MP3 Players Review

MEIZU MP4 Portable Video & Music Player 8GB (Black)

Customer Reviews

I'm in love with Meizu!

In general I was very very impressed with the quality of the Meizu -- sound, functionality, features, form, etc. But instead of repeating what other people said, I'll try to be original here. I bought this instead of an ipod & others for 5 reasons: 1) I like the mini-USB interface versus other proprietary ones (and btw USB 2 uploading/downloading is super fast). If you forget, lose or break your USB cable at least it's easy to find another one. 2) The slide pad doesn't make my fingers/thumbs sore (I especially don't like twirling my thumb in circles like you have to do on the ipod). The slide pad was a total surprise to me. I love the dual function, which I discovered by accident. It will adjust volume or go up and down the menu by sliding your thumb, toes, or whatever you use, but if you tap and hold near the top or bottom of the pad and hold it will scroll continuously until you let go! Take that ipod! Tapping the center of the pad is the same as pressing Enter. If you press the pad fully then you can go to previous/next track, go back/forward (Enter) in a menu or song. That's 8 different functions built into 1 pad! 3) Screen size is big relative to the total size of the unit. Videos are smooth, bright and clear enough to read subtitles. Color reproduction is spectacular! Same goes for viewing pictures. 4) FM radio. Scanning FM stations is easy, but you only get all the stations when you get good reception of course. As I expected, the weak stations in my area didn't list, but you can go up and down the frequencies until you find them and add them on. The frequency range also allows you to travel to other parts of the world and catch stations that are normally outside of the US spectrum. If I can't get exactly what I want I can plug into the computer and edit the text file to add the weak stations and even put their names. Sweet! 5) FM & voice recording. Very simple to use and the sound is very good. There are 3 quality level settings that were easy to configure. As for voice recording, pickup is good for distant sounds and not too sensitive. There was a little static-like sound when I used the high quality setting for voice recording, but I think it was catching interference from nearby electronics. Aside from the above, I also like that it's upgradable. The first thing I did when I got it was go to Meizu's website and download a firmware upgrade, which allows me to view text in Japanese, Chinese, etc. since I have a lot of Japanese music. I tried out most of its features and haven't found any quirks yet, but even if I do, as even Meizu admits they exist, I don't think I'll be disappointed at all. There's one or two negatives: The first thing you should do with the CD-Rom that comes with the miniPlayer is throw it away and download BADAK Video Conversion instead. Meizu offers 2 software online (one of them was on the CD-ROm) and neither of them worked on my Vista laptop. The other is that I wish it would display the id3 tags on the song menu list instead of the file name. So you better be sure you correctly name your audio files or organize them into folders. Also be sure to create playlists. It's probably easier to create playlists using Windows Media Player and upload them onto your Meizu or just create your own playllist text file. You can always edit playlists that are already on your Meizu using your computer. Other than that I only wish it was bluetooth capable, but maybe that's wishful thinking at this point. In conclusion the Meizu is jam packed with features and is able to do what you want it to do and do it well, provided you know how to do it. iPod and iTunes were really made for people who don't know the basics of navigating a computer file system and edit things like playlists. If you are more computer savvy then the Meizu is for you!

Good, Solid, But one issue

Over all the mp3 is solid. * Sound is crystal clear. different functions and styles. * The browser function is a great, unique, and really cool feature. you can organize your files whichever way you want, which isn't a feature you would find in most Mp3 I-pod like players. * graphically it looks great, you can change the background with any picture. * video feature is simple and easy. * there is a Mic. works great for meetings the only downside is that the scrolling bar is sometimes a bit too sensitive, so you kind of miss your choice in the menu or the play list. overall, great player solid sound, great browser feature. you need to have steady hands to scroll though.

Just over 4.5 stars.

As you have read, if you value multiple formats and awesome sound quality, your choice is this player or the Cowon A2. The A2 being about $70 more expensive and, having read reviews, hard to manage without looking at the screen (use mine a lot in the car) made this the obvious choice. Virtual3D is an amazing technology, the Bass response is tremendous and if you can't satisfy your need for Bass, you probably have a hearing problem. For me, complete and seamless OGG support and OS independent were key factors as well. Video is good quality. The picture viewer is amazing, and don't believe the specs, any size JPG works, so you can use this to carry your albums around with you without having to resize to 1024x1024. You can customize menu's, font colors, and put your own picture as your background. The reason it doesn't get the remaining 0.49 stars, huge playlists (like on the order of 250 songs) can take a minute to load and start playing, and the touch pad is sensitive at times (i.e. tap on center pad is the same as "enter", a few Doh! instances on my part). Build quality, look and feel, style, just an all around good player. Before you spend $70 more on an iPod that just doesn't match the sound quality, flexibility (i.e. iTunes locked), and format capability, read more reviews and see it in action at YouTube. Of course, if you bought a lot from iTunes, better to enjoy your next iPod (or burn and re-rip your DRM tunes into MP3). It supports DRM from other stores, but never tested that, I have never purchases a DRM infected song. Course, MP3 downloads from Amazon work great. :-D

Meizu 8GB MP3 Player

Chinese knockoff at it's best!!! I like it better than my wife's iPod. Really, really, good sound quality, outstanding bass without sounding muddy, lots of options for customizing. FM radio is a nice touch but I wish it had AM as well. Ebook feature is a plus. Excellent battery life. The screen is large and vibrant and the unit is thin and light. Comes with tough vinyl protector already attached to front and back to keep it from getting scratched. Finding the proper firmware update and installing it was mildly confusing but well worth the effort. Meizu appear to be responsive and working hard to improve the product. Only has 2 games. Touch control is a little too sensitive. Interface is a little quirky here and there. Video converter is PC only but worked fast and well in Parallels Windows XP environment on my intel Mac Mini. 8 GB is a lot of room, but I've almost filled it up already! Overall, I really have enjoyed it. Great player for the money. I'm looking forward to their iPhone knockoff which is coming soon!

Acceptable.

The product froze once after 2 days of my receiving it. I reset it and it did not give me any more problems. I reinstalled the firmware so that it would be in Chinese (because I needed the player to display Asian characters in various encoding formats), so there might be a discrepancy between what I had and the International/European version, but I doubt it. The sound quality impressed me, although the earphones did not. I did not try the video feature. While better than I had expected, the product was not without flaws. The playlist function doesn't seem to work smoothly and I agree with another reviewer in that navigation is badly designed and it is difficult to change the volume sometimes while a song is playing. I personally prefer a tactile design, but I dislike even the iTouch's screen, so I'll admit to bias. I ended up selling the product to a friend and got a Zen, but only for smooth compatibility with Rhapsody-to-Go. I would have kept it otherwise. Recommended.

Keyword : meizu