Soldato
- Joined
- 26 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 9,551
- Location
- Milton Keynes
On the suggestions of this forum, I bought a Meizu M6 4GB Miniplayer from ebay. To help others considering buying a cheap, but well featured mp3 player, I've written a small review, based on my own experiences today, upon reciept of the machine.
Mini Review:
First impression when i took it out the box was, unsurprisingly, this is going to be interesting, as I was confronted by a chinese quick-start guide.
Ok, enough of that I thought after 2 seconds, looks like its learn by playing.
Second impression when I charged the machine up and saw the screen in action was that this is actually a really nice quality screen for the size, followed by a 'woah!' when i realised just how sensitive the touch pad can be - it's very very responsive, some might find it too much so, and Im just getting used to it now after an hour or two of playing with the player.
Note: You turn your machine off my using the button on the top of the machine, I've found that holding it down for 3secs followed by pressing quickly once or twice will usually make the machine turn on (Im unsure of the official description, due to lack of an english quick start guide, or manual, and I was unable to download the english manual from the english Meizu site, as my M6's serial number isnt recognised as a machine distributed in the european english speaking world...fair enough). Holding the same button for 3 seconds when the machine is on will turn the machine off again.
The supplied video conversion software is pressupplied with setting for the Meizu M6, and tries to install the K-Lite Mega Codec pack, so it can convert pretty much everything, although as I already use the CCCP, this was unnecessary and I cancelled the K-Lite setup programme. All I had to do was go into the programmes settings and change the FPS conversion setting to 20, from the preset 18, as a recent firmware update for the M6 has enabled 20fps video playback, compared to the original 18.
Left at the original settings except for the 20fps tweak, the converter appears to convert to an acceptable quality video (note its not any good for viewing on the pc as its at a right angle, compared to the original video), and encodes at roughly 200-250MBps per hour of decent quality video, I was encoding from divx and xvid preencoded movies, so the original source file may bear some effect on how efficiently the videos encode, as may FPS. Bitrate is adjustable from the preselected 384kbits however if this sort of file size is too large for you, or you're not worried about preselected quality settings, you can adjust the bitrate lower (no idea what the bottom level is), and up to 500KBps.
Time wise, on my 2.5GHz X2, the programme encodes approximately 130fps, so about 6seconds to 1second realtime. The programme is unfortunately not multicore enabled, only utilising about 90% of my machine's second core, and not the first core. Considering the noted efficiency of the P4 and Conroe core at encoding, I'd expect faster encoding on a comparable machine with an Intel chip. (If I get a chance I'll provide an update on this at a later date, by trying to encode a video on my 2GHz C2D laptop)
Videos look fine on the video, if occasionally a little more blocky due to the size of the screen and the lossy compression used, but given the secondary nature of the video function on the M6, I was impressed. Also, controls are very slightly different, from music playback. Instead of being able to toggle back to the other menus like usual, you have to use the play/pause/on-off button to return to the menus, and the other controls now work volume, and video positioning. Slightly confusing at first, but easy once realised
*My player was presupplied with the latest firmware 2.003.2, if yours doesnt have this you may wish to leave the software at 18, to avoid inability to playback unless you update your machine firmware*
Briefly looking through the player, radio functionality, picture, recording and ebook viewing were all easily locatable, and if you travel into the settings you can change the selectable options on the main menu, if you find that music etc are not your main uses of the player.
The EQ is actually pretty impressive for the machine's size, and the supplied headphones are better than I was expecting- my ears aren't hurting like Apple's supplied headphones do. There's a 3dvirtual surround with varied settings, several EQ options, a bass and treble boost that work along side the EQ, and the EQ options are tweakable completely, by tabbing to the right while hovering over one, it extends to a fully adjustable equaliser with about 10 options, so you can setup your own perfect sound, suitable for rock, metal, drum 'n' bass or whatever, if you use weaker headphones etc, you are also able to limit the volume control below 40 (standard max).
Music wise, with the latest version of firmware, the sound quality is impressive, will playback FLAC, WMA and MP3 (and possibly AAC and Wav). Battery life is also reputed to have extended from approximately 16hrs to up to 26hrs of realtime use, with latest firmwares.
Conclusion:
All in all, for the price, my initial impression is that this is an excellent player, at an excellent price with a plethora of features you wouldnt expect to find to find on a machine anywhere near this price, and all work pretty well indeed, marred only by some slight inconsistancies of control methodology, lack of my ability to get an english manual or warranty for buying from china and my own regret that I didnt instead go for the 8GB version!
