Insignia Pilot Video MP3 Player: Review

I must admit, there is truth to the old adage "you get what you pay for," especially in the high-tech market. The Insignia Pilot, an off-brand media player offered by the Best Buy subsidiary (Insignia), boasts a staggering list of features at a good price. This device does many things right, but sadly it fails in its most important task: delivering clean, rich-sounding audio. The simple fact is that even with good headphones or speakers, the Pilot falls well short of the sound quality I've come to expect from my digital players, which makes it a poor choice despite all its bells and whistles.

Aesthetically, the Pilot looks stylish. It weighs just a couple of ounces and measures approximately four inches in length, just under two inches in width, and under half an inch thick. This makes it ultra-thin, but a little on the long side, and therefore not as easily pocketed as other players. The player's face is dominated by a 2.4" LCD screen - a considerably larger screen than found on competing devices. To the right is the click wheel, the primary tool for menu navigation. The wheel also has four directional buttons at the twelve, three, six, and nine o'clock positions. The wheel works well as a means of navigation, but is entirely plastic and squeaks occasionally, which makes me wonder about the long-term durability. The wheel is topped with blue lights that light up when any button is pressed. The face of the device features two other buttons, "play/pause," and "menu." The top has a power/lock switch, and a little "joystick" switch whose only function is to let you rate songs on a scale of one to five stars, which is a pretty useless feature. The right side features two headphone jacks (one of which doubles as an audio-in port) and a USB port. The bottom side has an SD card slot, which is quite tricky to uncover. The pilot is black plastic with a metal band running around the sides; it probably wouldn't fare well if dropped. The face of the device is glossy, which means that it will inevitably pick up fingerprints and smudges. Also, you will begin noticing little scratches and nicks on the screen over time, so a case would be a wise investment.