MEIZU MP4 Portable Video & Music Player 4GB (Black)
See it at Amazon.com for $79.99Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(5 out of 5)Amazing Little Player
I have had the Meizu M6 for about a month now. I am highly impressed. My girlfriend has the Sansa e270 which I liked very much, and originally planned to get the e280 for myself. However I read the reviews on the internet for the M6 and it sounded very interesting so I gave it a try.
*The Meizu is very easy to use, the menu is clear and logical. It is also very customizable. The touch-pad is pretty intuitive.
*You can drag and drop files onto the M6 as if it was an external storage device, very easy.
*It can be charged via any USB port, or you can buy one of those wall-plug to USB adapters to charge it. The battery life is amazing, definitely over 20 hours.
*My player came with firmware version 1.00.x and I immediately went to Meizu's website and installed the current 2.00.x firmware. Also very easy to do.
*The display is very nice (I have the "S" version) and pictures look great on it. You can even use GIF's. I made my own backgrounds in Photoshop since you can make any picture on the player as your "desktop" background.
*The FM tuner is the best yet that I have had on a CD/MP3 player. You can actually listen to radio without it fading in and out. I wish it had AM...
*The sound quality is truly amazing. Many, many sound options, including customizable equalizer, phase corrected equalizer, spatializer (with virtual 3D), bass boost, treble boost and ViBE. Low's are strong and don't distort. I don't think I have ever had a portable music playing device which sounded this good.
*I have not tried to convert and/or play video on the M6 yet, so I cannot comment on that function.
*The earphones which come with the player are better than average of what you usually get, but I don't like the fact that the wires are of a sticky rubber material. They get tangled easily and also tend to stick to things and pull when you wear them.
*One thing that bothers me is that all the accesories are sold by stores which only accept Paypal. I would really like a case for my M6 but have not found a store which accepts credit card.
*All in all I really enjoy this player. I think it's the best bang for the buck out there right now. I wish I would have bought the 8GB version, but maybe that's next. I would highly recommend the M6.
(5 out of 5)Meizu M6
I own the 8gb version, had it now for a week. In my collection is the venerable iRiver iHP-140, the iPod 4th generation, iPod 2gb Nano, and I've played around with the Archos 504 80gb and the Iubi Blue.
I decided what I needed was a large-capacity player, for which I don't have a solution yet: the Archos 160gb fits the bill in terms of size, but doesn't support the formats I like (OGG, Flac). The Iubi Blue is fantastic, but is limited by its size (60gb - although I hear there is a 100gb version of something - the s60 maybe - coming soon). The search continues.
But my search for a second, lighter, flash-based player that I could wear while jogging, using an arm-band, that had good sound and that supported the audio formats I wanted, has ended! I'm slightly surprised and happy to say that the Meizu M6 is fantastic in almost every way:
1. Many formats supported
2. Video, though I don't plan on using it much, is surprisingly crisp and easy on the eyes (read that encoding to an acceptable format requires a little bit of tweaking and patience the first time around until you get the hang of it)
3. Good UI with easy-to-operate controls: the touchpad was the right level of sensitivity and I could manipulate it easily while driving. You can also choose what appears on your main menu, if you like it less cluttered
4. Excellent battery life: I haven't charged it in a week, other than connecting it a few times for a few minutes to transfer some additional content (read that others are getting close to the rated 24 hours for audio)
5. Light, but solid: doesn't feel cheap, looks like it could withstand a few drops. With a player of this size, you're bound to drop it at some point, so that's helpful
6. Works seamlessly with MediaMonkey and Windows Media Player, haven't tried it yet with Winamp or MusicMatch, sure it works fine. You can also manage it like a hard drive and update the music library manually if you prefer
7. Records only at 128kbps, 64kbps, or 32kbps in MP3, which is more than adequate for voice, but if I wanted to record concerts and such, I'd probably use my iRiver iHP-140. At 128kbps, you get roughly 2 hours of recording time with 8gb and obviously less with the 4gb and 2gb versions
8. Customizable backgrounds, skins, etc. I really like the highly customizable Rockbox interface for my iHP-140, so being able to natively customize the Meizu M6 is a plus
That's all I can think of right now in terms of features and usability. For those of you who care, there is definitely an envy factor involved, too, as I've been asked what it was and where it could be purchased.
(5 out of 5)Amazin Meizu M6
This is my fourth and best MP3 player. I had an old Archos hard drive dinosaur, a Creative hard-disk player, and a SanDisk flash drive. Both hard drives broke as a result of falls. I read the reviews of the Meizu starting last summer and bought the SanDisk until I could get my hands on the 4GB Meizu M6.
