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Insignia Amigo - not an alcoholic drink, an MP3 player
comment: 29 | Thursday, July 27 (2006) 10:43AM | Posted by Lone
Here's something new from a company named Insignia - a fairly nice-looking flash DAP they call the Amigo. The Amigo has some very friendly specs, which we've listed below (some are from the product page, and some are from the user manual, which has discrepancies).

  • 1, 2 GB flash memory
  • 1.2" OLED color screen (262K colors)
  • Built-in FM tuner
  • Dimensions: 3.1" x 1.3" x .5"
  • MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM (subscription), Audible, JPEG image support
  • "Easy CD-ripping" (line-in encoding?)
  • 18 hours of battery life (w/ removable, rechargeable battery)
  • Supports album art
  • 5 EQ Presets, 1 custom EQ setting
  • PC and Mac compatible
  • Included Accessories: Carrying case, headphones, mini USB cable and software
  • MSRP: $ 99 for 1 GB, $ 129 for 2 GB

I spotted this at Best Buy yesterday, and apparently late last night/early morning they got the product page up (see it here). All in all it appears to be a small, well-featured player that can work as either an MSC or MTP device. Certainly affordable too.

Product Page

Thanks, Saijin_Naib and Who ME
Comments

Lone

Comments: 973
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:03AM  

Went ahead and ordered one for review.



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:27AM  

d00d... please let me know. Its cheap enough that Id buy it if it seems okay!



Utew
Location: Oregon USA
Comments: 351
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:38AM  

Insignia is BB's house brand..... price is nice.. if the player is of decent build quality...

Insignia announcement from back in 2004.. [Linky] from arstechnica

[ edited Jul 27 (2006) 12:04PM ]



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:44AM  

Hopefully Lone can give us the final word on that. Im sure that IF its worthwile, someone will be making a hacked firmware for video playback and the like. Or atleast I hope so Cheap player for that kinda fun, and the screen seems to be very nice as well.



Steve

Comments: 1197
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:51AM  

BB's house brand...interesting. Looks decent.



enigman

Comments: 216
 		Jul 27 (2006) 12:00PM  

hmm, keeping my eyes on this one....



608zz
Location: DC metro area.
Comments: 270
 		Jul 27 (2006) 12:40PM  

Ha ha.
No Ogg support, and terrible battery life. No thanks.



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 27 (2006) 12:44PM  

um... 18 isnt bad when the battery is user-replaceable (its a standard cell/portable phone batter). And OGG support could be added in a firmware upgrade. Its the first run of this player, new features could easily be added.



jbhitter24

Comments: 351
 		Jul 27 (2006) 02:32PM  

eh, not a bad player. i like the removable battery and price. though its really generic.



Michael
Location: New York City
Comments: 2786
 		Jul 27 (2006) 02:41PM  

Whoever made this, must have also made that 1gb Napster player that I will be reviewing in the near future. The GUI and controls look similiar.



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 27 (2006) 02:41PM  

Generic means less likely to attract attention= less likely to be stolen. Generic looking is the best thing in my book.



jbhitter24

Comments: 351
 		Jul 27 (2006) 03:10PM  

well generic as in the features and such, as well as the looks. though, still a pretty decent player. but i wonder a bit about the build quality considering the lack of effort put into the product page.



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 27 (2006) 03:29PM  

time will tell Tonight I will go to BB and pick me up one. I think they have 15 day return policy right? I just got a paycheck so its dap-time



PCJ

Comments: 54
 		Jul 27 (2006) 09:43PM  

This looks very nice actually. Battery life is good enough (I can recharge it at the end of the day) and it has a decent feature set and good looks at a fair price.



graybandit

Comments: 18
 		Jul 27 (2006) 10:14PM  

Why buy this when for $20 more you can get a Sansa E-250 (the 2gb one, you know) at BestBuy?

That's what I did. Saw these things there, but was like...for $20...



Utew
Location: Oregon USA
Comments: 351
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:10PM  

I agree graybandit.. not enough price difference... a bit more and the choice becomes just a little harder.

