Recently in Centon Craze Category

The $20 Centon Craze 4 GB "MP3 player" I picked up a month or so ago is billed as only playing MP3 and WMA files. Well, I neither have any WMAs nor want to have them, but I decided to test which other audio formats, freedom-loving and otherwise, this cheap little device can handle.

Here are my results:

Ogg: The Centon Craze plays Oggs with no problem. The Centon company would probably sell quite a few more of these if they let the freedom-loving world know.

FLAC: I got some "sample" FLAC files, both 16- and 24-bit, from the excellent Pristine Classical Web site. I dropped them into the Centon, but they didn't show up in the player. Hence the Centon does not support FLAC.

WAV: The Centon Craze does play WAV files. WAV is the format that audio comes in on standard CDs. Curiously, you can't "see" the WAV files on your Centon Craze in the "usual" view, by which I mean the "MSC" or Music view.

But you can see them through the "RPL" or Replay view. Just press and hold down the "M" button on the player until you get the main menu, then arrow over to the "RPL" icon and press the "M" button again. Then you'll be in your file tree, and WAVs will both show up in that tree and play if you "M" on them.

I did say this player's user interface is awful. It's no iPod. But it does allow for direct drag/drop onto the player's flash memory, and it requires no specialized application to do so. And you can drag/drop files from any computer you wish. You can also go the other way, drag/dropping files from the player onto any number of PCs — anything that'll mount a USB flash drive, in fact.

Use any computer with any OS, play MP3, Ogg and WAV, cost only $20? Beautiful.

I'm in.

Now I'm not saying I won't seek out a better player, possibly a SanDisk Sansa Clip or Fuze that will play FLAC files.

But for now getting Ogg and WAV in addition to MP3 is a huge bonus I didn't expect for my $20.

Update: I'm getting better at navigating through the arcane interface on the Centon Craze. Here are a few tips:

• There is a difference between when you are playing an audio file and not. To go from the folder you're in to another folder on your player, press the Play/Pause button to stop the audio, then click the "M" button and use that and the Rewind and Forward buttons to navigate among the folders and files. This is important: When you want to play a new audio file, DON'T CLICK PLAY. If you do that, the player will play the last audio file you were listening to. Instead use the Rewiind and Forward keys to select the file you want, then use the "M" key to play it. Unituitive? You bet.
• At any time, press and hold down the M key to get to the main menu in the player.
• Remember when I said that MP3s show up in the MSC area, as accessed from the main menu, and WAVs show up in the RPL area? Well, folders with Ogg files also show up in the RPL area, but their files do not. However, both folders and their Ogg files show up and play in the MSC area of the player. However, for some reason the Oggs both display and play out of order. I can't figure this out. From what I can gather, MP3s do not have this problem. Not a deal-breaker, but an oddity nonetheless.