MSI Megaplayer 540 review

Verdict:

The Megaplayer is affordable, but you'll need to budget at least another £15 for new headphones. We'd rather spend less on a better flash player or more on a better hard disk player

Review Date: 27 Apr 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Our Rating 2 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

MSI's Megaplayer 540 is the only device in this test to use a 1" hard disk. This makes it cheaper per megabyte than the flash players without making it physically as big as players that use 1.8" hard disks. It's the lightest hard-disk player here.

The Megaplayer doesn't look as classy or feel as well made as many other players. Its white plastic case is light, but it doesn't feel solid. It has a decent-size colour screen, but this has narrow viewing angles and isn't very sharp. The control system manages to be both basic and hard to master.

You can use Windows Explorer to copy music on to the Megaplayer, and a plug-in lets you manage its content from Windows Media Player. We tried both methods, but neither seemed to update the player's internal ID3 tag database. We had to choose music to play using the folder structure.

The 540's headphones are the worst in the group, with little bass and a peaky mid range. The player sounded much better through a quality set.

This player moved in very small steps when scanning within a track, making the process frustratingly slow. Skipping tracks took longer than it does on most players, and we could hear a ticking from the hard disk each time it was accessed. Battery life, at under 10 hours, was barely adequate.

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