- Display 3.0-Inch LCD Screen
- Built in FM Radio Tuner
- Expandable Memory:Micro SD Slot
- Built in rechargable Battery
- WMA, MP3, and WAV Audio, AVI Video
Here are my pros and cons:
THE CONS:
1) Music quality is good but it isn't great. It lacks body no matter what equalizer setting (even "user setting" which I spent a half hour customizing). Maybe that's 'cause I have been spoiled by my Sandisk Sansa m250. I have yet to find anything to equal the rich sound quality. It has such body. The Mach trio came with crap buds so I used the buds that I use with the Sansa and it still didn't equal it but was a big improvement.
(see con update below*)
2) I thought the video was a bit dark. I have the brightness setting all the way up on the player. Not major but, compared to my other mp3 video player, it was noticeable. You kind of have to angle it by tilting it back to get more light.
3) My experience with the video converter that comes with it was terrible. Every file I converted using it, the audio and video was out of sync. Plus, it only converts to .avi which are very large files. The player also supports .flv (much smaller file size) so I don't know why their converter only converts to .avi. So I had to use my own converter.
4) Website has virtually no help and support. So if you need help, you have to call or email.
5) No protective case for this player that I know of.
6 Yeah, someone here mentioned the backgrounds they offer for the text reader. I agree. Don't know why they didn't give you a solid color background to choose from.
*UPDATE: It's 12/2/11. A frind of mine got a Craig Tablet at CVS and the video viewing was similar to the Mach Trio in that it too was a bit dark unless you tilted the screen back a little so I'm learning that it's not just something with the Mach Trio player. Just sayin'.
THE PROS:
1 It's small in size.
2 Has a volume button. Yay. Very few players do these days).
3 File transfers are VERY fast and, at least in my case (Windows XP operating system), communicates with the computer quickly. I've had problems with other players lagging or freezing the computer on connection.
4) The fast forward is pretty decent on videos. Takes about 5 seconds to fast forward 1 minute. And there is a place holder and you are asked if you want to go to where you left off on the video. It also has a "go to" feature where you can also punch in hour/minute (using the volume button to enter the numbers) to go to the spot in the video you want. Great feature.
5 It has an option in the main menu called "Explorer". I LOVE THIS! To me it's the best feature on the player. You can create folders WITHOUT using Windows media player which is great for me. And you can create sub folders and sub sub folders. Great for organizing your collection. You can view all your audio folders, video folders, Picture folders, and Text folders all accessible through the "Explorer" option. Also, the internal flash memory and the sd card are both listed there to easily choose and switch back and forth to and from.
6 It has an aspect ratio type setting so you can view wide screen video as well as video that wasn't recorded in wide screen without distortion.
7) You can delete a file right from the player.
8 The FM radio sounds pretty good and you can record from it.
9) There are menus within the Video, Audio and text reader to customize your experience. For example, it gives you a choice to change the font color and the font size in the text reader to small, med, and large. I would recommend it.
P.S. I just found out that you can use it while charging it. It went totally dead so I plugged it into the A/C oh yeah, I forgot, it also came with an A/C USB wall charger.(at least the one I bought in Staples. You might want to check that out here.) Anyhow, I plugged it in to the A/C to charge it and I was also able to watch videos while it was charging. I've never heard of that before. Very cool.
Buy Mach Speed Trio 4GB MP3 and MP4 Video Player (Black) Now
Unfortunately, I've had to downgrade my review since getting it, good little player , for as long as it worked for me (about 6-7 months) ...but it like all of the 'cheaper' end mp3 players (around $50) I've so far tried, about 4 or so , so far, all quit working. Why do people sell these if all the do is eventually quit working? All of them, and usually a screen related problem! My review below still mostly applies, maybe you will have better luck, just get a warranty on it if you decide to buy it. Too bad!!------------------
original review
------------------
I don't like apple ipods or zunes as they require proprietary cables and software, no drag and drop allowed and no mp3's allowed on ipod at least.
This is the best one I've come across so far of the inexpensive ones and is $50 or less , expandable memory 4 gig or more and decent 2"+ screen, but I'm still on the fence about it.
Others in this category I tried worked ok for about a month or so then quit working. I've gone through several so I kind of know what's good and what isn't. I don't know why these cheapos are so available and at the same time crap out so quickly?? Avoid: Epsen, sylvania smpk8854. The former was really tiny, but razor thin which I liked, but the screen got messed up after only a few weeks I think. The sylvania was cool, it even had simple little games like tetris, and old arcade games you could put on it. It was a touch screen which quit responding to touch after a couple months :(. I got it at big lots, I had it for more than 30 days and they would not take it back after that even with a receipt. I called sylvania or whatever company that took them over, and spoke to some indian guy and they said I could mail it to them and they would repair it for $15 assuming I hadn't tampered with it. I missed the $7 lower charge after 90 days. Since the player only cost around $40 I said forget it.