Cost £38.99 + £19.99 global delivery from China.
9/10
Mini Review:
First impression when i took it out the box was, unsurprisingly, this is going to be interesting, as I was confronted by a chinese quick-start guide.
Ok, enough of that I thought after 2 seconds, looks like its learn by playing.
Second impression when I charged the machine up and saw the screen in action was that this is actually a really nice quality screen for the size, followed by a 'woah!' when i realised just how sensitive the touch pad can be - it's very very responsive, some might find it too much so, and Im just getting used to it now after an hour or two of playing with the player.
Note: You turn your machine off my using the button on the top of the machine, I've found that holding it down for 3secs followed by pressing quickly once or twice will usually make the machine turn on (Im unsure of the official description, due to lack of an english quick start guide, or manual, and I was unable to download the english manual from the english Meizu site, as my M6's serial number isnt recognised as a machine distributed in the european english speaking world...fair enough). Holding the same button for 3 seconds when the machine is on will turn the machine off again.
The supplied video conversion software is pressupplied with setting for the Meizu M6, and tries to install the K-Lite Mega Codec pack, so it can convert pretty much everything, although as I already use the CCCP, this was unnecessary and I cancelled the K-Lite setup programme. All I had to do was go into the programmes settings and change the FPS conversion setting to 20, from the preset 18, as a recent firmware update for the M6 has enabled 20fps video playback, compared to the original 18.
Left at the original settings except for the 20fps tweak, the converter appears to convert to an acceptable quality video (note its not any good for viewing on the pc as its at a right angle, compared to the original video), and encodes at roughly 200-250MBps per hour of decent quality video, I was encoding from divx and xvid preencoded movies, so the original source file may bear some effect on how efficiently the videos encode, as may FPS. Bitrate is adjustable from the preselected 384kbits however if this sort of file size is too large for you, or you're not worried about preselected quality settings, you can adjust the bitrate lower (no idea what the bottom level is), and up to 500KBps.
Time wise, on my 2.5GHz X2, the programme encodes approximately 130fps, so about 6seconds to 1second realtime. The programme is unfortunately not multicore enabled, only utilising about 90% of my machine's second core, and not the first core. Considering the noted efficiency of the P4 and Conroe core at encoding, I'd expect faster encoding on a comparable machine with an Intel chip. (If I get a chance I'll provide an update on this at a later date, by trying to encode a video on my 2GHz C2D laptop)
Videos look fine on the video, if occasionally a little more blocky due to the size of the screen and the lossy compression used, but given the secondary nature of the video function on the M6, I was impressed. Also, controls are very slightly different, from music playback. Instead of being able to toggle back to the other menus like usual, you have to use the play/pause/on-off button to return to the menus, and the other controls now work volume, and video positioning. Slightly confusing at first, but easy once realised
*My player was presupplied with the latest firmware 2.003.2, if yours doesnt have this you may wish to leave the software at 18, to avoid inability to playback unless you update your machine firmware
*Briefly looking through the player, radio functionality, picture, recording and ebook viewing were all easily locatable, and if you travel into the settings you can change the selectable options on the main menu, if you find that music etc are not your main uses of the player.
The EQ is actually pretty impressive for the machine's size, and the supplied headphones are better than I was expecting- my ears aren't hurting like Apple's supplied headphones do. There's a 3dvirtual surround with varied settings, several EQ options, a bass and treble boost that work along side the EQ, and the EQ options are tweakable completely, by tabbing to the right while hovering over one, it extends to a fully adjustable equaliser with about 10 options, so you can setup your own perfect sound, suitable for rock, metal, drum 'n' bass or whatever, if you use weaker headphones etc, you are also able to limit the volume control below 40 (standard max).
Music wise, with the latest version of firmware, the sound quality is impressive, will playback FLAC, WMA and MP3 (and possibly AAC and Wav). Battery life is also reputed to have extended from approximately 16hrs to up to 26hrs of realtime use, with latest firmwares.
Conclusion:
All in all, for the price, my initial impression is that this is an excellent player, at an excellent price with a plethora of features you wouldnt expect to find to find on a machine anywhere near this price, and all work pretty well indeed, marred only by some slight inconsistancies of control methodology, lack of my ability to get an english manual or warranty for buying from china and my own regret that I didnt instead go for the 8GB version!
Cost £38.99 + £19.99 global delivery from China.
9/10
Last edited:
