[Billy]

I just thought I would share some of my speculations, based on my observations and experience as an owner of several Chinese made pmp devices, as to the probable reasons why many people get a very negative opinion about cheap chinese portable media players.
The most common complaint it would seem is that the device just stops working after a few months. Very often, the owner does not mention whether or not the usb cable was checked by swapping with a known good one.It is quite possible that the usb charger cable simply goes defective, the player can no longer be charged, and the unit dies when the battery is completely discharged.
With both of the chinese mp4 players I have, the usb cable failed after a very short time.Changing the cable solved the problem in both cases.The symptoms of a defective cable seem suspiciously similar to those described by people complaining that their player may have a major problem (not properly detected when connected to the computer, when connection is made it is intermittent, and file transfers can be corrupted etc).Is it possible that the majority of mp4 player complaints can be due merely to a flaky cable?It seems unlikely that the firmware would spontaneously become corrupted, and I have never seen a major hardware fault occur just out of the blue with these devices.
It is unfortunate, but a lot of otherwise good chinese media players get a bad name because the manufacturers in order to save a few pennies include very cheap low quality and often defective essential accessories (USB cable, charger, earphones etc)