Hello all. I just wanted to first let everybody know that I am not at all affiliated with miniplayer.info or Meizu, but simply a very satisfied buyer. I took a risk by buying a player which few people seem to have on this forum but man o man did my risk pay off. This is one kick@$$ little player. Being a person who swears against iPod, I've prided myself on trying to find something better than the iPod, but it's hard to find a player that you think will be money well spend when very few people have reviewed it.
First, the battery life is superb! It's rated at 20hrs and I feel like I've gotten pretty close to that number (maybe 17hrs) and that's with higher bitrate (192 and up) music and a host of EQ settings turned on.
Second, there are a TON of sound options on this player. Having owned an iAudio X5 I though I had seen the most amount of sound features a company would offer to the consumer, but this thing has probably double the tweaks that the x5 has. There's bass and treble boost to start off with, then a sound feature called DNSe (which is similar to SRS or Cowon's BBE and Mach3Bass features). DNSe has multiple settings such as normal, natural headphone and Virtual 3D settings, then a phase corrected equalizer (which acutally makes a difference), then virtual bass enhancement, and speaker type (which also comes in handy). But don't worry, if you don't like these type of effects there's still a 10 band equalizer!!!
Third, the screen rocks. Having had the 1.8 inch x5 screen, i'm really appreciating this 2.4 inch "monster". Movies work great, though I'd highly suggest putting TV episodes on rather than movies since there is a max out of 4gb on this player (though Meizu has plans for a bigger player in the near future). There's also a voice recorder, and an FM tuner which sound decent even though I doubt i'll use it. Also there is a calendar, calculator, two mini games, and a STOPWATCH (which is a very big deal for me since my only watch is dressy and not meant for running.
The touch strip isn't bad at all. Yes, yes, of course I already know it will never beat the clickwheel, but the strip aint bad at all. I mean seriously, how much extra work is it to touch and hold the strip to scroll?? I've heard people talk of their touchstrip going haywire, but I've yet to experience such troubles. If you get it from miniplayer.info someone will include a firmware CD to update your player to the latest version which probably eliminated the touchstrip problem.
In terms of adding music/movies/pics, it's all drag and drop, but still a bit more advanced than cowon players. With my x5 I had to make Artist, and Album folders, but with this player (And mediamonkey at my side) it will just organize all the album folders for you which is great for a X5 user such as myself.
Construction is very solid, but I would HIGHLY RECCOMMEND an elite jewel case form miniplayer.info. It's probably $17 shipped and it includes a lanyard, stand, case, and armband...not too shabby. The player comes with a layer of film already "factory installed" to prevent scratches on the actual screen, but this thing is so small that adding a case did almost nothing to it's size. I mean it looked small on the miniplayer page, but until you hold it in your hands you'll never believe how small it really is. In my opinion it's in between an ipod nano and 5G video in size but ohhh so much better in features.
Of course, we can't forget sound, now can we? This thing sounds fantastic. If you read into all the technical hooplah, you'll see that Meizu has gone into some trouble to make sure they use very high quality sound components including a Phillips sound chip. I have Westone UM2s and they sound great with the miniplayer. Bassheads may have met their match with this little beast (especially if you have a pair of UM2s) if you were to listen so say "Get Low" by Lil John you'd realize that it acutally sounds like their is a subwoofer strapped between your ears. This is in no way bad, in my opinion, because the bass is DEEP and clear. It's not all distorted like other players (cough...ipod...cough). Though it will distort if you turn all the bass features to their max, this I assume would be obvious to any user. If you don't want all the bass, this thing still sounds amazing. I have songs by artists such as Coldplay, Jack Johnson, The Crystal Method, DJ Shadow, Slayer, Lamb of God, Miles Davis and Lee Morgan and each one sounds so so good! It actually makes me kind of sad because I got this player on a ebay auction for just over $100 (they retail for $150 for 2gb) and it sounds right on par with my X5 plus RnB diamond mini plus Supermini IV setup I had over the summer.
In conclusion, if you are on the hunt not for an "iPod killer" (I hate that term because it's impossible to kill a player that has something like 80% of the market share) but more for a great alternative, please please consider this player. At $150 you wouldn't take too much of a loss if you just wanted to have a flash player around. If you're like me, you'll probably like it so much you'll wonder when their 30gb model will be coming out,
. Please consider this player before you throw away money on another ipod and if you have any questions or want to see some pics, PM me! Thanks for reading!
