If you’re trying to get a little more offline and get back into retro tech, an MP3 player might be something at the top of your list. MP3 players let you use a piece of technology that’s made for one or only a few purposes, unlike smartphones which can do everything nowadays, and are a great alternative to streaming music. So with lots of MP3 players on the market to choose from, the Luqeeg MP3 player on Amazon is a very affordable and colorful option to try out.

Now I will say, when it comes to cheap technology with brand names I’ve never heard of that are clearly mass-produced to sell directly to Amazon out of Shenzhen, my expectations are never that high. This company sells everything from fishing reel grease to soccer nets to MP3 players, so it’s not necessarily focused on quality, but rather how much they can sell using their manufacturing capacity. I was decently pleased by some aspects of this MP3 player, and disappointed by others, but ultimately, all of it makes sense given the price and kind of technology this is.

Price, specs, and availability

The Luqeeg MP3 player is available on Amazon for $17, though it can retail for as low as $12. It comes with the MP3 player itself, a microUSB cable for connecting it to your computer, and a pair of earbuds. The earbuds don’t have any ear tips and just sit in the outer part of your ear, so make sure you have a good pair to use instead, since these won’t sound good or be very comfortable. It notably does not come with an SD card but requires one for use, so make sure you get one of those before you plan on using it. The MP3 player is available in black, blue, green, and white colorways.

It is very lightweight, weighing in at around 33 grams, and it’s about the size of an iPod Nano. In fact, it looks a LOT like an iPod Nano. It’s not a knockoff, but it’s definitely inspired by Apple’s iconic MP3 player.

The Luqeeg MP3 player supports a lot of file formats, including MP3, MP4, WMA, FLAC, AAC, Ogg, APE, and ACELP. Since it supports a variety of lossless and lossy formats, you have a lot of options.

What I liked about the Luqeeg MP3 player

File format versatility

First off, I’ll say that I like that the Luqeeg MP3 player can play a lot of file formats. I appreciated being able to listen to FLACs on it, because I do like listening to lossless files when I can.

Additionally, I appreciate that this MP3 player honestly looks really cute. It’s very obviously inspired by the iPod Nano, at least in its outward appearance and not in the user interface.

I also enjoy some of the extra facets this MP3 player has compared to more authentically retro ones. It has FM radio, which is a really nice option to have available if I get tired of the music I have loaded on the SD card. Notably, this MP3 player also has Bluetooth, and I like being able to have the option of using Bluetooth headphones instead of wired ones in cases where that would be more convenient.

What I didn’t like about the Luqeeg MP3 player

Cheap price makes for cheap appearance and performance

The most immediate thing I noticed about the Luqeeg MP3 player right out of the box is that it feels incredibly cheap. And yes, it doesn’t cost very much and is clearly another one of those products sold on Amazon directly from the manufacturer in China, so my expectations for how it would feel are basically in line with what I was getting into by using it. But I do think it’s worth noting that you aren’t getting more than your money’s worth when it comes to build quality here. The whole thing feels like it could break at any moment, it’s not very well put together, and the buttons and ports feel dubious. One of the more alarming design aspects is that the SD card doesn’t fully fit into the slot, so it sort of sticks out at the top. I worry that it could snap or chip at the SD card if I dropped it or hit it against a hard surface.

One really strange thing is that it couldn’t read many of my albums despite being the same format as the ones it could read. I loaded six albums on to the MP3 player, four of which were made up of FLACs and two of which were MP3s. The only albums I could get to work on this MP3 player were two from The 1975, one of which was MP3 and one of which were FLACs, and a Vampire Weekend album made up of MP3s. Every album worked on another MP3 player using the same SD card, so this is a problem with the way the MP3 player was reading the files on the SD card. I couldn’t find a workaround for this, and it doesn’t make sense that it would be so inconsistent with how it reads files of the same format, so this was a bit of a bewildering issue.

I also found the navigation on the MP3 player to be not very intuitive. The buttons are labeled for playback uses, but don’t make it super clear from the get-go that pressing the bottom button doesn’t navigate downward, but just toggles the volume option, and that to navigate up and down, and also to turn volume up and down, you have to use the left and right buttons. I had to read the manual multiple times to truly understand how to use the buttons, which honestly should just be easy to use immediately.

Verdict: Should you get the Luqeeg MP3 player?

In all honesty, I don’t think this MP3 player is worth it for the price. While it hasn’t broken on me yet, it feels like it might at any moment. There are way too many downsides to this MP3 player, and the fact that it couldn’t even read more than half of the albums I tried playing was frustrating. As much as it is functional on a basic level, I think it’s much more worth it to get a better quality MP3 player with similar features that you pay a bit more for from a reputable company, so you know it’s going to work long-term and function as advertised.