Though since this is BB's house brand player.. returning it in case of defects should ...be easy and without questions...

[ edited Jul 28 (2006) 12:09AM ]



BuddhaHat

Comments: 2
 		Jul 27 (2006) 11:51PM  

Easy CD ripping?!? the reviewer mentions the possibility of being able to rip directly to the player via some sort of line-in functionality.

I just checked the pdf manual on the insignia website, and saw no such functions. In fact it says that you have to use Real Rhapsody in order to rip a CD to the player - *shudder*

I'm with graybandit too, and extra $20 for the sansa is a better deal, although I am admittedly a fan of this little player's minimal stylings.



dap_pad

Comments: 519
 		Jul 28 (2006) 12:18AM  

i like the design of it... generic yet simple and a nice screen. I also second graybandit too... $20 and you get ALOT more...



koreandaprules
Location: Seoul, Korea
Comments: 48
 		Jul 28 (2006) 05:32AM  

dap pad/
$30 actually... they fooled you with 99 thing



Who ME

Comments: 41
 		Jul 28 (2006) 09:10AM  

For $20 more I'd go to Circuit City and get the Zen V. $ 119 for 1gb, $ 149 for 2gb.



4vo

Comments: 160
 		Jul 28 (2006) 10:08AM  

koreandaprules I believe dap_pad was referring to the Sansa e250 ($149) vs the 2GB Insignia ($129).

I think it looks pretty simple. However, I can now understand why manufacturers opt for glossy plastics; the device would look SO much better with a glossy all-black face and controls (mainly the rubbery-looking controls iff me a bit).



egloskerry

Comments: 410
 		Jul 28 (2006) 10:10AM  

Insignia frequently rebrands decent products. One of the Insignia LCD TVs is a rebranded LG.



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 28 (2006) 11:08AM  

Really? I always wondered what their equiptment was because most of it is half-decent. Is this player a re-brand that anyone can recognize or is this their own home-brew?



ralphb

Comments: 154
 		Jul 28 (2006) 12:35PM  

Now I know that MTP is Bad and UMS is Good. But what is MSC?



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 28 (2006) 12:45PM  

UMS=MSC. MSC is mass-storage-compliant, which mean its a universal mass storage device hehe



enigman

Comments: 216
 		Jul 28 (2006) 12:54PM  

ralphb, msc=ums....different name, same meaning

Edit: shit...10mins late....
[ edited Jul 28 (2006) 01:00PM ]



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Jul 28 (2006) 02:31PM  

ish okay. Okay, so tonight I pick this thing up to test it out... Last night, I got "stuck" playing project gotham 3 for like, 5 hours. Oh well



Saijin_Naib
Location: Warren, NJ
Comments: 893
 		Aug 01 (2006) 11:34PM  

Alright, I picked up the 2gb amigo today.. Its quite nice for the money (i think). Only gripe so far is that it does not have back-lit buttons, but thats something I can get over seeing as there are only 7 buttons on the thing. Display is pretty nice, allows you to view pictures WHILE listeing to music (OMG NO WAI). And yada yada.. Lonezorz will have the full writeup for you guys, I just couldnt wait to try out a new dap in my price range



Dave Schlaefer
Location: Madison, WI, USA
Comments: 5
 		Aug 03 (2006) 01:13AM  

I bought the 1GB model earlier today to use when I don't want to risk my ZMP's HDD. It's not bad at all.

-Decent screen, clear and easy to use GUI
-Controls are easy to operate, they feel pretty sturdy and it has dedicated volume buttons.
-FM tuner works well, has great reception
It's nice and small, but doesn't feel like it'll break easily. I actually went ahead and dropped mine from about 5 feet onto the sidewalk a couple times to test the durability, it didn't pick up a scratch even (although it was in the included case)

-I had some trouble in UMS mode, couldn't figure out how to delete single files from the player, so I ended up just syncing with WMP11.
-Pictures are really a useless feature, the screen is so small and low-res.

If you need a second player that can take some punishment, it's a nice cheap one to get.



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