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Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Model number: NS-8V24 | SKU: 8447549

Bring your favorite music, photos and movies with you wherever you go and enjoy them without needing wires thanks to this MP3 player's built-in Bluetooth ability.

Average Customer Rating:

4.0 out of 5 (81 Reviews)

68 of 81 (84%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Review 41 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

2.0 5

Problems with sync 03/22/2008
By Redneckinmontrose from Houston

What's great about it: battery life, features, .aa format
What's not so great: Connection problems

"Screens do crack easily. I am on my second and third pilots. For the first few months, no problems other than cracking the screen on the first pilot. Now the pilot looses connection with the PC during file transfer. Error 80070017. Same problem with multiple pilots, PC, and cords. Large files cannot transfer because the pilot can't stay connected long enough. For .mp3 it may be great, but for books, you may want to consider another product."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 42 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

great product 03/20/2008
By mike2

What's great about it: it has 2 headphone jacks, expandable storage, very simple!!
What's not so great: sometimes has troubles syncing with windows meida player, doesn't have a built in microphone

"i bought this Mp3 player about a month ago, and i have had no serious problems. the only problem that i have had is that someitmes it won't always sync with windows media player, but in the end, i can always get what i want on the player. one of the best things is that it has expandable storage, i put a 8GB SDHC card in it, and it works great with this card! another nice thing is that i can use it has if it was a external flash drive, and i can maually put music and pictures on it. i would recommend this to almost anybody!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 43 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Excellent player 03/10/2008
By Jersey1 from Keyport, NJ

What's great about it: Excellent sound, video
What's not so great: None, so far

"This player is the best I have had...I have had some stinkers, and a Creative M Player that was fine, with a nice big 30G HD, but then I realized I would never get through all that music, plus it died on me.

Radio: RDS feature is great. You can even bookmark titles of songs you hear. Reception is excellent in urban and suburban settings.
Subscription music: Works flawlessly with Best Buy/Rhapsody music store, which I find much more appealing than Ipod's silly system.
Video: Nice, clear picture. Software to convert videos is fast, easy, simple.
Bluetooth: Haven't tried it yet.
Ease of operation: Unlike others here, find flywheel very simple to use.
Overall, a genuine bargain for the price. You won't find all these features plus the capacity to add 16G for less than you would pay for pricier and bigger capacity items."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 44 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

great player 03/09/2008
By grifter from phoenix, az

What's great about it: features, ease of use, price
What's not so great: cheap/clumsy nav wheel, feature access

"Love the features for the price. Good sound quality through the stock headphones. Easy to use for the most part. Bluetooth feature is great as well as the audio/video line out.
I bought this after chucking my Sansa View due to video playback issues. This player plays all the videos my other one couldn't. The one big problem I've found with the video playback is that if I pause the video, I stand a good chance of the sound being seriously out of sync with the picture when I go to start it back up. I've had to pause and restart the video 2-3 times to get it to sync up again.
The navigation wheel isn't very smooth/easy to use but that doesn't bother me as much as the hoops I have to jump through to delete a song. With over 1k songs in the unit, it's very tedious to scroll through the list to delete it on the unit. If a song is playing that I want to delete, I should just be able to delete it while on the same screen as the song info, not back out of the screen to the list of songs and scroll down a million times to find it. I know I could delete it while hooked up to a computer but that would mean I would have to remember which song and take the time to hook it up just to delete the one song. A small complaint.

Overall, great player for the money!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 45 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

My first MP3 Player 03/08/2008
By cvkemp from Hutto, Texas

What's great about it: Being able to Store files my way
What's not so great: 2000 Song limit

"I have had my player for a week and I love it. I am HOH (hard of hearing) and to me the sound is great and I can use my headsets that couple with my hearing aids. The only complaint that I have is that I have the room to load all 2600 tracks in to the memory but it will only show the first 2000. This would be a simple firmware change (Hint Hint)."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 46 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Great Player, Great Price 03/05/2008
By JFRMVA from Hampton, VA

What's great about it: Memory amount and price, cost, screen size & quality
What's not so great: Wheel isn't great but it's not a big deal

"Great screen quality. Pretty good user interface, other than the control wheel (which, while manageable, isn't the best control method). The mediocre wheel doesn't detract from the player at all though. Downloading music to the player can be done by syncing or by dragging and dropping, which is always nice. Pretty good earphones included. I like the option to expand memory with SD cards. As a side note, make sure you're Windows version is >2000, otherwise the software won't install. Much better than getting ripped off by a $150 4GB player!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 47 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Excellent MP3 player 03/03/2008
By BikerMark from Orange Park, FL

