NetGear Wireless Digital Music Player MP101 Review - The Real Deal
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Now, for how things really went.
First, I had to start the software for the media server that runs on the PC, making sure to load all the music files to it so that later on, they would be available to me from the media player. This went rather smoothly. But here’s where it fell apart; I had to turn the media player on and tell it to search for local networks. It took about 5 minutes to finish with the search for the network.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that it took about that long every time I used it! Unfortunately, it sometimes won’t find the network that’s just down the hall. No, that would be too easy. Instead, the unit made sure to find my neighbors network from down the street. On the bright side, this is evened out by the fact that sometimes it would find no networks at all. The box had to be rebooted several times for it to find any networks. Sometimes it would even reboot itself after being connected. The server program on the computer locked up my Windows XP several times and still does every once in a while.
Eventually, the unit finally found my network, something I wasn’t thrilled about after I found out that I had some problems with logging into my network. I had the correct password etc. but the unit would suddenly lose connection when trying to log in. On a side note, although I had no problems like this, some people report that they had an occasional skip because they had another connection nearby - for example, a laptop using the wireless router.
After finally getting logged in, I could see my music on my hard drive. From here on out it was smooth sailing. The sound quality was great, so no complaints there.
The MP101 supports MP3s, WMAs and Internet Radio (streaming MP3). You can even make your own M3U or PLS play list with the file management/player program provided, or you can just import a play list from another program like Winamp or Windows Media Player.
The player is very sturdy, and has a rather stylish look to it. Due to its nice and compact size, it makes it very easy to move the box from room to room, or stereo to stereo. It should be noted that the antenna that is used is 2 dBi.
Not only does it do all of that, but it also comes with security. It comes with Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) 40/64-bit and 128-bit encryption. I found this to be a wonderful feature. But if you plan to use this feature, be prepared for installation, since it may take you a few times to make it all work right. (I got it to work with trial and error.)
Next: Conclusion >>
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