Performance Summary...
From a performance standpoint, the audio quality was amazingly impressive. We had our doubts before testing, but the audio quality proved to be crystal clear and standard configurations worked quite well, which are a delightful bonus for a player this size. MobiBLU is one of the many companies with hyped products, but it’s nice to see a company that meets the hype and actually reveals a quality product, at least when it comes to overall audio performance. The recording capabilities, FM tuner signal strength and general volume settings were a pleasure to work with as well. The voice recorder delivered at close range, so don’t expect to take it to a class and try to record a lecture from far away, as it will most likely not work. As we mentioned earlier, the WOW technology is one of our favorite settings and it worked as we had expected. After enabling this setting, our test clips sounded full, enriching and wholesome with a deep bass effect. All in all, we are quite impressed with the audio quality and we commend MobiBLU for a job well done.
Now that we’ve praised the 1500i where it was due, let’s reiterate back to our drawbacks. Although there weren’t a whole lot of things we had issues with, we mainly noted three of them throughout the evaluation. The first was the color contrast issue, the second was the mini controls problem and the last one is the battery life setback. We don’t have too many problems with the top two problems, since we don’t see the majority of you not picking up the player solely based on those particular drawbacks. However, the battery life problem isn’t as appealing as the rest of the player. It’s quite unfortunate that MobiBLU didn’t work diligently to overcome these issues. We wouldn’t mind paying a higher price if it meant added functionality in terms of longer battery life, but MobiBLU apparently believes otherwise, which to an extent is understandable. After all, launching the world’s smallest player and being under the spotlight isn’t always exciting if you can’t deliver.
At the time of publication, the average price of the MobiBLU DAH-1500i was $99.99 for the 512MB version and $129.99 for the 1GB version, which is a steal compared to competitive players. Not only do you get a top-performing product with superior audio quality, but you also get a player that’s the world’s smallest to date, thereby adding to the overall coolness factor. If you must have a longer battery life then the MobiBLU 1500i is not a choice for you, but for everyone else, the MobiBLU DAH-1500i is one of the few products that meet their hype.
Simply put, the 1500i is the world’s smallest, most affordable and top performing MP3 player in the market.
