Saregama Carvaan Premium Hindi – Portable Music Player with 5000 Preloaded Songs, FM/BT/AUX (Emerald Green)

Bought this for my brother’s 60th birthday.. what an appreciative gift .. he plays it all the time .. the songs are exactly what he loves and he can take it anywhere..

Saregama Carvaan SC02 Portable Digital Music Player (Oak Wood Brown)To put it very mildly, its a delight for senior citizen who is enjoying his retirement days.

Pros:
Appearance: A plus and beautiful finish.

Sound Quality: Superb for listening, keeping it near bed while dozing or reading etc. Not for any thumping music. The songs sound more melodious. When I connected the Caravan to a Sony Home theater, all that thumping music is possible as the output quality is quite good.

FM RADIO: Good. I read some reviews that FM Radio is not working. May be for far of places from the source station or because of location of the house. As is usual with FM, even the best Sony receiver, we have to change the angle of antenna frequently when you change the station. In this case, as there is no external antenna, we have tilt or turn the radio till we get best reception.

Navigation:Quite Good. I wrote quite good immediately after purchase. But after using it for about 10 days, I find that the Station Changing knob is too delicate and mere brushing of our hand to it changes the station. Which is bad.

Interface with Bluetooth: Quite Okay. It takes a little bit more time to identify and pair. Its okay.

Interface with USB: Excellent. In some reviews its written that only the pre-loaded songs in the instrument are coming in good quality. I find whatever is the in put, the sound quality is almost same.

Price: I find it a little bit steep. Could have been given for a lesser price say around Rs.3000 or so.

CONS:
PRE LOADED SONGS: 1. Although its boasted that great songs, 50% are good for nothing songs, which we would not have dreamed of purchasing. I felt cheated in this regard.
2. Talat Mahmood was almost ignored by throwing in just a few songs. Likewise Hemant Kumar. May be Saregama does not have copy right for all the hits.
3. Rafi and Lata songs too many are included and many of them are non hits, which nobody like to hear again now.
4. Instead of including so many Rafi and Lata Songs, they could have included singers like Jesudas, SP Balasubrahmanyam, Suraiya etc. Instead of simply dumping non-saleable songs into Caravan, they could have enlarged the singer base and given only and only hit songs. The usual commercial thinking of music companies (because of which piracy spiraled) is deplorable.
5. When they are selling the preloaded songs as separate music cards with a facility to copy some other songs into such music cards, why they robbed that opportunity for loading songs and removing some songs we do not care to listen? Only Saregame can reply. I am not happy to have a fixed list of songs, which I cannot access to delete or change sequence. I also do not appreciate the fact that I cannot copy any songs into Caravan.

Of course, there is a provision of USB Drive. But why should I pay money for useless songs which are preloaded. The songs which are preloaded, (Many of them) are useless in my view. Others may have another set of useless songs. Therefore, Saregame should have given provision to access the songs and delete useless songs and add our own selection.

Finally I wish to say Song Selection left much to be done and I am not at all satisfied.

CARNATIC MUSIC NOT INCLUDED: Saregame may be thinking that those who like old Hindi Songs do not like Carnatic Music. Or they may be under wrong impression that those who like old Hindi Songs automatically like Hindustani music. Its not so. There are lakhs of Hindi Music lovers in South who love to have Carnatic Music included in Caravan. Unfortunately, South Indians are cheated by loading only Hindustani (which we may not that much appreciate) and not loading Carnatic Music, which we like. They could have made a fair mixture of Carnatic vocal, Instrumental besides Hindustani Music.

FM RADIO TUNING: Its very bad. Everyt ime, you change the station, the set goes on search mode captures next station. Even cheapest Chinese Radios have the facility of Presets for FM stations. Saregame bunked up here and we have to tune and tune every time we change station. Now a days, in metros we have almost a dozen stations and remembering the frequency and get that and that too by senior citizens is difficult.

BINACA GEET MALA: I thought they will give the original recordings which we heard via Radio Ceylon.. But they got the programme rerecorded with Amin Sayani (which we can get as CDs) and loaded. Of course, we can Amin Sayani in any format. But expectation was not met.

OVERLAPPING OF SONGS: There is too much of over lapping. For example you select Kishore Kumar songs, you get a set of songs. When you go to SD Burman, again you get Kishore Kumar Songs for which SD Burman composed music. Same is the case with all other Singers and Music Directors.

MOOD SECTION: The Mood Selection when you slect Happy, you get happy songs from all Singers. But they should have given option to select Singerwise mood songs.

The CONs notwithstanding, I am enjoying the performance of the Caravan immensely. If Saregame Company attends to the Cons as noted above, it will make the product really unique.

Caravan remote stopped working after 10 days of purchase and I am following up with customer care from last 15 days.
Now the service representative informed me that Remote is not included on warranty. They have very poor service and customer support.

Original product, my husband loved it

It’s a great gift. I bought it for my mum initially and my MiL loved it so much that ended up ordering another one for her.
It’s very easy to use and an amazing gift for all music lovers

It’s really very good . I bought it as gift. My sister liked it very much.

Worth it ✨