Diva Gem GB4000 MP3 Player Review

“I Love Diva Gem” is the first thing that greets you when you power up this tiny, European made mp3 player. The Diva Gem GB4000 wants you to fall in love with it, throwing a ton of features into a small, flash memory package. The one thing which perhaps makes the GB4000 stand out from other players is a creative, cell phone like use of Bluetooth wireless technology. Beyond this, does the Diva Gem GB4000 have what it takes to win someone’s heart, or will there instead be a lot of broken ones?

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Fast USB 2.0 file transfer support
• Solid design
• Embedded charger

Cons:

• Generic, useless headphones
• Bluetooth sound quality on other person’s end
• Looseness of cables hooking to USB/power input

Form Factor:

The Diva Gem GB4000 comes in a small, oblong shape with a 4-line, bluish backlit LCD screen. Three color options – silver, black and red – are offered. A dual USB/power interface (the GB4000 has an embedded charger, so power can be drawn from a traditional outlet or USB port) saves on space, though a tiny piece used to cover the hole when not in use is easily lost. It was interesting to note on the test unit that both included wires (USB, DC adapter) had to be inserted with the directional arrow on the downward side in order to work. This made little sense as it causes the connection to be very loose and easy to knock off.

Button layout was logical, with three control buttons on each side of the GB4000. There is also a five way joystick next to the LCD for control and menu navigation. A tiny built-in microphone exists as well.

Internally, the rechargeable Li-ion battery is stick of gum size and just below it is an expansion card slot. This is all protected by a durable, plastic shell which is comfortable to grip, very light weight and looks good.

Features:

Make tiny, stuff big: that seems to be a motto for the GB4000. The number of features was impressive. Standard flash memory options up to 256 MB are available. SD/MMC expansion cards are supported via the previously mentioned internal slot.

While it was disappointing to find the player only supported MP3 files, this was tempered by id tag support for song and artist name displays on the LCD. Boosts in music sound quality are available via a five preset/one user defined multi-level equalizer. File transfer is done through USB 2.0, though with wireless Bluetooth built-in it is strange why this was not an option as well.

Speaking of Bluetooth, the main use for this comes in syncing your GB4000 (this option is not available in other Diva Gems) with your cell phone to act as a wireless headset. Once done, you can be listening to tunes through headphones and when a call comes in on your phone, a beep interrupts your music. You can hit the joystick to take the call and talk through the highly sensitive microphone.

Other notable features include a power saving sleep mode, a 20-preset FM tuner and recorder, a voice operated recorder, USB file storage, support of play lists and viewable display of file folders through the LCD.

Functionality:

With respect to how well the Diva Gem GB4000 series worked under testing conditions, the overall impression was good. During the transfer test of 100 MB of 128-bit MP3 files, the total time over the USB 2.0 connection was a decent 6 minutes, 40 seconds after being dragged and dropped. Sound quality of these files, via headphones (not with the ones included in the package – they were poorly built and uncomfortable), was excellent even at high levels.

As for the highly touted Bluetooth cell phone integration, the results were typical of this type of wireless connection: good sound on your end, not so good on the other person’s. The beep through and interruption of the music worked as advertised, hearing the caller through the headphones was no problem and the microphone did a great job of picking up its owner’s voice. On the listener’s side however, it sounded like a weak AM broadcast at times, complete with echoes and some crackling.