Quote:
Originally Posted by Podder";p="
I have had a change of heart regarding the ipod clone aka mp4 players. I bought mine on ebay and found out here about the 4 gig situation and the need to hack the player to get 2 gigs. I accepted that. For the money I paid, I was willing to overlook such problems as long as the player worked. Although, I think people suck and the fraud and deception from people is awful, the money saved to be able to listen to your favourite music allowed me to try to forget the deception.
There were problems setting up the player and the sound from the player's earphones filled myself with doubts. Is this thing junk? Once again, this forum comes to the rescue. I read that you need to buy a decent pair of earphones. I had a bit of trouble getting an adapter. The first I bought at Circuit City was defective. I take the one back and get the same brand. It works. I can now plug in 3.5 earphones. I have another ebay fiasco in that the the earphones I bid on and won is not the same I received. However, the ones I received seem to be of good quality. But, I won't give any feedback to the buyer since I was never told about the switch.
However, the battery life of the player was initially poor and I was not aware of the limited time. But now, it is even worse. The player won't recharge properly or the battery is just quickly dying. I'm not sure of what is actually happening but I'm getting tired of messing with this thing. For double the price, I could have saved a lot of time and bought a brand name player. I would have tons more of listening time and not have to spend most of the time with it hooked up to the computer recharging.
I have changed my tune: I now think these mp4 players have a long way to go before they are an alternative to standard mp3 players. I already learned of a friend of a friend who bought one who was able to return his (for whatever reason). I'm unable to do that but I will probably look at a brand name mp3 player as a spare or probably a replacement. The quality of most of these mp4 players seem to be subpar. I don't think you can simply state 'look at how much you paid for it...what do you expect...' I can spend $40 or $50 on a lot of things and ensure I get something back. I'm disappointed because of the time spent on the player and the waiting time (for the player etc.). I still ordered an adapter on ebay and never received it yet. I bought it when I thought the previously bought adapter was a product-wide quality issue. The new one looked like a better design, too, but it doesn't matter when it doesn't even arrive.
Hopefully, the quality will improve but I think I'll be suspending the mp4 ipod clone experiment. Good luck to those who pursue these players.
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Again, the running theme in your recent posts is one of lumping all non-popular-namebrand mp4 players in the same boat, but it doesn't quite pan out in real life, because there are better quality non-Apple Chinese players, like the Meizu, Ramos or Teclast. The Meizu's battery is rated at 20 hours (better than the iPods) and apparently does actually come close to living up to its rating. But you will pay more for these better quality players. I think they can be very good value these cheap mp4's for those on a budget, but still, as you know, you do get what you pay for to a certain extent. Now with yours, you have two options. If you are technically inclined, you can open up the unit, take measurements of the battery well, and for a few bucks, but an aftermarket nano battery on ebay with a higher mah (capacity) that will fit. Or, you can simply sell your player locally, you might even get all of what you paid for, as mp4 players are hot items.
To compare them to "standard mp3 players", well overall, I dont think any mp4 players are as practical as a good mp3 player. For example, there's no mp4 player that takes a standard aa/aaa battery! If you don't need video, you're better off with a good mp3 player, you'll be happy! You want long battery life? Check out my review here on the Panasonic SV-MP010. It has 80hrs of battery life on a single aa! (1GB can be had for $50US). I also recommend the Samsung Yp-mt6z (only 1 gig though, 40hrs batt) or the iRiver T10 (about 40hrs batt). A very top rated mp3/mp4 player is the Cowon D2. The problem with buying Senn CX300's on eBay is most are fakes, and you gotta know what you're doing to even have a chance of spotting those who might not be selling fakes on ebay. EBay of course, history's biggest scamming organization, doesn't give a rat's ass that most of these phones selling on their site are fakes, since they take in part of the cut of the scam. It's true, people do suck. But eBay sucks harder.