I provide honest ratings and reviews on tech, toys, and consumer home goods that I've purchased and used. Reviews are based on hands-on testing and personal observations. All opinions and comments are my own.
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Takeaway: Not bad as an MP3 player/FM radio, but poor screen resolution for videos/photos. The MP4 player includes a micro USB cable and a set of headphones. The player is made of a brushed aluminum shell and has a 1.75" diagonal LCD, but note that the screen is not a touch screen. On the right hand side of the player, there is a slot for loading a microSD card, but the unit also has 16 gb of built-in storage and a card is not required. Along the bottom is a microUSB charging port, the microphone, and the headphone port.
To turn the player on, press and hold the center play/pause button. The menu displays a list of options that you scroll left and right through. Note that the controls are a click wheel and not a touch sensitive scroll wheel. To select an option click the menu key in the top left corner of the control wheel. In Music mode press the up and down keys to adjust the volume and then the Menu key to accept the setting. The included headphones are not that great, so I recommend using your own set. Once you use a decent set of headphones the music quality is pretty good. Loading music to the player is easy using the included cable and you simply drop all the files into the root folder.
To exit out of a mode press and hold the menu key or use the back key in the top right corner of the controls. In video mode this player only supports AMV files, so you'll likely have to convert any files to get them to player on this player. The screen is awfully tiny, and the colors are somewhat washed out with fairly low resolution. There is a voice recorder on this unit and I recommend that if you do use it, to set the recording type to 256 kbps for better sounding quality. You'll have to go to a separate menu option to listen to the recordings. The radio mode functions and picks up a lot of stations in my area. The photo mode is as expected for such a tiny screen and the contrast will change depending on your viewing angle. In e-book mode you can read text files but not word documents, pdfs, or ebook formats. LAstly, there is a game mode with 1 game "Boxman."
Overall, for an inexpensive unit, it works as an MP3 player and portable radio. I wouldn't recommend it if you primarily want to view photos, videos and e-books. With 8 GB of storage and also the option to add an SD card up to 32 gb, you can also use it as a portable drive and card reader.
Takeaway: Easy to use, accurate sound quality, straightforward digitizing of analog tapes. The cassette converter comes with a 33" miniUSB cable, a set of headphones, and a mini software CD. This converter can help you convert all your old cassette tapes to digital files that you can store on the computer; it also works as a standalone portable cassette player as well! The unit has no internal rechargeable battery and runs off 2 AA batteries, or you can use external power using the included miniUSB cable or a 3V 500 mAh DC adapter (not included).
The cassette converter is very much like any classic cassette player. You've got a play button, stop button, fast forward and rewind, a direction button to switch from side A to B and vice versa without taking the tape out of the player, and a loop switch that will automatically switch to the other side of the tape when the current side reaches its end. On the right hand side of the unit, there is an analog volume control wheel, the USB port, headphone port, and the eject slider. When you pull the slider down, the cassette bay door opens to the left. Inside, in the bottom right corner is the door to the battery bay for loading the 2 AA batteries to power this without a cable and to use as a portable cassette player. The plastic inside the unit feel pretty cheap and lightweight though, so don't be too rough since it feels like it could crack easily.
The software CD simply has the installation files for Audacity on it, which is a free software that can also be downloaded from the internet. A copy of the instruction manual is also on the disk. Recording the output from the cassette player was really straightforward and easy. The included instructions on the CD even had screen shots of the program to help you get all the settings right. Note that Audacity records in real time, so if you have a 2 hour tape, you'll need to allow Audacity to record for the full 2 hours. The recorded sound is very accurate to what you hear if you plug the headphones directly into the player. There was a slight hum of line noise in the background bother during recording and just listening to playback both through the computer and through headphones. However, but the digital file can be cleaned up in post processing if you have audio software like Adobe Audition. Keep in mind that when recording from analog to digital, any imperfection in the tape or cable will end up in your final recording including pops and crackles from the tape medium. Overall, this converter did exactly what I wanted, and it's a great way to preserve older cassettes. I'll definitely be converting some tapes that I have in my collection and stuff my parents recorded when I was young.
Takeaway: Works as an MP3 player, but the MP4 features fall flat due to limited screen resolution, size and file compatibility. This player is reminiscent to an older Apple iPod mini model, but the build quality is markedly cheaper as is the software and functionality. The body is made of aluminum with a brushed finish and the click wheel and center button are made of a lightweight plastic that doesn't sit flush with the housing. Note that the wheel does not feature touch sensitive scrolling. The instructions are generic and don't accurately describe this particular product and they are not well-written/translated so you'll have to figure out most of the functions yourself. The headphones that the unit comes with are cheap, like the free ones you'd get on an airplane. The sound on them is thin, boxy and the bass nonexistent, so I recommend using a pair of your own.
This unit features a removable microSD card slot and comes with a 16GB card pre-installed. The unit takes about 3-4 hours to fully charge. In the center is a tab for you to attach a wriststrap and it also covers the pinhole microphone. The lock switch is on the top with the on/off positions written on the back of the player (left for on, right for off). When the unit is unlocked, the center button acts as the power on/off. There is a screen saver that will shut off the screen if you don't press any buttons within 10 seconds and a sleep timer that will turn the unit off after 30 seconds of inactivity; sometimes the sleep timer is inexplicably shorter and I found that the unit was constantly turning off on me during testing.
This player is capable of playing music, video files, recording audio, receiving radio broadcasts, viewing photos, and reading text files. Loading files was easy by plugging the unit into the computer via the USB cable or removing the SD card and using card reader. All the files are simply put in the main folder named with Chinese characters. The menu is side scrolling to the left and right with large icons to show which mode you are selecting. Oddly, the select menu option is the menu button rather than the center button.
In music mode, you can play MP3 or Wave files. For video playback, this player will only play AMV files, which doesn't seem to be a common video format, so I'm not sure how useful this feature actually is. So note that this MP4 player can't play MP4 videos. Go figure. The record function will let you do voice recordings. However, the result sounds tends to sound boxy with mono input and 8000Hz sample rate.
The radio function actually impressed me. It found a bunch of local stations and if I positioned the player right, the sound was as clear as it would be from my car stereo. You can also save the stations to load again later. The only trouble is that as you move around and the MP4 is re-positioned, the signal could drop and you'll just hear a bunch of static. Viewing photos is what you'd expect on a small screen with low resolution. Pretty much useless. The "e-book"/text reader can only load plain text files, no pdfs, word documents or epubs. Again with the limited file compatibility. On the small screen, you'll only be able to read about 20 to 30 words anyway, so it's not practical at all.
Overall, the MP3 and radio functions are the real features of this player. Everything else is lackluster and frankly, could have been left out. The small screen size, limited file compatibility, and low resolution doesn't make this a good player for videos, photos or text files and the recording function could have been useful if the microphone wasn't so terrible. This is more of a toy for kids than anything else.
