Media Player Review: Coby MP-C651

I bought this MP3 player a couple of weeks ago. It was at a good price and has 512 MB storage. It's a good device for playing MP3 files. I have had few problems in that area. Navigation through the contents of the player is easy.

What has really ticked me off is playing WMA files. I've bought several songs from MSN music stores. The device is billed as playing these files, but it's quite the exaggeration. I don't know that any WMA file I have bought plays cleanly. Few actually even play. One that does causes the player to hang at the end, forcing me to remove the battery to shut the thing off and then keep pushing the controls to try to get to the next file when I start up, otherwise it will just hang again.

I emailed their customer service to find out what's wrong. All they would tell me is that the file must be protected and can't be played. That one file actually does play apparently does not contradict this statement that the file can't be played. That the files play perfectly on other MP3/WMA devices also apparently fails to contradict this claim that the files cannot be played. (The files can't be played. The fact that you can play them does not contradict the fact that they can't be played!) I have repeatedly pointed this out to Coby, but have been totally ignored. I've even tried to help diagnose the problem by pointing out that the bit rate indicated on the LCD is quite a bit lower than the rate actually in the file.

So my conclusion: If you are in the market for a pure MP3 player, this isn't bad. But take their claim that it plays WMAs as the joke that it is.