This includes another one by mach speed which actually functioned better and was cheaper, although slightly smaller screen (around $30 mach speed rubicon) but I went through 2 of those before I gave up on it. One the screen got cracked somehow, the other would no longer turn on past the 'welcome' screen.
I actually bought this one (mach speed trio v430) and the first one out of the box did not work. Simply came up with a blank screen when turned on. Right, no problem, took it back , got another one, and it's worked well so far after 4 months as of this post. I got mine at Sears which seems to be the cheapest place so far. I recommend getting the warranty they offer, it was only like $7 and covers it for 2 years.
Pluses: -expandable memory up to 16 gig (I think, I know it'll take 8 for sure)
-Big screen
-Will automatically generate music playlists based on file property categories such as artist, genre. Can also create your own under 'favorites' on default drive only.
-Video File conversion unnecessary, can download straight to the player without problems, .avi and .flv supported. Saves a lot of time not needing to convert to 320x240 or whatever format like most players.
-connects easily to computer with 'standard' USB cord, included. Doesn't even have to be 'on' to connect, recharge connected to computer in 'safely disconnected' mode
-fm radio with preset capable included
-photo viewer
-Volume, ff, rw, mute controls, safety power lock slider works well
Minuses: -Headphones were ok stereo ones, but quit working only after a few days
-Screen has horrible glare, and sometimes appears too dark
(can be adjusted through setting, though)
-Can't seem to make Playlists for any music on expanded memory, and the user playlist 'favorites' can only be added to 1 song at a time!
Hope this helps and wasn't too long, thanks!
Read Best Reviews of Mach Speed Trio 4GB MP3 and MP4 Video Player (Black) Here
Its sound quality is great, and audio is about all I use it for. (I have not tested video very much, so I have no comment on video or sound quality there.)Control is NOT touch-screen (despite the product tags), but I prefer hard controls anyway. Trying to navigate a touch-screen while driving is a lot harder than just using buttons on the side of the device, since the latter I can use entirely by feel and keep my eyes on the road. So props for going with hard controls.
It's also presented to a computer as a USB mass storage device and it doesn't expose the music DB via that interface at all (the player will update that by itself) which means that for people like me who don't want to use a certain popular media library/player software program produced by a certain lawsuit-happy company, just to get music files that we paid for and own onto a device that we paid for and own, this player is a good choice. I sync it regularly using Linux without any issues.
The only cons I've noticed are:
* No Vorbis or FLAC support, though I kind of expected that. (This means transcoding most of my library to MP3. Yuck.)
* Shuffle mode does not support going back to previously-played songs. There is no difference in the behavior of the previous track and next track buttons; both advance to a new, randomly-selected track.
* Sometimes it will forget where you were in an audio file. I rotate several 3hr radio podcasts on the device, and even if I pause it and turn it off by holding the play button, it will frequently forget where I was in this file and start from the beginning when I select to resume play. But sometimes it will remember, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when it remembers and when it doesn't.
And honestly, these are hardly enough reasons to avoid this product.
Want Mach Speed Trio 4GB MP3 and MP4 Video Player (Black) Discount?
I would absolutely suggest this MP3 player to anyone!This player is simple to operate, looks great, has great sound quality, and lots of memory.
The 3 inch screen looks great.
It was easy to drag and drop the music files onto the player. No problems with transeferring or getting it to recognize files.
Easy operation and simple navigation menus, yet it still has all the features you could want.
The expandable memory with the Micro SD slot is a plus since a lot of players don't have that.
All in all, a fantastic player for the price!
For music battery life is great at 6-8 hours. Sound quality is good (though I am not an audiophile) , and you can select from a half a dozen equalizer options including creating your own. (Sound quality is mainly dependent on earbud quality.)
For video screen size is large enough to enjoy movies or TV. The battery life is about 2 hours with video. When the battery gets too low, it shuts off the player without warning. That is annoying.
Has a built speaker not very good, but most people will never use it very much, so speaker quality is a non issue for me.
Player takes micro SD cards. I have used 2GB and 8GB cards without a problem. I suggest you get an 8GB card. The cost is minimal and increases the memory tremendously. When attached to your computer, the player and the SD card look like hard drives and you can add/delete files to the player and SD card directly. On the player, the SD card files are listed separately from the files on the internal drive, so you do have to find you music/video files on the SD card (Not a big deal).
I covered my screen with a screen protector as there are no cases around that will fit this player. The back side is shiny (chromed) metal and can also get scratched (I don't care).
Have not used other features much Radio, Ebook, Stopwatch, Photo.
The Trio V430 is a great value. May get a 2nd one for my wife.
No comments:
Post a Comment