Coby isn't the company you'd associate with quality products. In fact they're known for bringing out cheaply made and often rebranded products. I had the chance to play with their MP-C951 a couple of months ago and I was surprised to find it wasn't that bad. Their newest lineup look pretty respectable too. Most of them have the same feature set including MP3, and WMA support, an FM tuner/recorder, voice recorder and lyrics support. let's quickly run through them:



This MP-C896 (left) has a built in USB plug, making it similar to players like the Samsung YP-U1/U2, and the upcoming Sansa Express from Sandisk. This player comes in sizes as high as 2GB. The MP-C694 (center) is a pendant-style flash player with a color screen and a built in SD slot and finally there's the MP-C68347 (right) which comes bundles with a speaker set.. The red GUI on these players reminds me of the Olympus m:robe 100.

So what does everyone think? Is Coby going to become a DAPreview household name? Not likely, but if companies like Memorex canmake it into the top 5 for marketshare then I'm sure Coby can make some sort of progress as well. Just remember what everyone thought of Sandisk players a couple of years ago and where they are now.

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