The SoundsGood module has an extremely sensible design, fitting flush with the Visor and sporting a headphone jack, volume dial, and control buttons along its top edge. Using the buttons, it's possible to skip tracks and play or pause songs without ever having to mess with the Visor's touch screen (the SoundsGood player will run even if the Visor is turned off). Once started, it will also play in the background as you work with the rest of your Visor's applications.

Of course, if you really want to take control of your music, then you'll want to use the touch screen interface, which offers access to many more controls than are available on the module itself. In addition to a volume slider and buttons that let you access detailed track information, there's a section that lets you adjust the tone controls to get the most out of a particular song or style of music.

Once we had everything set, we were impressed with the volume and audio quality the SoundsGood player can generate. Cranked to maximum volume with a good set of headphones attached, the unit delivered crisp sound with decent bass that remained clear even into painful volume levels. Best of all, the unit can run on the Visor's two AAA batteries for up to 10 hours, so you won't drain your PDA's power by listening to a few hours of music.

We were able to quickly add and remove songs from the device using the Visor's docking cradle and the included Good Desktop software. This software deserves some sort of award for ease of use, as installing or removing MP3 files was as easy as clicking a button. It also automatically scours your hard drive to find all of the MP3 files stored on your system, making it easy to then select them from a list to add the files to the SoundsGood module. Good Desktop reports how much of the module's memory is used and updates it as you edit your playlist. It also gave us an estimated time for the file transfer, and the Visor's USB connection made everything as smooth and fast as possible. On average it took us about 15 seconds to transfer a 3.5 MB file to the device and a little over twice as long to transfer the same file back to our PC.

The SoundsGood player is not without its drawbacks. It's extremely expensive, considering you already have to own a Visor just to use it, and its memory can't be upgraded. The included headphones also leave much to be desired, especially in the bass department. If you can stomach the price and have a good set of headphones though, the sound quality, interface, software, and genuine cool factor of the SoundsGood player are tough to beat. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Excellent sound quality
• Brilliant interface and MP3 transfer software
• Draws power directly from the Visor's batteries

Cons:

• Included in-ear headphones sound tinny
• Relatively expensive considering it uses the Visor for its interface
• No way to add extra RAM or swap memory cartridges

Sound quality
I'm no audiophile, probably nothing to brag about, but the sound quality is good enough for me. Very close to the sound you get on a PC with "average" speakers and sound card. I can't put my finger on it, but the provided headphones sound "tinny", so using a better quality set ought to take care of that. Max volume is more than enough in quieter places, but on a "rickety" subway like the older NYC trains, you'll be almost hard pressed to hear much of anything.

External controls
There 4 controls: play/pause (technically play/stop, as when you DO "pause", it actually turns off while remembering where you last were), skip forward one track, skip back one track, and a volume jog dial control. The first turns on and plays the player, or pauses and resumes play. The next two are self explanatory, but further adding that reaching the first or last track will wrap around to the last or first track respectively. Unlike many CD and mp3 players however, there is no search mode available (done by pressing and holding these buttons). The last controls volume, but also can be depressed (like the wheel of a scroll mouse), which will automatically bring up the control screen regardless the current state of your Visor. The jog dial gets you to your desired volume setting after a few flicks, but the controls are just rounded knobs, so you'll have to press hard or use your nail. Also, you may accidentally lift and pull out the head phone jack (mine plugged in wasn't snug, but a little loose) when you try to press the button next to it. It has it's faults, but is still a nice alternative to having to whip out your stylus and cover just to control the audio. One thing I do like about this is the play button will light green (dim or bright) if you set it that way. This takes more battery power, but I recommend it so that you can tell if the unit is on or off, without having to turn the screen on or plug in headphones to listen and potentially draining your power without knowing it.

Software interface
It's simple and intuitive. Similar to Winamp minus the skins and fancy equalizer. You can bring down a pull down menu of all the songs you've loaded, there's an simpler equalizer where you can adjust bass, treble, and general frequency settings (none of which I really used), sliders for volume and track position (volume adjustable through the up and down keys as well), options to view details of mp3 tracks, and set modes of play (repeat, shuffle, etc.), as well as oversized standard buttons for play, stop, etc.

Loading music
Easy enough. All you need to do is ensure that all your music files are indeed mp3 format, drag and drop, and your next hotsync op will transfer the songs over. On the desktop software, it even tells you how much space you've got left before you transfer. Takes about a minute to transfer the full capacity. Pretty reasonable considering it Is USB 1.1.

Stability/reliability
Reliability has been good. I've never needed any tech support, and the thing's never broken down on me before. There have been times where upon plugging it in, I get "module was inserted improperly" or "Module seems hung, please try again". I sometimes get that once or twice in a row. The only time I get it 6 times in a row was when I left it in the car for weeks, in 35F degree weather, which I guessing was due to the cold.

Tech support
N/A as far as I'm concerned. The company is still there, but they've changed their business model. I tried calling them up about months after they changed their ways (this was approximately around summer of `02) and only one guy was there who had a decent understanding of what this product is and does. He wasn't able to answer my question though. Don't count on getting ANY tech support. IMO, this product is well made, so assuming there's nothing wrong with your Visor, tech support won't be needed.