S-Media Butterfly
Gagan Gupta, Mar 23, 2004 0000 hrs IST
S-Media has seem to have done their homework and have released a cute new device called Butterfly
Good sound quality, Great voice recording
Bad earphones, Hard controls
Dance like a Butterfly...
Before I begin reviewing the player, I'd like to state upfront that the bundled earphones are utter rubbish! You'd be better off using a good pair of headphones from your other personal stereos or just buy a good pair from your local hardware store. The S-Media earphones make anything sound bad. It's the type that will appeal to rickshaw drivers - high treble and practically non-existent bass.
All tests on the player were done using a pair of standard Sony earphones, as they would give a better idea of what the player sounds like than the junk that comes along with the player.
The MP3 playback was just as good as it gets. I fiddled around with the 6-band graphic equalizer built into the player and the results were great. The butterfly can get pretty loud without messing up the sound quality. I tested the player with a variety of sound files ranging from psy-trance to soft rock and even a bit of stand-up comedy, and the playback quality was pretty good. Loading and removing files weren't a hassle at all, as the player was completely plug-and-play.
The FM Radio was pretty easy to tune with its Auto scan function and once the channels were set, switching between them was a button-slide away. The radio reception was in stereo and the overall quality was quite good, except that I found the volume a bit low when compared to the MP3 playback volume. But that's just being picky; a slight push at the volume control fixed that problem.
The in-built Dictaphone can record up to 10 hours of voice in MP3 format, which comes out crystal clear on playback. The Butterfly comes with an in-built mic next to the LCD display on the front, which quite clearly captures all the sounds in the room.
The in-built speakers are not at all powerful and they do sound quite terrible. The only reason I see someone using them is to playback their voice recording, otherwise the music quality is downright terrible.
A big negative in the player, however, is the stiffness of the controls. You not only have to push the buttons, you have to push them pretty hard to get them to respond. For a player with some pretty good configuration options like this one, smooth controls would have made it perfect (if you ignore the headphones).
Fly Away Butterfly!
If you get your own set of headphones, the Butterfly is not a bad player at all. It scores well in most places that matter in a portable MP3 player. So how much would you have to shell out to own this baby? Well, just Rs. 11,600 on the street. So if you just need it as a music player, you have probably already looked away after reading the previous line. But if you need a MP3 player + FM Radio + Dictaphone + Flash Disk drive in one handy utility, then this may have some appeal for you. Otherwise, even though I found the sound quality pretty good on my personal headphones, this player does have a bit too many negatives for me to really recommend it.
We at Techtree have been informed that X Serve has reduced the price of the S-Media Butterfly to Rs. 7,999, which now makes it a terrific buy.
Test Unit Sourced From: X Serve India Ltd., Bangalore.
USER COMMENTS
Where can I buy this? Rosemary
by Rosemary Blashi, Sault Ste Marie, on Dec 22, 2004 05:25 AM, Report abuse Reply
by Vishwajit Girdh, Pune, on Aug 04, 2004 11:53 AM, Report abuse Reply
What is the price of this product pl let me knw
by Ramesh, Mumbai, on Jun 24, 2004 09:06 PM, Report abuse Reply
what is the price, i need to buy urgently
by nitin kothari, mumbai, on Mar 24, 2004 05:34 PM, Report abuse Reply
This is no match for iriver mp3 player , particularly the headphones
by Shailesh Monani, mumbai, on Mar 24, 2004 08:29 AM, Report abuse Reply
by Karan, NYC, on Mar 24, 2004 02:58 PM, Report abuse
Hey Gagan, How much memory does this baby sport? Just have a clue its 128 MB. Thanks.
by Anish, Mumbai, on Mar 23, 2004 08:14 PM, Report abuse Reply
You are right, it has 128MB Memory.
by Vivek Gupta, Bangalore, on Mar 24, 2004 09:39 AM, Report abuse
No where near iRiver design-wise.price-wise/feature-wise.
by Debashis Basu, KOLKATA, on Mar 23, 2004 10:43 PM, Report abuse Reply
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HAVE S MEDÝA BUTTERFLY MP3 PLAYER..ý CAN NOT PLAY SOME MP3 MUSÝCS ÝN S MEDÝA..FOREXAMPLE 192 and over KbPS QUAlity mp3 files can not play with s media..only 128 and lower kbps mp3 files are running..can you say why..THANK YOU
by fatih, istanbul, on Jun 27, 2005 04:01 AM, Report abuse Reply