with them.

They’re not cheap, but many ordinary brand-name sunglasses are just as expensive.

Amazon Echo Frames (2nd Gen) are an upgrade from the 1st Gen version with prescription ready, sunglasses and blue light filtering with improvement on battery life, sound quality, features like Auto-Off, Auto Volume and VIP Filter.

What is included: Echo Sunglass, Charging Cable, Carrying case, Power adapter Sunglass frames weigh around 34grams and is made of carbon fiber, titanium which makes it very lightweight for everyday use.

Setup is very simple and easy. Just charge the glasses and open the Alexa app on your phone, follow the instructions to add the device and you are all set with setup. Takes less than few minutes for the entire process.

Pros: – Hands-Free with Alexa – With Alexa ecosystem on my smart home, this frame is a great addition for taking calls, listening to notifications of text messages, setting reminders, listening to music and to control your smart home on the go without having to lift a finger.

– Improved battery life compared to Gen 1 with 4 hours of nonstop listening on a full charge. – More colors compared to Gen 1 – Supports Google assistant or Siri – Auto Volume is a new feature that automatically adjusts media volume based on the noises in the environment using intelligent ambient EQ.

– VIP Filter and Top Contact is another feature that allows to select which apps and messages gets permissions to notify when received. Alexa on the Frames will announce which app is notifying and you have the option to tap to dismiss by swiping the right temple panel.

You can change the preferences on the app anytime if you like to change the notification settings. I learned that Alexa does not like to read obscenities aloud, to the chagrin of my colleagues. – IPX4 splash resistant for water and sweat resistant and the polarized sunglass lenses are UV400 protected.

Also, have the options for prescription ready frames or blue light filtering lenses. Cons – No wireless charging. – Thicker stems/temple around lenses. – No option of swapping the lenses to different shapes like Anker Smart glasses.

– Little expensive compared to other competitor brands with interchangeable lens. Overall, this is a great smart glass for prescription lenses or sunglasses. If you are in the Alexa ecosystem then this smart glass won’t disappoint you.

First thing to note, these are speakers directing sound towards your ears, not bone induction audio technology. This means if the volume is loud enough or you are close enough to others, they will hear what you have going on.

One of the benefits of these, same as bone induction, is that they are open ear systems, meaning you are more aware of environmental noises around you. Obviously, you can’t wear earplugs with these to focus on the sound like you can with bone induction.

These are sunglasses, so I reviewed them as such, using them in situations where you would be wearing sunglasses. One thing to note, sunglasses are often perched up on your forehead/brow when temporarily not needing the light shading.

When you do this, the volume decreases a lot, about by half. This is due to the increased distance and angle of the speakers to your ears. Once synched to the Alexa app on your smartphone, these work much like a portable echo dot speaker, the difference being the notifications from your phone being the main main source of unprompted interaction.

When you get a notification from an app that the Frames has not received before, Alexa will ask you if you want to continue receiving notifications for that app, swipe to keep getting that app’s notification, tap to drop it from the list.

The Alexa app has a spot to redo or edit the notifications allowed list. Making and Taking calls on the Frames worked very well, the other person on the line had no issues conversing with me. The Frames has an auto volume level that seems to work fairly well, it will up the volume to the speakers when the ambient noise level increases and decrease the volume when it gets really quiet.

There is a feature to put the frames to sleep when they are set down on their back, temple up. The red light on one of the stems will light for 3 seconds letting you know they are going to sleep. This is NOT the same as turning them off completely.

The battery will slowly drain in this sleep mode. Battery life varies with use. If you put them to sleep by laying them down when they were on, the battery drained about 30 percent over 10 hours or so.

When you put them on and they comeback to “life” it will give you a battery status, only in 10 percent increments. 10 percent is the last warning you get before it will state that battery is depleted and will now be turning off.

These are very useful if you want to listen to music or podcasts/books while out and about, but the battery won’t last much more than a couple hours for that use case. I really recommend these for those that use Echo/Alexa a lot or want to listen to things outside without blocking out enivronmental noise.

The sunglasses would be a natural transition from the house to the outside or from Echo Auto to the outside.

I bought this Echo Dot with clock to use as a bedroom alarm clock. I love that it kept accurate time, and that the brightness of the display adjusts to the ambient light in the room. It’s also good for playing music or white noise when going to sleep.

After using the device reliably for a year I almost missed a flight when the alarm didn’t go off to wake me up one morning. The Echo had hung and wasn’t responding to voice commands. The clock still displayed the accurate time.