What's great about it: Easy to use, Bluetooth, large screen,features
What's not so great: software, manuel, support

"This is a great mp3 player, loaded with features, good battery life. I still can't get it to play mpeg4 movies so I can only tell you it's great for mp3's. You can charge it with any mini USB cable including the one for my Motorola Q, also used a friends Razr charger for it. Has auto shut off, can record off the FM radio, Sleep timer, just a nice unit at a great price ($129 on sale). I've loaded tons of music and photos on it and still have 5.3GB free! If I could have made the mpeg4 video play it would have gotten 5 stars."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 48 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

1.0 5

most irritating mp3 02/27/2008
By naynayy from cleveland, oh

What's great about it: loved the price
What's not so great: was not worth the aggrivation

"was thrilled when I bought it thinking I had gotten a real deal with this mp3. Loved the fact that the screen was larger than many. But when I got home and tried to use it on my computer it is not compatable with windows 2000. they dont tell you this on the box. could not download program and then when I used my wmp to transfer songs it went into sinc mode. called the help line and was told to format! walked me thru steps and low and behold they told me to delete! after questioning them they assured me to delete! Well it deleted the whole program on the mp3! After a whole day of aggrivation with this mp3 I took it back. Wont buy another ever again."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 49 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

2.0 5

BEWARE FREEZING SEEMS TO BE A RECURRING PROBLEM 02/26/2008
By 40WPM from TX

What's great about it: Size, features, large screen,price
What's not so great: sound, freezes, software, battery

"This little player has a lot of great features for the price. The selling point for me was the large screen and not having to use any specific software with it (although it did come with Best Buy Music Store and some other confusing software). I tried using WMPlayer 9 to upload music to it but it took too long and would suddenly refuse to take certain songs. It also would not categorize the music by artist, genre, album etc. After debating for a while, I upgraded to WMP 10 and successfully loaded over 1200 songs in no time. Needless to say I was thrilled when I finally got to listen to my music. Unfortunately the thrill was short lived. The sound quality was not that good. No matter how much I tinkered with the equalizer it still sounded a somewhat muffled. I tried different earphones and tried listening in my car using a cassette adapter that makes my old 20 dollar mp3 player sound great.
I decided not to give up so easily and listened the entire day hoping it would grow on me. After a while I figured for the price and the memory it would do just fine. After 1 hour of use the thing froze. I didn't even get to try the video or recording feature. Removing the back of the cover was difficult and it was only to find out that the battery cannot be removed without risking damage to the cables. I read the other reviews and there are two other people who also had this player freeze.
I will return the player and since I am an optimist and I really like the features, I will give it one more try. I recommend anyone who buys this item to make sure they buy the extended warranty."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 50 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Excellent choice 02/20/2008
By blewnc from coram,ny

What's great about it: quality and features
What's not so great: battery life

"As a former ipod user(4gb mini), I was a little skeptical at first. This MP3 is very good. I also have the Insignia bluetooth headphones.
To have FM presets(20) as well as video capability plus recording in one unit is excellent.
The price sets this apart from the others.
If there is any questions its the battery life. If using bluetooth, I'm getting about 15-18 hours,still not bad."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 51 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

2.0 5

Buyer Beware 02/15/2008
By Lastime

What's great about it: MP3 player is ok
What's not so great: Headphones are not under warranty.

"The mp3 player is ok. Downloading music and copying cd's isn't as easy as an ipod. Headphones went out within 60 days but are not covered under the warranty."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 52 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

1.0 5

do not buy 02/13/2008
By Anonymous from PA

What's great about it: looks
What's not so great: never works

"i bought this for my wife for christmas, the first time she used it the screen froze up on her so we took it back and got another one. Two days later the new one froze up again. Two different mp3 players the exact same problem."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

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Review 53 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

amazing 02/12/2008
By reesy from sacramento

What's great about it: compatible with any form of music
What's not so great: has too many presets

"The is great way better the any ipod, and very user friendly! i have freinds that have had many different ipods over the years, i switched them over to this one, and they love it too, especially the bluetooth feature. The only thing is you need to see how you want to set it up before you plug an play. BUT IT IS A GREAT MACHINE!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 54 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Very good MP3 Player 02/11/2008
By traymond from Sacramento, CA

What's great about it: Built-in Bluetooth Technology
What's not so great: scroll wheel feels a little cheesy

"I bought this because it was a good value for an MP3 player with Bluetooth built-in. So far I have been very happy. The abilty to add memory via the SD card is another plus."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 55 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Great Purchase 02/10/2008
By Tamela from Lansing, Michigan

What's great about it: Easy to download songs, no batteries
What's not so great: Need to recharge on computer

"Very fast to download songs on computer, very light and east to carry in hand or pocket. Easy to manage play list and songs on MP3 player. Sound is pure. Screen is just the right size for pictures and videos. It was the right purchase for a Christmas gift. It is very treasured. Love not having to but an endless supply of batteries."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 56 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

Best Small MP3 player! 02/10/2008
By crazee4morabs from FL

What's great about it: small, easy usablitity, sd card slot, 2 headphone jacks, long battery life, good video qualitity
What's not so great: not a big name and not the great packaging (but who cares right?!?!)