It's been worth the wait. The product has excellent performance and is beautiful. The sound reproduction is great, with lots of choices to suit my particular preferences. It's got better bass than anything else that I've tried. The video quality is great. The FM radio is quite good, but the sound doesn't match up to what I get on the device from my MP3 collection. I haven't tried the Meizu earphones, since I have my own Etymotics.
I also haven't tried the microphone or recording off the radio. I have upgraded the software, which was pretty uneventful. Battery life if great. I haven't been able to run down the battery in the two days that I've had the player.
The video picture quality is quite good. The video conversion program is pretty slow and the relatively low fps means that the voices don't quite correspond to the faces. I took some home movies with my point-and-shoot Panasonic Lumix camera and the result, after conversion, was more than acceptable.
The Meizu Me site is useful for tools to re-skin the player and other useful links.Some people on the Meizu Me support site recommended the Badak converter. I tried it and the result was a file that was about half the size of Meizu's converter with OK quality.
I had one minor gripe: It took me a while to figure out how to fast forward within a file. One click while playing a file brings up a rectangular icon, which allows you to fast forward. Subsequent pressing of the play button brings up things like a sound display.
Less than a gripe is the user guide, which is quite comprehensive and well organized but reads like it's been machine-translated from Chinese.
How does it compare to the iPod? It's got an FM radio and a recorder. The touch-pad format -- vertical, as opposed to iPod's circular -- means that there's room for a larger screen in a device that's smaller than a credit card. It has tons of open codecs, so you're not locked in to Apple's AAC encryption and to iTunes. The UI is a little inconsistent between applications, but it's not terribly difficult to figure out. The Meizu's touch pad sensitivity is not adjustable -- something that Creative's figured out.
I'm not sure about the price difference. My guess is that the Meizu is cheaper. And it's going to get a lot cheaper. There's been a collapse in flash memory prices, and Meizu's lowered their price in China, so prices should drop here as well. Everyone's prices should come down.
One of the problems that Meizu had -- the reason that I had to wait for so long for my player to become available -- is that they had trouble finding a US distributor. They've got one now with Dane-Elec, a French company with a CA office. I also read somewhere that they had some trouble with licensing, so that may be the reason.
Final point. I bought my Meizu player from Jarmarc. He sells on eBay, through Amazon and directly from his own site. I believe that the deal is slightly better from Amazon. However you buy from him, he's great and reliable.
(5 out of 5)Really Good player
Both my wife and I have one since Xmas. I use it every day.
A few PROS:
Works without software (unlike some others...)
Non cryptic invisible file storage system, just folders inside folders
Loud, Crisp and Clear sound.
Solidly built
Scratches way way less than my previous Ipods yet has very similar shine.
Headphone design is very smart to reduce tangles.
Battery is excellent
Records forever and very clear quality (baby sounds, etc) straight to mp3
OGG,FLAC,mp3,wma,mpg4 is what I've thrown at it and has handled it well.
Very usable pouch
some CONS
No bookmarks for audiobooks...good luck finding a player with this
feature - worth owning.
Not many accessories (for those that care...)
I have nothing to do with this company or distributors. Had mine shipped from Asia because it wasn't available here. I have really enjoyed having this gem.
(5 out of 5)Way cooler than an iPod
This player is slightly smaller than a credit card, and before receiving it was a bit worried that the screen would be too small, however the screen is very clear and bright and am very happy with the display.
The player had sensitive navigation to start with but after downloading and installing the latest firmware I have encountered no problems with the touchpad.
I would like to address a few concerns that Central New Yorker "Skier", a previous reviewer has raised...
> The user interface is awful
Actually the interface is very simple with many easily accessible features. Users can choose their own wallpapers for music playback, menu, etc. and the background can be reset if the colors clash with the text.
>there are some very basic features like fast forward and volume control that are badly implemented in the design
I regard this as misreporting. This reviewer most probably hasn't even used a Meizu miniplayer. The sound control works by sliding your finger up or down the touchpad. One fast forwards by pressing forward - if you want to go to a specific place in a tune, one only needs to tap the menu button to popup an icon on the displayed progress bar. Sliding your finger up or down on the tocuhpad moves the icon to anywhere you want in the tune or audiobook.
>If you listen to audio books this is not the product for you.
With the method above you can navigate to where you want. Bookmarks may be a feature that is added shortly. Meizu do listen to their users and may release a firmware that addresses this point.
>It has a tendency to restart the book from the beginning
Not so. The player resumes to the correct place, unless you are re-opening the file after playing other files.
Things I like...
Long lasting battery.
Nice resume function.
Extremely fast video conversion software.
Flexible player setup.
Superb audio quality - the best I've heard
Durable design.
Clear radio reception.
Highly Recommended!