Luxpro Super Tangent (1GB)

Though blatant knock-offs of branded electronic products are not uncommon, the thought of one actually making its way to the CeBIT show at Hanover this year was brave if foolhardy. The Luxpro Super Tangent (formerly the Super Shuffle) is an interesting MP3 player immortalized less for its feature set, more for its attempt to go one up on the iPod shuffle.

Seeing Double?
On first take, the Super Tangent looks exceeding similar to the shuffle both in form and color, but on closer inspection, we could see that the Super Tangent is slightly longer (2.7mm) and thicker (1.8mm) though the width remains the same. The Super Tangent is also heavier at 2g. Not a whole lot of difference, measurement-wise, though nit-pickers would probably complain.

The quad-button control on the Super Tangent is slightly smaller than the shuffle's, the former has a high gloss coating which renders a more classy finish. However, the tactile feedback on the Super Tangent is a bit stiff when compared with the shuffle. One complaint that early adopters of the shuffle had was that the switch on the back of the player was too smooth to get any appreciable friction during operation. The Super Tangent addresses this with several grooves on each slide switch.

Besides a 3.5mm earphone jack on the top of the player, there is also a built-in microphone by the side. The Super Tangent also incorporates the same USB jack which plugs directly into any USB port. One thing we noticed was that the removable cap can be inserted only one way unlike the shuffle's cap which can be capped both ways.

Squeezing In The Extras
Without a display, searching for tracks on the Super Tangent proved just as tedious as it was with the shuffle, and with 1GB to play with, hunting for the right track can be quite a nightmare. We also held the same reservations with the inclusion of an FM radio, though upon testing it, we were pleasantly surprised that there is a built-in voice prompt which reads out the FM frequency the player is currently tuned in to. The voice prompt also alerts the user whether the tuner is searching higher or lower on the FM spectrum and features auto station search based on the strength of the signal.

Voice recording quality is passable though pickup from a range of 3m is faint at best. Music files are transferred through a drag-and-drop interface and while there is a bass boost equalizer, we felt that the player underperformed when it came to music playback. We notice that vocals are disconcertingly muffled unless the bass boost (kind of ironic) is turned on. When this is activated, rather than having the low end of the song track enhanced, equalizer settings are set on a harsh high overall.

Unlike the shuffle which comes with a large array of accessories, third-party support for the Super Tangent is rather lacking. However, enterprising readers may chance on the fact that because of the similarity in size, shuffle accessories are interchangeable on the Super Tangent.

Transfer speed on the Super Tangent was a sluggish 1.75MB per second while battery life was a dismal 6 hours and 32 minutes.