Is there any reason not to get a MP4 player?

ValiantVenality · Post by **ValiantVenality** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:30 pm

I dont know much about em, but it just seems like a cheaper version of a mp3 player. And this place is chock full of em!

http://www.chinagrabber.com/index.asp?P ... tegory=125

So my question is, is there any reason not to buy an MP4 player? Thanks in advanced!

VV

gamer2 · Post by **gamer2** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:32 pm

mp4? is the thing a video file player??

g2

ValiantVenality · Post by **ValiantVenality** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:44 pm

Isnt MP4 a different file format of MP3? I thought thats what it was.

VV

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:47 pm

"mp4 player" is the name that Chinese companies give their media players, they can usually play several music and video formats.

Uxcell has decent mp4 players, my brother got this one, its ok, but you'd find it hard to find a brand name player for the price of mp4 players of the same size. Only problem with my brother's is that the battery doesn't last too long (a few hours playing music) and the interface is kinda crappy.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:44 am

Anyone read my post on the add for the iPod shuffle?

You got it, amde in shina, those things suck. Don't bother with them.

Post by **bicostp** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 10:32 am

MP4 players are cheaply made junk. <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=us507LedkyY">Dr. Ashens can explain why.</a> They're generally very cheaply made, inefficient, and come with shoddy firmware. Some of Sandisk's low-end Sansa players were junk enough.. and they're brand-name! (My cousin's first one was DOA, the second killed itself when he tried using the microphone, and the third still pretty much works.)

Actually, that generally applies to a lot of off-brand Chinese SuperHappyFuntimeGo! products.

Sure, they're cheap, but you get what you pay for. A $10 player doesn't do you much good if it dies in 4 months and the "company" that made it has long since liquidated and vanished off the face of the planet. Popular Science had an issue a while back with an article about the Chinese cloners; they usually work the graveyard shift at legitimate factories (or clone the factory form the original blueprints), and crank out knock-off products that are generally far lower quality than what they're imitating. (For example, Chevy has a very small car there that cloners almost perfectly copied, except the copy was extremely unsafe and was nearly obliterated in normal front-end impact testing.)

As for the iPod Shuffle, don't bother. Driving blind on your music player isn't fun.

Sir Games-A-Lot · Post by **Sir Games-A-Lot** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:48 pm

I've owned two such devices (and researched several others), mostly you get what you pay for, the outstanding problems with these things are:

* Their UIs are almost universally sucky, mostly due to the lack and/or misspelling of English words.

* The external construction quality is somewhat hit or miss, though nothing much worse than your average low - mid end cellphone

* sound quality is pretty bad, but with the usual crap headphones, that doesn't really matter anyway.
* I haven't tested the video support, but usually they can only fit about a 30 - 70 minutes on the included memory, make sure to read up on the file formats they use here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_MP4/MTV_Player

* quality control is meh, I had to take my second one apart to sand down a solder lump to get the SD card to go in.

The two I had were definitely usable despite the shortcomings though.

bicostp wrote: As for the iPod Shuffle, don't bother. Driving blind on your music player isn't fun.

I have to totally disagree with Bic here, I own a Creative Zen Stone (Creative's screenless model), and I have had no trouble navigating through my music folders on it.

THON · Post by **THON** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:13 pm

I have a crappy "MP4" player that plays some weird extension called AMV's. You have to get a strange video converter to get them, but it's ok. It picks up radio pretty well and plays the videos ok for $50.00.

Adam G · Post by **Adam G** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:09 pm

I got a 4GB MP4 player on ebay for under $35.
http://electronics.search.ebay.com/_App ... cQ5fseller
They no longer auction them like they used to.

In other news, I just cut the tip of my right hand pointer finger off 30 minutes ago... Starting half way in the fingernail, to the lower front of the finger..it's still connected, but barely.
Hurts like hell

. I have it taped us in a paper towl

Maybe I'll put some pictures up...this makes it hard to type and use the mouse.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 7:57 pm

How? [/offtopic]

Sir Games-A-Lot · Post by **Sir Games-A-Lot** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 5:35 am

Adam G wrote: In other news, I just cut the tip of my right hand pointer finger off 30 minutes ago... Starting half way in the fingernail, to the lower front of the finger..it's still connected, but barely.
Hurts like hell . I have it taped us in a paper towl
Maybe I'll put some pictures up...this makes it hard to type and use the mouse.

Methinks a trip to the hospital might be in order... o_0'

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 8:38 am

Far warning, and I don't know if anyone pointed this out yet, but the MP4 players that look like the older iPod Nanos are a scam. They may say 4GB, but really it's a nice software trick to make you think that there is that much, but really there is anywhere from 256MB to 1GB. No one really knows if you'll get lucky and get a 1GB model or a 256MB. Also when you format them that neat little trick is deleted and the truth is revealed.

So a fair warning if you think you want a high capacity MP3/4 player don't by a Chinese knock-off, you'll only get what you're paying for, crap.

jperryss · Post by **jperryss** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 10:56 am

Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:I have to totally disagree with Bic here, I own a Creative Zen Stone (Creative's screenless model), and I have had no trouble navigating through my music folders on it.

x2. Just got the 1GB Stone myself and so far I love it. Really can't be beat for $40.

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 3:40 pm

Sparkfist wrote:Far warning, and I don't know if anyone pointed this out yet, but the MP4 players that look like the older iPod Nanos are a scam. They may say 4GB, but really it's a nice software trick to make you think that there is that much, but really there is anywhere from 256MB to 1GB. No one really knows if you'll get lucky and get a 1GB model or a 256MB. Also when you format them that neat little trick is deleted and the truth is revealed.

So a fair warning if you think you want a high capacity MP3/4 player don't by a Chinese knock-off, you'll only get what you're paying for, crap.

Oh yea? Then why do I have a 4GB model sitting infront of me? Not all of them are fakes.

Also, so you know...

That chinagrabber website is a WHOLESALE website. Meaning that, you cannot buy just one thing. You have to buy like 5 or more, or 10 or more ect ect. Look at the "pcs" in the info on each item. if it says "10 pcs" you have to buy 10.

That website does have a section for 1 pc items, but it doesnt look very trusty.

For cheap mp3 players, check out: www.uxcell.com
Uxcell is great, they have good customer service

.

Be warned though, the screens on the Mp4 players are crappy. One drop and bang, they break.

Adam G · Post by **Adam G** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:02 pm

Felino wrote:How? [/offtopic]

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=21532

HotDog-Cart wrote: Oh yea? Then why do I have a 4GB model sitting infront of me? Not all of them are fakes.

Same.

HotDog-Cart wrote:Be warned though, the screens on the Mp4 players are crappy. One drop and bang, they break.

Actually, mine seems to take drops and falls quite well. I enjoy the expression on peoples faces when I throw it to the ground and they think it's an ipod.