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Sunday, January 30, 2005

Even Better Car iPod Shuffle - VFM7 $30

It's not on their site yet as far as I can tell, but it was in their store, so I grabbed one at Walmart tonight: the VR3 VFM7 MP3 FM Modulator for $30.

It makes the Car iPod shuffle just that much easier and cheaper. Just this, and any USB pen drive, and you're through. Still no random play, so you'll need Renamer still to shuffle it up, but these devices are great.

It's not as juiceful as the Anydrive, so it has to be a regular solid-state pen drive, but I can't fault it for just doing what it says. Also it couldn't be simpler. Play, Back, Forward, and Change frequency.

At this price I can have multiple playlists on multiple drives so I can listen to audiobooks and the like while keeping my tracks shuffled up. It might also be fun as prank device, you could use it in the back seat to override the radio station as long as it's below 89 MHz. That might limit it's usefulness in that area a little.

The transmitter seemed powerful enough, I'll have to check out the sound quality tomorrow.

AddThis Permalink   Email This   Post a Comment (5)

» At 11:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nice. I wish it also decoded OGG.

» At 4:20 PM, Blogger Brian said...

I ended up with an extra, if anyone needs one, contact me at brianburnham AT gmail DOT com. It's sealed/new.

» At 6:15 AM, Blogger craniac said...

I have one of these, and they're not bad. There is a logic to the order in which it plays songs that I haven't totally figured out, and some naming schemes freeze it. I need to find a site where people talk about this thing in detail.

» At 10:38 AM, Blogger Morgan said...

I actually really like the Renamer program, you might try it out. It's as fast as normal file copy but you get a new order every time.

http://www.webmastersguide.com/downloads.htm#renamer

» At 7:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I own one of these. I bought it from WalMart's automotive department for $30. For me it's great. I just put my mp3's on my 512MB USB JumpDrive and away I go.

Downsides: 1. If you pull it out of the cigarette lighter plug, it loses its place and you have to start over from the beginning. 2. If you have a car that turns off the cig lighter plug when the car is off, you lose your place and you have to start over from the beginning. 3. If you have a big memory stick it's gonna be hard to find the song you want. 4. You can't forward fast or rewind. Just stop, play, next, previous.

Quirky things: It looks like the order in which it plays songs is based on the timestamp of the folder where the mp3s are located. The oldest folder plays first and the newest folder plays last. Also, the best I can tell is that the order in which it plays mp3s in a folder is based on timestamp also with the exception of the first and last files. People that have copied a large number of files on their computer will understand this so I'm not going to try to explain this unless you ask.
I haven't tried to drop a playlist on my memory stick to see if I can get it to play from that.

If you can live with the quirks and the downside of potentially losing you place, this thing is great for someone who wants to play some mp3s in their car.

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