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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:54 pm
by Obadiah

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:57 pm
by feyd
Looks like it will eat batteries: 10 hours on 1 AAA.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:01 pm
by Obadiah
true but its multifunctional...even comes equipped with a voice recorder 8)

Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 10:46 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Well, I just bought this...

IPod Nano Clone for only $37 with free shipping. It has a few more features. The color display is only 65k colors while the IPod is 256k colors.

If it lives up to the specs then it is worth it to buy an IPod Nano Clone for about 1/4 of the cost.

If anyone is interested they are constantly putting them up for sale. You have to be patient to get a good deal as they normally go for $40-$60 US. It took me a couple of days to get one below $40. They normally sell them for around $90 through their store.

Here is the link for the list of what they have for sale.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZlowest ... iceQQhtZ-1

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 12:27 am
by Kieran Huggins
Let us know how it works out! I have a roommate who wants a cheap player... this could be ideal.

No AAC support, and I doubt there's a clickwheel :-( but aside from that it seems ok.

What player / management software do you use? I've given Musikcubea try for my vorbis files and it isn't terrible. "Songbird" should have been named "Lemming", unfortunately.

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:52 am
by AKA Panama Jack
Yeah, I am hoping it will be a decent player. :) For less than $40 if it plays the music just fine then I am happy. But I will try out the video to see how well that works.

Actually I just use Winamp to play all of my music on the PC. And this player should work just like a mass storage device so nothing extra should be needed to populate it with music. They claim to ship air mail so it should be here within a week.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:00 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Well, I got my IPod Nano Clone a few days ago and it works like a charm. A 4gig mp4 player for under $40 was a steal.

The only problem I have with it is the how music, movies and pictures are selected. The file manager is very, very primitive. It's not as simple or as elegant as what is used on the IPod Nano. But for the price that can be ignored. :)

The player is has many things built in that are extras for the IPod Nano like an FM Radio.

Image

Sorry for the images looking so crappy but the camera I took them with really sucks. :cry: I wish the images were better because they don't do justice to how bright, clear and colorful the LCD images look.

The FM Radio also has the ability to record any FM broadcast.

It can also play AMV formatted movies.

Image

It comes with a small CD that contains USB drivers for Windows 98/ME and a movie conversion tool. The tools can convert DVD movies, asf, avi, mpg, etc formats to AMV. I was surprised at how well they look on such a small 1.5 inch screen. The only drawback to playing back movies is the slow screen refresh rate so there is ghosting.

It can also play games and there are two simple ones (Tetris and Minefield) included.

Image

It also has an Ebook for storing text files that you can pull up at anytime.

Image

And it comes with a built in mic for voice recording. (no picture)

But the thing I really wanted it for was music.

Image

It has a colorful animated display when playing music files. So far I have only loaded the player with 1 gig of music. Most of the files are recorded at 320 kbps and sound great. And I was happy to find out it supports variable bit rates in an MP3 file. Some of the cheap players choke on VBR files. It includes 7 preset equalizer settings. The player also supports Lyric files for Karaoke play mode.

The only bad part to the music playback were the cheap IPod style earbuds. They had a lousy frequency response so the music sounded tinny. But I fixed that by replacing them with some good earbuds.

It's very easy to store music and other files on the player. It supports upto 99 directories so it is easy to manage your music. Each of the players functions will scan all of the directories looking for supported files. You can even have files of different types in the same directory and each player will only show the files it can process.

The player also came with a wall charger. You plug the USB cable into it and it will fully charge in a couple of hours. If you have it plugged into a USB 2.0 connector on a computer it will recharge as well. When you plug it into your computer it will appear as a removable drive. Just copy your directories and files to it and you are set.

There is one problem with this. The file system is VERY primitive in the player. If you move files from one directory in the player to another directory in the player the file structure will get hosed. Apparently when windows changes the file pointers instead of actually moving the files it confuses the player. So if you want to move files from one directory to another you have to delete them and then copy them from the computer to the new directory.

Overall I am quite happy with the player. It beats having to pay $200 for a 2 gig Ipod Nano that doesn't have as many features. For some people the lousy song selector might be enough of a turn off to prevent them from buying such a player. But hey for under $40 for a 4 gig MP3/4 player you can't beat it. :D

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:21 pm
by Dale
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Well, I got my IPod Nano Clone a few days ago and it works like a charm. A 4gig mp4 player for under $40 was a steal.

The only problem I have with it is the how music, movies and pictures are selected. The file manager is very, very primitive. It's not as simple or as elegant as what is used on the IPod Nano. But for the price that can be ignored. :)

The player is has many things built in that are extras for the IPod Nano like an FM Radio.

http://junk.aatraders.com/mp4player/mp4_fm_radio.jpg

Sorry for the images looking so crappy but the camera I took them with really sucks. :cry: I wish the images were better because they don't do justice to how bright, clear and colorful the LCD images look.

The FM Radio also has the ability to record any FM broadcast.

It can also play AMV formatted movies.

http://junk.aatraders.com/mp4player/mp4_amv.jpg

It comes with a small CD that contains USB drivers for Windows 98/ME and a movie conversion tool. The tools can convert DVD movies, asf, avi, mpg, etc formats to AMV. I was surprised at how well they look on such a small 1.5 inch screen. The only drawback to playing back movies is the slow screen refresh rate so there is ghosting.

