Olympus and the M:Robe

I will disclaim this review by saying that I have only owned, to the best of my recollection, one Olympus product, the one I am reviewing here: the M:Robe.

I will speak first to the M:Robe. It has two things going for it. It's cheap(if you can still find it) and it's color scheme is black and red. Supposedly it also displays pictures downloaded to it, but I have yet to push my luck in that regard. The M:Robe supposedly has a 5GB hard drive, but I have been unable to get more than about 3.12GB on it at any given time. Attemps to put more than 3.12GB of mp3s on the device always results in errors. The thing is buggy. When it works, it works quite well and is easy to pick up and use(provided there's already music on it, I'll get to that later). Unfortunately, it appears to be a 50/50 chance of whether the thing will work the first time you turn it on after recharging it. Hard resetting it via the little hole in the bottom specified gets it to work, but you need the tip of a mechanical pencil or a small paperclip. I, for one, don't make a habit of carrying around a small paperclip to bend out of shape to reset my mp3 player everytime I plan on listening to it. The software you have to use with the M:Robe is the worst aspect of the player. You HAVE TO USE the software. No two ways about it, no bypassing it, no choice. The software is hideously slow. I have a 2.81Ghz processor. It takes about 10 seconds to process even the slightest thing I try to do. Even when I have absolutely nothing else running and I just started the computer. The software is completely counter to any logic and is very clunky to use. Most of the time you think you've told it to do something and it decides you haven't done anything at all. To add music to the M:Robe you have to not only add it to the playlist, you then have to manually check the box next to it. To remove music from the M:Robe you have to LEAVE IT ON THE PLAYLIST, UNCHECK THE BOX NEXT TO IT, and then do a COMPLETE SYNCHRONIZATION. Synchronization usually takes at least half an hour if you go over 1.5GB. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the inherent fact that 3.12GB worth of mp3 files is a lot of files to sort through. Did I mention that most of the time the software doesn't recognize that the M:Robe is hooked up? The best part of the software is the fact that if I'm listening to anything on my computer when I'm running the M:Robe software, when I ask the software to do anything, the music/movie/animation I'm listening to pauses until the command finishes processing. That's right, something designed to assist in the enjoyment of music disrupts the enjoyment of music.

Now, onto my experience with the department masquerading as Customer Service. When I got the (first) M:Robe, it didn't work, right out of the box. OK, I sent it in since it was new and the warranty was supposed to be in effect. Two weeks later I finally get a letter saying that they determined my warranty was void. All I had done was charge the thing and then try to turn it on(it froze during boot up). I tried all hours of the day all different days of the weeks for another week and a half to get someone from "customer service" to PICK UP THE PHONE! I'd like to mention that I was calling the phone number that answered with a recording saying you had reached the customer service line for Olympus and is the number that was listed on the warranty as the customer service line. I had to call the marketing department to find out that the number I had been calling WAS WRONG. Not just a little wrong, completely wrong. So, finally, I've got the right number and I call and they tell me the warranty was voided by a dent. There was no dent. The thing was NEW and hadn't impacted anything with any force of any kind. They refused to do anything and two weeks later finally sent the M:Robe back. When I got it, I checked the entire thing over. THERE WAS NO DENT! And it still didn't work. I sent it back to where I got it and got a replacement within the week.

In short, Olympus "Customer Service" is SO BAD, and the M:Robe SO BUGGY, and the software SO UNWEILDY that I will never spend another dime on an Olympus product.