Jens of Sweden MP-300 mp3 Player/Recorder -- $219.95 (256 mb) / $299.95 (512 mb), Outward Sound

The Swedes Make Everything So Nice

Ah, Sweden. I've never been, but I love your country nonetheless. I once met a beautiful Swedish girl in Italy, but her heart was already taken (which is just as well ... mine was meant for a California girl, as it turns out). I used to try to serve and volley on the tennis court just like Stefan Edberg, though my reflexes at the net weren't nearly so cat-quick as his. And some of my fondest memories of high school took place in my Dad's Saab when he'd let me take it out for spins through the hills of upstate New York.

Nowadays Americans know Sweden primarily for its cars and furniture. Volvos have long been a hallmark of sturdy design and powerful engines, and Ikea has brought affordable, stylish (if a bit overexposed) furniture to apartments and houses from sea to shining sea. Not ones to rest on their laurels, the Swedes have turned to digital music, and the result is one of the best, most elegant mp3 players this side of the iPod.

Jens of Sweden offers a full line of flash-based mp3 players and recorders, a handful of which are available in the U.S. through Outward Sound of Emeryville, CA. Outward Sound sent the MP-300 for review, and I've been thanking them ever since. The MP-300 is a sleek, light player/recorder that churns out great sound and incorporates several clever and functional design features that set it apart from the pack. The fact that its snow white and silver casing makes it look a lot like some prototype iPod Micro doesn't hurt, either.

The 84 x 35 x 17mm (3.3" x 1"), 47g (2 oz.), MP-300 is available with either 256 or 512 mb of built-in flash memory and connects to your Mac (or PC) via USB 1.1. A FireWire or USB 2.0 connection would be nice, but even 512 MB of files isn't that much data transfer to wait on. The USB connector itself slides in and out of the main body of the player kind of like a turtle sticks his head in and out of his shell, which is a neat little touch that both keeps the connector out of harm's way when not in use and keeps the player's profile svelte and sexy. The MP-300 has a sharp backlit screen that displays all relevant information about files and functions -- including scrolling ID3 song information -- and the icon-based navigation system is very easy to use once you figure out which buttons make which jumps through the menus (or, you know, read the user's manual).

What I love most about the MP-300 is the sound. The 24-bit audio decoding works well, apparently, beacuse all of my music came through crisp, clear, and as loud as I could stand it. The included earbuds are pretty good (though I found the necklace-style cord to be a little awkward), but when I ran the player through my Future Sounds EARS or home stereo system, it really shined. The 5 built-in EQ settings are complemented by a user-controllable 5-band EQ, a very nice touch. Too many players these days limit you to pre-defined EQ settings, which inevitably drives me batty sooner or later.

What I love second-most -- and it's a close second -- about the MP-300 is its built-in recording functionality. Many flash drive mp3 players now sport integrated voice recorders, but Jens does one better by including external source recording featuring on-the-fly mp3 encoding on this little wonder. An 1/8" jack supports line-in sources and self-powered microphones, and the player supports recording at rates from 8-224 kbps (voice recording can also be done via the built-in mic). This is a virtual Godsend for musicians and concert tapers, as a high-quality mp3 recording studio can literally be carried in your pocket, using the MP-300 and a small microphone like the Sony ECM-DS70P.

I can't tell you how many times I've dragged my PowerBook to a rehearsal wishing the whole time that Apple would just unleash the iPod's full recording capabilities, already. I never bought a MiniDisc recorder simply because converting from MD to mp3 on a Mac is too time-consuming. The MP-300s recording functions work very well, and built-in variable speed playback is very handy if you want to slowdown a fast-talking lecturer's speech or an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo after the fact. The extra-long battery life is also fantastic -- Jens claims 26 hours on a single AA, which is a bit of a stretch but not much.

Jens' mp3 player also sports a number of handy built-in features you never would have thought of, like an integrated FM transmitter for broadcasting your music over a home or car radio and variable speed playback for slowing down a fast-talking lecturer or Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. Since the drive mounts on your desktop as a USB hard drive, you can also use it to store and transport files, like a jump drive. The icon-based user interface isn't quite as smooth as that of the iPod, but it's not bad. I was confused by the player's tendency to list song files twice -- one listing to play the song, the second to delete it -- but each brand of music player out there seems to have its own strange quirks these days. One gets used to it.

The only thing not to like about the Jens of Sweden MP-300 is that it doesn't yet support AAC file playback. This is a big drawback for iPod owners who've converted their music collections to Apple's newest format (like me), but the rest of the world probably won't mind too much. No word from Jens on if and when an AAC upgrade might be forthcoming.

All in all it's hard to beat the MP-300 when it comes to keychain-sized mp3 players. If you don't yet own many AAC files and want something even smaller and lighter than the iPod Mini, the MP-300 is the player to beat. The addition of on the fly line-in mp3 encoding is a boon to musicians, concert tapers, or anyone else who wants to make high quality stereo recordings without lugging around a lot of gear.

The Jens of Sweden MP-300 digital audio player/recorder is available from Outward Sound. The 256 mb version is $219.95, and a 512 mb version is also available for $299.95.

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Noah Kravitz runs the Technology and Culture blog Threebase.com. He is an educator, musician, and writer who calls Brooklyn, NY home and the author of the forthcoming book, Teaching and Learning with Technology.