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Even though pretty much every electronics manufacturer has jumped on the iPod band wagon and produced hard disk based MP3 players lately, it seems like there’s still a lot of mileage left in flash based players. The renewed interest in flash based players was helped by the surprise entry of Apple into the market with the iPod Shuffle.

Now, let’s face it, MSI wouldn’t be top of most peoples’ list when it comes to MP3 players, but that’s not to say that the Mega Player 521 doesn’t deserve your consideration. In fact, MSI has produced a great little MP3 player with some pretty unusual features.

Aesthetically, the Mega Player 521 isn’t going to win any beauty contests, but it’s not the ugliest player I’ve seen. It’s egg-shaped form factor looks a little odd, but it does fit in the hand nicely. And it’s when the player is in your hand that you appreciate its tactile charms – the casing is made from rubber, so not only does it feel good in your hand, but it can also handle a few knocks.

The reason that MSI has seen fit to make the Mega Player 521 more rugged than most devices, is that it’s labelled as a “sporty” MP3 player. Having reviewed a lot of Taiwanese products in my journalistic career, I’m used to seeing strange names and labels, but there is some basis to MSI’s branding. Besides the audio capabilities, which I’ll address later, the Mega Player 521 has a built-in pedometer.

The pedometer will measure each step that you take and can also calculate the amount of calories burned while you are walking. To set up the pedometer, you first have to enter your body weight, and the length of your stride. Strangely however, if you want to know how far you’ve actually walked, you will need to multiply the length of your stride by the number of steps you’ve taken. I found this a bit disappointing, and would have liked to have seen a distance measurement in the device itself. The manual says that the Mega Player 521 has to be mounted either on your upper arm or your waist for the pedometer to work, and MSI supplies straps and loops to accommodate this. That said, the pedometer still seemed to work fine with the device in my trouser pocket. There’s also a stopwatch function which could come in handy when you're out jogging.

So, the Mega Player 521 has some pretty interesting “sporty” features that set it apart from the competition, but none of that will matter if it’s not actually a good MP3 player. Well, as far as sound quality goes, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the Mega Player 521. The sound is clear with powerful base and clear treble, while the overall sound envelope is very pleasing. There is support for SRS WOW, but I would suggest not using this function as it confuses the sound envelope and makes the overall effect less enjoyable. I was also pleasantly surprised by how loud this player is, while many other MP3 players I’ve used have trouble drowning out the ambient noise on tube trains or aeroplanes, the Mega Player 521 had no problems in either environment.

Of course, as with any MP3 player, sound quality is also dependant on the quality and bit rate of the music files. That said, I listened to tracks encoded from 128Kbit/sec all the way up to 320Kbit/sec, and although the high bit rate files definitely sounded better, the 128Kbit/sec files still sounded pretty good.

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