"This is the best small mp3 player out there. I spent weeks looking for my new mp3. everybody said get an ipod or a zune, but i wanted to do my own research and then heaven through its light down on this baby. it was perfect and it had qualities that even ipod and zune dont have.
okay it dosnt have a pound of memory on it, but its enough. and it has a SD card slot. so you if have a little SD card holder you can get a few of them and put movies on them or organize your music with them. also i saw SD card cases at walmart for 1.99.
anyways, the music sounds great, but get new headphones, because the ones it comes with suck. i havnt tried the bluetooth headphones because they are too big and bulky and the small ones cost too much.
you dont have to have any special program to load songs to it, though you can use the cd it comes with if you want.
i love audibles and its cool that it plays .aa files.
the video quality is great for its small compact size.
did i mention i love that it dosnt feel like your lugging a 90's gameboy around with you???
i love this mp3. i give you permission to look at others, but you wont find a better one on the market for the next year or so."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 57 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

5.0 5

GREAT PURCHASE 02/02/2008
By NATZ2 from ILLINOIS

What's great about it: EASY TO USE, GREAT PICS AND MUSIC QUALITY
What's not so great: NONE FOUND AS OF YET

"I JUST PURCHASED THIS AND I WAS GREATLY SATISFIED WITH THIS MP3. IT WAS A BREEZE TO TRANSFER MUSIC AND PICS FROM WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER TO THE MP3. VERY COMPATIBLE!!! ALL THE FEATURES ARE EXCELLENT. ONLY THING I HAVENT TRIED YET IS TO TRANSFER VIDEO TO IT, I HOPING I WILL BE SATISFIED WHEN I DO THAT. DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT, TRY IT FOR YOURSELF!!! HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!!"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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Review 58 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

Above Average 01/16/2008
By SortaTechMan

What's great about it: Good features
What's not so great: Sometimes not as user friendly as I would like

"I am Dad who just wanted a good mp3 player with all the features. That is what this is. Not huge memory(but plenty), not huge screen (but big enough), not the "big name". I have only had it for a few days, but everything I have asked it to do, it has. The software that came with it is not the best. It was a little confusing on install, and it is not the most powerful software. So if you are looking for a player with the features but not the cost, and not a teen who "needs it all" then this is a good investment."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Review 59 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

2.0 5

Poor video quality during videos & photos 01/16/2008
By JustAReviewer from Milwaukee, WI

What's great about it: good if you only want to play music, expandable memory
What's not so great: Poor video quality during videos & photos