Since then, the unit has continued to hang a couple of times a day. The problem usually happens right after giving the Echo a command. The LEDS at the bottom come on and then stay on. At this point the only way to restore it is to unplug it for a few seconds.

I have searched the web for a solution and see that others are having the same issue. I have tried reloading the software from scratch to no avail. I can only assume that it’s a hardware design issue.

There has been no response from Amazon on the issue that I can see other than suggesting trying another power supply which I tried and it didn’t solve the issue. I have 15 other versions of Echo’s and none of them have this problem.

This experience has caused me to lose confidence in the reliability of Echo’s in general for anything important and now I use my phone for wake-up alarms.

My name is Pam and I am an Echo Dot addict. I last used my Echo Dot just moments ago. I have the Glacier White version. Seriously, Alexa has spoiled me and every one else in my home absolutely rotten.

It’s so nice not to have to bother thinking after a long day at work or when I’m just waking up in the morning. Anything I need to know, I ask the pro and she always has a pleasant attitude in addition to answering my questions.

Unfortunately, I have not only created Echo Dot addicts out of everyone in my home, but because I purchased one for my sister for Christmas,I have also created addicts out of everyone in her home as well.

There are so many of us now that we could start our own support group. Alexa is so handy to have on hand. She wakes us up every morning with the alarm I’ve set, gives us the day’s forecast, answers silly questions that pop in our heads randomly like who sang a certain song or who appeared in a certain movie, you name it.

This product is so easy to set up and I love having the ability to connect smart devices. I purchased the bundle with a smart light bulb and since my sister lives alone this allows her to have Alexa turn the lights on before she enters her home for safety.

So many uses!! I highly recommend!.

These don’t go on sale all the time like the non-clock versions do, but I think they are worth waiting for. I have these in each of my kids rooms. I never to worry about setting the time when the power goes out, or for daylight saving time, or when batteries die.

They have a clock that is always right, and the kids can set alarms and timers, all without a another screen competing for their attention. I already had 3rd gen echo dots in each of the bedrooms, and was considering getting a clock for each room too.

WiFi clocks meant 2 devices instead of 1 clogging the WiFi, and decent atomic clocks that I felt confident would be set once and forget were just as expensive. Switching to these and repurposing the old dots just ended up being the best option and has worked out well.

The sound quality is good enough for our uses, and they have better mics / pickup than the big expensive rotating Echo Show 10 we have in the kitchen. And telling Alexa to play obnoxious, annoying songs on all of them simultaneously works great for getting kids up in the morning.

The best MP3 player, despite its quirks. I am very happy about this ingeniously simple player that does not require a display. It looks high-quality all around, sounds great and the navigation is simply great! The round button skips one folder forward at a time.

This works very well for me and in addition to the pleasant operation in everyday life, the service is very suitable for children, or for shows where I want to go on the side. Attention! The volume can be set very loudly, especially with headphones- on the Kingsaccsess website there is still a Bluetooth USB box with the same navigation principle, I find very interesting as a Toniebox alternative.

(probably also very loud). The solo staff is about the same size as a credit card and about 1 cm thick. It fits very well in the hand and has a pleasant, slightly velvety plastic surface. The large (approx.

1 x 1 cm) yellow buttons are approx. 1 mm raised and are comfortable to use. (Translated from German).

Solid U. K. Design and engineering. Not your usual MP3 player. This one is designed to have expansion capabilities and to use solid controls with which you dont have to fiddle. It is extremely easy to operate without having to look at a screen and the sound quality from bluetooth connected headphones is far superior to my previous two players which both lasted less than a year before controls failed.

The design may not appeal to everyone but if you want something to play music or listen to audio books then I would recommend the Solo. Only suggestion for improvement would be the extension of battery life if possible.

Put your trust in a U. K. company. we make good stuff.

THIS IS A FANTASTIC LITTLE FLASH DRIVE PLAYER. LOOKS REALLY COOL. GREAT DESIGN AND COLORS. EXCELLENT SOUND. GOOD VALUE ! VERY SMALL AND LIGHT WEIGHT BUT WELL MADE. A NICE LITTLE VOICE APPEARS TO LET YOU KNOW IF YOUR BATTERY CHARGE IS RUNNING LOW.

EVEN THE BATTERY CHARGING LEAD IS A VERY COOL DESIGN. THE PLAYER FEATURES AN INTERNAL MAINS CHARGEABLE BATTERY. NO NEED TO INSERT BATTERIES.