In 2006, technology journalist Steven Levy wrote a book titled The Perfect Thing. A paean to Apple's iPod, introduced five years earlier. With other mp3 players around (Rio, Creative Labs, et al), Apple broke no new ground technically, but they made the device so easy to use, a two-year-old could probably give it a go. If the 2001 iPod encouraged music piracy--Internet downloads and ripping CDs pre-iTunes (2003)--Apple still got $399 for a 5GB iPod and $499 for the 10GB version.
So I was amazed to see the value offered by mp3 players in 2021. For less than $30 with shipping, the AGPTEK A02(S) music player comes with 16GB memory and hits a total of 24GB, when I put in my spare 8GB microSD card. Or roughly storage for 6,000 songs.
I have the functionality of the original iPod, shuffle, playlists, a sound equalizer. I can set up a folder for my habit-forming BBC podcasts. And an FM radio with autoscanning and presets. A video player (in the AMV format). A photo (JPEG format) viewer. An ebook reader (TXT format). I have my collection of short stories--The Cat at Light's End--on the AGPTEK, though with the small screen and nearly 2,000 pages to go through, I won't be re-reading that book soon. Plus I can set up a folder for audiobooks in the mp3 format. Feasible because the AGPTEK has working bookmarks. Unlike any iPod, old or new, I've known.
And a lot of other miscellaneous features I won't use: a calendar, a stop watch, an alarm clock ... but one application I will use is the recorder. This records FM radio right off the air, and you can bookmark recordings like any sound, text, or video file. This is great for practicing a foreign language, or learning, say, a harmonica. Here's an example of recording a bit of slow blues.
All in all, the AGPTEK demonstrates stunningly media storage in a tiny package. Face it, printed circuits are almost as cheap as printed paper. With an amazon.com list price of $25, Shenzen Ku Rui Digital Technology might get less than $10 shipped out the door. But like any other electronic device, the AGPTEK needs recharging. If the original iPod had a paltry battery life of 10 hours, the AGPTEK delivers an astounding 70 hours on one charge.
So for anyone who's willing to evaluate what a device can do, I recommend the AGPTEK A02(S) for its value, even if navigation is a mite more involved than a two-year-old's swiping finger on a touch screen!
Image credit: walmart.com
Read Charlie Dickinson's story collection The Cat at Light's End, as an ebook in these downloadable formats:
.mobi (Kindle)
.epub (most other readers)
.pdf (for PCs)
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