"I am neither an iPod fan boy nor an iPod hater but it is hard to not base your feelings when we have been under such control by Apple…so a lot of my thoughts will be in comparison to the iPod. The Insignia Pilot has poor video quality during videos & photos. Flat & fuzzy. I did a side by side comparison w/an iPod and really expected so much more from the Insignia Pilot. In the area of clarity and quality of video or photos, the iPod just blows the Insignia away. It's like HDTV (iPod) vs. Standard Television (Insignia) -- no kidding. So, decide what you want out of this Insignia Pilot, a music player (the display during songs is good) or a media player (average at best). If you want the latter (crisp, clear, vibrant photos & videos), you will be disappointed w/the Insignia (pixelation and ghosting is not uncommon). And if you watch podcasts, it gets worse. It claims to take MPEG-4s but it really converts them to AVIs (MPEG-4s encoded w/AVI), and some podcasts are MPA or MPV files which cannot be converted at all with the software you get.
When it comes to music, there is a little more work to do here w/the Insignia than using an iPod. With the iPod after you rip or drag your music to iTunes, just right click the album art icon and (95+% of the time) the album art pops up. On the Insignia, you HAVE TO search out the album art online and physically attach it to each mp3 with an additional third party software such as Media Monkey, etc. This is time consuming, esp. if you have a large collection.
I really connect with my music by seeing the album art, not just when the song is playing but including the many different ways you can search for music including by Album. Unlike the iPod, the Insignia does not have this feature. The only time you see the art is when an individual song is playing. I don’t think this would be a hard feature to implement since the Insignia does this with the photos you upload: it generates a small thumbnail next to the file name as you scroll up and down through the list. Why not do that with the music, too? The same argument can be made if you have a large collection (or songs from MANY different albums) it is sometimes difficult to remember what the particular name of an album is but you can remember the CD jacket, so why not look for it with the help of a small picture. And when you search by Artist, if there are songs from multiple albums from the same artist, you essentially play all the songs, or nothing. You don’t have another layer after the Artist level that then takes you to (the choices of) the Album level. Imagine a band that has had a long career and many albums. You go from Artist to all the songs, that’s it.
I thought the sound was good. I like how “low” it goes (lower than the iPod). It wasn’t until my comparison that I noticed a slight difference -- edge given to the iPod. If you are not an audiophile or don’t use noise cancelling headphones, you may not notice that difference though.
The video clips roll one right after another. For example, if I play clip A, when it finishes it starts playing clip B, etc. Some might like that, I do not. The only way to get around this is to view the videos through the Folder Browser…but that is not as hip when you have to go through the old style of a directory tree. Maybe give the user the option to play in succession or not (listen up Insignia engineers – Ha!).
At first I did not like the idea (AT ALL!) of converting MPEG4 clips or JPGs. Fortunately, it is a drag & drop feature that is fairly quick in the conversion and can go straight to the Insignia (rather than into a separate folder and manually dragged over -- creating a second step). They at least thought that out. I did not like the quality of the photo conversion but later discovered that it was set at a default of 80%. I changed it to 100 and the quality was much better. Still nowhere near the iPod but better.
VERY IMPORTANT: I was hesitant on getting this mp3 player from previous reviews discussing the frequency of lock-ups… And wouldn’t you know it, my device locked up twice in the first two hours of use: going through the few photos I added and then again when reviewing the FM recordings I made. And then a few more times later. Fortunately, turning the device off like you normally would by holding the switch did it, but maybe five seconds longer.
I would prefer to hold the device vertically, rather than the horizontal layout. (Think ergonomics, whether the older Nano, larger iPods or Zunes, or 2nd Gen Zune.) I know why they did that (larger screen) but I would prefer to see at least see the Music (album art included) in the vertical position (you could easily put all of the song info. below the album art & still have enough real estate to display everything). If you can flip the orientation for right-handed or left-handed individuals on this device, and the Zune can have the music play vertically, and then play the videos horizontally (to take advantage of a larger screen), then why can’t the Insignia do it?
The packaging is TERRIBLE!!! I CAN’T SAY THAT ENOUGH. C’mon guys, you make it way too difficult to get to everything in the package! I was afraid I might cut something important.
On the device itself…under ”Information” in the user interface, third page, there is a typo: “Inforamtion”. I figured by now a firmware upgrade would have caught that but there doesn’t even appear to be any on the Insignia web site. The latest firmware is from early Sep. 07. And is it “syncing” or “synching” (probably coming from the derivative of “synchronizing”)? I’ve known it as “syncing” but Insignia has “synching” on the screen. I know typos are petty but they make the device seem cheaply or foreign made/designed.
So what is good? The radio (I received remarkable reception). Bluetooth (I can’t comment on this bec. I don’t use it but see the value.) The ability to “add” more memory by adding an SD or SDHC card (worked well for me and can appreciate the idea of buying a larger memory card in the future rather than a whole new device). If you those qualties are important, then go with it. If you say the price, yes it is lower than a comparable memory-sized iPod or Zune but consider the trade-off: if you watch (more than the occasional) video clips, movies, podcasts, etc., you might be better served by not getting the Insignia.
For me, the 6th generation iPod screen resolution (clarity for videos and photos) is so overwhelmingly superior that it overshadows all of the additional features that the Insignia has. For now, my Insignia is going back. Fix those shortcomings and I'll not only come back but you will have a customer for life."

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: No

3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Review 60 for Insignia® Pilot 8GB* Video MP3 Player with Bluetooth Technology - Black

Customer Rating

4.0 5

great player 01/11/2008
By skeety from columbia md.

What's great about it: expandable,ease of use, good sound with the right headphones
What's not so great: none to date

"my child gave me this as a present, i wanted a player with more memory not so costly, and easy to use, this player fit that bill quite well i might add. the only thing i wanted it for was to play in my auto which has a cassette player in it and also to use on my subway ride to and from work,the only change i made was with the earbuds which i replaced with BOSE ON EAR headphone and i think the player sounds fantastic"

Would you recommend this product to a friend?: Yes

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