Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am one of those people (like many of you) in a desperate quest to find a good AAA battery mp3 player. In my opinion, the best ones ever made were all by Coby, but none of the Cobys are still manufactured. Starting in 2009, I’ve bought 8 Coby players over the years, and only one of them has ever stopped working. (I own so many in part because I like to have different audiobooks going at the same time, because I use a few of them for sleeping music, and because I wanted some extra in case I never get to buy a quality AAA battery mp3 player again.) In case anyone has no idea why AAA battery mp3 players are superior to all other choices, this is because: 1. eneloop nimh rechargeable batteries are incredibly cheap per usage and last longer than most of us will. (The amazon brand imitations of eneloops are great too.) 2. if you carry an extra AAA battery with you, then you basically have unlimited power because you can easily change batteries and never have to stop listening. Having an extra AAA battery for a AAA mp3 player makes the player feel like it is solar powered--I *never* have to stop listening. 3. nimh batteries DO NOT BLOW UP OR CATCH FIRE. All lithium batteries are capable of doing this, but nimh can’t. For me this is a deal breaker for all non-AAA players. 4. nimh batteries can sit in the car all day in the Texas Summer heat and be fine. I’ve got eneloops from 2009 that have spent 8 straight Summers baking in the car like potatoes, and I still can’t tell the old ones from the new ones. Lithium batteries are not as tough. 5. AAA batteries can be replaced, so an AAA player could last decades. Lately, I tried out three AAA battery mp3 players: 1) the AGPtEK U3 8GB mp3 player 2) the 8GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive LCD Mini MP3 Music Player w FM Radio Voice Recorder (the kind that you can find trivial variations of everywhere on Amazon, and that always has that keychain ring sticking out of a cylinder on the end) 3) and the Naxa MP3 Player with 4GB Built-in Flash Memory, LCD Display, PLL Digital FM Radio and Built-In USB Plug Adapter (that I bought at Frys). All three of these products count as the worst three products that I have purchased in the last 5 years, in any category. The Naxa player occasionally fails to read mp3 files from the early 2000s (that every other mp3 player ever made can easily play), is impossible to use without looking at it (bad for driving), and is very cheap in quality. It’s constant changing of backlight colors is the most stupid idea ever thought up by an engineer, and you can’t stop it from doing this. The one with the keychain ring arrived broken-in-advance (this is a famous specialty of the makers of that product--if it arrives working properly it means you have a fairy godmother or something). Mine does not rewind, ever, and that is seriously annoying. This product WAS the worst product that I ever bought in the last 5 years, until the AGPtEK. The AGPtEK seems well made, with higher build quality than most, but it has a design flaw that is absolutely maddening--it’s volume buttons and forward/back buttons are all attached on the same wheel, and are way to sensitive/imprecise for that setup. This means that you cannot change volume without risking suddenly skipping forward or back one track. No matter how carefully you try, even if you are doing nothing else and staring right at the player, it is very easy to accidentally skip tracks forward or back when you try to change the volume. Every single time you try to change the volume by one tick, you have about a 1 in 6 chance of changing tracks by mistake. (And that is only if you are staring at the player and concentrating. If you are driving you have at least a 1 in 3 chance of skipping tracks by mistake.) This problem will ruin your life, especially if you listen while driving and have to change volumes depending on how fast you are now going. I hope that AGPtEK will make another model with separate buttons for volume control. AGPtEK seems to make good products, and they may be the only company capable and willing to make a good AAA battery mp3 player. If so, I will happily buy it and add on to this review to tell everyone of the improvement. If anyone finds a good AAA battery mp3 player, please comment on this review to let me know. To help us all out in the quest to find a good AAA mp3 player, please like this review so that more people notice it. Good luck!