First, the battery life is superb! It's rated at 20hrs and I feel like I've gotten pretty close to that number (maybe 17hrs) and that's with higher bitrate (192 and up) music and a host of EQ settings turned on.
Second, there are a TON of sound options on this player. Having owned an iAudio X5 I though I had seen the most amount of sound features a company would offer to the consumer, but this thing has probably double the tweaks that the x5 has. There's bass and treble boost to start off with, then a sound feature called DNSe (which is similar to SRS or Cowon's BBE and Mach3Bass features). DNSe has multiple settings such as normal, natural headphone and Virtual 3D settings, then a phase corrected equalizer (which acutally makes a difference), then virtual bass enhancement, and speaker type (which also comes in handy). But don't worry, if you don't like these type of effects there's still a 10 band equalizer!!!
Third, the screen rocks. Having had the 1.8 inch x5 screen, i'm really appreciating this 2.4 inch "monster". Movies work great, though I'd highly suggest putting TV episodes on rather than movies since there is a max out of 4gb on this player (though Meizu has plans for a bigger player in the near future). There's also a voice recorder, and an FM tuner which sound decent even though I doubt i'll use it. Also there is a calendar, calculator, two mini games, and a STOPWATCH (which is a very big deal for me since my only watch is dressy and not meant for running.
The touch strip isn't bad at all. Yes, yes, of course I already know it will never beat the clickwheel, but the strip aint bad at all. I mean seriously, how much extra work is it to touch and hold the strip to scroll?? I've heard people talk of their touchstrip going haywire, but I've yet to experience such troubles. If you get it from miniplayer.info someone will include a firmware CD to update your player to the latest version which probably eliminated the touchstrip problem.
In terms of adding music/movies/pics, it's all drag and drop, but still a bit more advanced than cowon players. With my x5 I had to make Artist, and Album folders, but with this player (And mediamonkey at my side) it will just organize all the album folders for you which is great for a X5 user such as myself.
Construction is very solid, but I would HIGHLY RECCOMMEND an elite jewel case form miniplayer.info. It's probably $17 shipped and it includes a lanyard, stand, case, and armband...not too shabby. The player comes with a layer of film already "factory installed" to prevent scratches on the actual screen, but this thing is so small that adding a case did almost nothing to it's size. I mean it looked small on the miniplayer page, but until you hold it in your hands you'll never believe how small it really is. In my opinion it's in between an ipod nano and 5G video in size but ohhh so much better in features.
Of course, we can't forget sound, now can we? This thing sounds fantastic. If you read into all the technical hooplah, you'll see that Meizu has gone into some trouble to make sure they use very high quality sound components including a Phillips sound chip. I have Westone UM2s and they sound great with the miniplayer. Bassheads may have met their match with this little beast (especially if you have a pair of UM2s) if you were to listen so say "Get Low" by Lil John you'd realize that it acutally sounds like their is a subwoofer strapped between your ears. This is in no way bad, in my opinion, because the bass is DEEP and clear. It's not all distorted like other players (cough...ipod...cough). Though it will distort if you turn all the bass features to their max, this I assume would be obvious to any user. If you don't want all the bass, this thing still sounds amazing. I have songs by artists such as Coldplay, Jack Johnson, The Crystal Method, DJ Shadow, Slayer, Lamb of God, Miles Davis and Lee Morgan and each one sounds so so good! It actually makes me kind of sad because I got this player on a ebay auction for just over $100 (they retail for $150 for 2gb) and it sounds right on par with my X5 plus RnB diamond mini plus Supermini IV setup I had over the summer.
In conclusion, if you are on the hunt not for an "iPod killer" (I hate that term because it's impossible to kill a player that has something like 80% of the market share) but more for a great alternative, please please consider this player. At $150 you wouldn't take too much of a loss if you just wanted to have a flash player around. If you're like me, you'll probably like it so much you'll wonder when their 30gb model will be coming out,
. Please consider this player before you throw away money on another ipod and if you have any questions or want to see some pics, PM me! Thanks for reading!
