My husband and I are not Luddites or techno-phobes. But we’ve never jumped on the techie bandwagon either. So it’s no surprise that the MP3 revolution had passed us by. After all, we had just upgraded to a CD player in the truck.
Sometimes gifts from other people show us what we love but would never have bought for ourselves. And so it was for me. For my birthday this summer, I was given a music player that was about the size of a tube of lipstick. This little object was the RCA Pearl Th1100A MP3 Music Player, referred to in the rest of this article as the Pearl.
Appearance:
I love the rounded, bulbous shape of the Pearl. It fits comfortably in your hand, and in the pocket of even tight-fitting shorts or pants. I am not sure why it is called the Pearl, since the body is a chrome-looking gray and off-white exterior. The display window changes between different background colors; I currently have mine set at purple.
Functionality Cons:
Admittedly, this is my first MP3 player, but I have a couple of gripes first. The small size and rounded body of the Pearl makes it easy to hold and put in a pocket, but when you don’t have a pocket, it would be nice to clip it to your clothing or something. I often need my hands free. I end up putting it in my bra, but that’s not always feasible or desirable either.
The jack for the headphones is located on the far right hand side of the body, and it is difficult to use some of the function buttons without removing the jack first.
I was a little disappointed that the Pearl did not automatically separate my music into albums/genre like other music players. It does have the capability of creating different files, so I have easy listening; upbeat exercise music; classical; and praise and worship files, and the songs shuffle within those files. I found this to be an adequate workaround in most cases.
And this might be the case in most music players, but I found the RCA Pearl MP3 Player’s menu to take some getting used to. Manuevering within the menus by using one of two rocker buttons on the bottom gets a bit time-consuming and nerve-wracking sometimes.
Functionality Pros:
I love the effortless way the Pearl syncs with my Windows Music program. I can easily upload or rip music onto my Windows Music program, plug the Pearl into the computer, create files and add albums or songs using the drag-and-drop method.
The RCA Pearl TH1100A has a “Record” button to create audible or WAV files. The device is easy to use, though I’ve mostly used it to record the kids saying or singing something cute.
One end of the rounded tube-shaped player pops off to reveal the USB connection. It seems to be tight enough that the end does not slip off inadvertently, even when being worn in my bra as I mentioned before.
The RCA Pearl requires a AAA battery, and is said to last 15 hours on one battery. I have found that I get a bit longer than that when I turn the player off each time, rather than hitting Pause and letting it turn itself off. However, then you have to scroll through the menu to find where you left off if you want the same music file later.
Value:
This MP3 Player is a fantastic value for the money! For my RCA TH1100 Pearl Series 1GB MP3 Player, the cost is between $35 and $40. The sound on the RCA Pearl is fantastic. I didn’t care for the earbuds that came with it, but a $6 pair of headphones from Walmart suited me just fine.
I’d recommend this light-weight, cute, easy to carry music player to anyone who wants music to listen to while they clean house, do homework, work in the yard, exercise, or just to block out the world.