It can also play games and there are two simple ones (Tetris and Minefield) included.

http://junk.aatraders.com/mp4player/mp4_game.jpg

It also has an Ebook for storing text files that you can pull up at anytime.

http://junk.aatraders.com/mp4player/mp4_ebook.jpg

And it comes with a built in mic for voice recording. (no picture)

But the thing I really wanted it for was music.

http://junk.aatraders.com/mp4player/mp4_playing_mp3.jpg

It has a colorful animated display when playing music files. So far I have only loaded the player with 1 gig of music. Most of the files are recorded at 320 kbps and sound great. And I was happy to find out it supports variable bit rates in an MP3 file. Some of the cheap players choke on VBR files. It includes 7 preset equalizer settings. The player also supports Lyric files for Karaoke play mode.

The only bad part to the music playback were the cheap IPod style earbuds. They had a lousy frequency response so the music sounded tinny. But I fixed that by replacing them with some good earbuds.

It's very easy to store music and other files on the player. It supports upto 99 directories so it is easy to manage your music. Each of the players functions will scan all of the directories looking for supported files. You can even have files of different types in the same directory and each player will only show the files it can process.

The player also came with a wall charger. You plug the USB cable into it and it will fully charge in a couple of hours. If you have it plugged into a USB 2.0 connector on a computer it will recharge as well. When you plug it into your computer it will appear as a removable drive. Just copy your directories and files to it and you are set.

There is one problem with this. The file system is VERY primitive in the player. If you move files from one directory in the player to another directory in the player the file structure will get hosed. Apparently when windows changes the file pointers instead of actually moving the files it confuses the player. So if you want to move files from one directory to another you have to delete them and then copy them from the computer to the new directory.

Overall I am quite happy with the player. It beats having to pay $200 for a 2 gig Ipod Nano that doesn't have as many features. For some people the lousy song selector might be enough of a turn off to prevent them from buying such a player. But hey for under $40 for a 4 gig MP3/4 player you can't beat it. :D
I have exactly the same here got mine off eBay .. though it doesn't work at all.. well kinda does... I can play music on it but if I got for a jog (yes - I do exercise) it resets itself. Also when I get off the tube or go up / down steps it resets itself. And if it's put into my pocket it resets itself. :/

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:05 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Ok, I had a similar problem but I found out that two things can cause it.

1. Non-alpha numeric characters in the filenames. If you have characters that are not a-z or 0-9 in the filename it will cause the player to reset when it tries to play them. Yes, I know odd quirk.

2. If the battery level is low. I found that a 1-2 hour charge just isn't enough. You have to let it charge for around 4 hours. Use the AC charger that came with the player. Turn the player on. Plug it into the charger. A green light will light on the charger. When the green light goes out the player is fully charged.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:06 pm
by AKA Panama Jack
Almost forgot...

I found this excellent site.

http://www.mympxplayer.org

It contains all kinds of tools, utilities, themes, and even new firmware for these players.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:21 pm
by DaveTheAve
AKA Panama Jack your MP4 player looks ALMOST exactly like mine. How do I know? Well first off it physically looks exact, second where using the same firmware except different versions and skins. What firmware are you running? Glad you asked your running s1mp3 Firmware! Yeah, the file manager does suck but w/e. $40.

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:30 pm
by Dale
AKA Panama Jack wrote:Ok, I had a similar problem but I found out that two things can cause it.

1. Non-alpha numeric characters in the filenames. If you have characters that are not a-z or 0-9 in the filename it will cause the player to reset when it tries to play them. Yes, I know odd quirk.

2. If the battery level is low. I found that a 1-2 hour charge just isn't enough. You have to let it charge for around 4 hours. Use the AC charger that came with the player. Turn the player on. Plug it into the charger. A green light will light on the charger. When the green light goes out the player is fully charged.
1) Does a '-' (minus) sign work ok?

2) Battery is full.



Also now it doesn't turn on at all. :(

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:13 am
by AKA Panama Jack
Well, I found out I just got screwed. :)

I performed some of the tests they had on that site and found out my 4 gig player is really a 1 gig player. Still not bad for the price I paid but it sucks to get taken like that. :x

I sent a resolution request to PayPal. I don't expect much to come from it but either a partial refund or a real 4 gig player would be nice. I figure at most a partial refund.

Apparently there has been a big problem with hacked MP4 players being sold out of China. Some people have had 4 gig players turn up to really be 128 meg players. Personally I like the player but the fact it has only 1 gig is a disappointment but still decent for the price.

Dale, it sounds like your player might have become infected with a virus. Apparently there is a virus going around that stays hidden on your computer until a removable drive is installed that has flash memory. It copies itself to your player and corrupts the firmware over time. The only fix is to download the proper firmware for your player and reflash it. The tools and most firmware files are on that site I posted earlier.

I would run a serious antivirus program on everything in your computer. Apparently that virus is only activated when windows creates a removable drive for the flash drive.

DaveTheAve, the firmware in mine is very new v9.0.50. The current firmware download tools don't recognise the new version and won't download it properly.

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:32 am
by Dale
Cheers mate.

Well I did get some contact off the person I brought it off on eBay, but they have told me to return the Mp4 Player to them and they'll give me another one. However I have no read up and found out that once you send it off, which they suggest sending it by "tracking", they then turn around and say they haven't recieved it. :/

So I think I might just complain to eBay, PayPal and IC3 about it. Oh quick question too, does the IC3 do complaints that are sent by UK people (like myself?)

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 12:51 am
by AKA Panama Jack
I have no idea about IC3 but if you file a complaint through the link on EBAY and enter the auction ID it will send you to PayPal if you paid using PayPal. You enter in all of the information about what is wrong. That is sent to the seller. They have 20 days to make a resolution that you can agree with. If they don't then you can upgrade it to something PayPal will look into and they can return your money if they find the seller at fault. So it might take a month for anything to get resolved.

Whatever you do. DO NOT send it back to the seller or you may never see anything. No money and no player. Make sure they have sent a replacement through verifiable tracking and don't return it until the new one arrives. If they won't agree to it make sure you get a refund.