Phinistec
$48.99 Price may change
12 videos
Hatc
I bought this in hopes that I can transfer my entire iTunes library over. Unfortunately most if not all of the songs will not convert over. I'll tried online converters but something about iTunes protection won't allow that to happen.
With that said it's a neat little player. The interface seems a bit outdated and the built-in speakers are Nice. I would have gave it 5 Stars If it would have accepted my entire library.
User69
One of the coolest little gadgets I've bought in a while, takes me back to my teen and limewire days.
Loving it so far. Definitely recommend.
N. Siegle
The mp3 player is great so far. Word of advice: put your music files on the SD card first as it's faster to do so.
I do have one annoyance: IT'S NOT 256GB COMPATIBLE!!!
I thought my SD card was broken! I tossed it as it was older, but no! On the bloody box it says up to 128gb as card only!
So while I did have to slim from major albums to greatest hits it still holds more music than you'd listen to in a cross country trip.
I have yet to charge it since I loaded it with music and we'll see how well it runs in the long term.
Remedy
Took me a while to get used to the navigation. If there are issues with the album cover, set the ratio size to 500x500 on mp3tag and it’ll show up. It sounds great paired with my IEMs. The screen quality is great, and it has nice features.
Cousin Cuzzin
I love the Z6. So when I installed the most recent firmware update to it, it bricked on me. I sent an email to the manufacture (Phinistec) and explained my dilemna. After a couple of back and forth emails, they offered to send me a replacement at no cost in which I accepted. Wow!
Dr. Evil
Llevo dos semanas usandolo desde que lo compre y no se descarga , la calidad de audio es muy buena. Los eh usado con kz castor pro bass edition y con los AKG de samsung, suenan bastante bien y limpios . El sistema es facil y responde rapido , les recomendaria que si van a usar tarjeta micro sd la extraigan y mejor usen un adaptador en vez de guardar directamente por otg a traves del reproductor. Ah sido el mejor reproductor que eh tenido y lo uso mas que mi fiio echo mini ya que la bateria dura mas y por el precio es el reproductor mas completo en mi opinion. [ES MENTIRA QUE TIENE BAJO VOLUMEN LA VERDAD SE ESCUCHA BASTANTE DURO]
Marcia Newberry
The first one of these died for no apparent reason and I was seriously disappointed. My review at the time reflected my dismay. However, their support person reached out and sent me a replacement asap. lower quality than my initial purchase, but points for reaching out and attempting to make things right. Thanks.
CORAZON MACADANGDANG
My 2nd MP3 in my life time. They call it DAP nowadays. I gave only 4 stars because the characters are kind of small.So far , I love my new device. Send I choosed this model at brand. Not for the affordable price. I just don't like the Android base player.You hear annoying notifications from emails , text and social media. I love the quality build and kind of heavy not cheap material was use. This is my new companion when I drive and travel from now on.
Customer
We were looking for durable MP3 players at a fair price that we could use while doing yard work etc. Knowing they weren't going to be pampered and would be subject to hard use, we didn't want anything dainty and wanted to make sure they would be robust. Needless to say, we found the Z6 from Phinistec and decided to get a couple and give them a try. RIGHT CHOICE! Couldn't be happier. I checked the firmware version when they arrived and saw there was an update available so I decided to do that right away. I contacted Phinistec and they were super responsive and had the firmware files for me quickly. I updated the firmware to the latest version we started putting the players to use. The battery life on this thing is CRAZY good. I've used it while working on vehicles etc. for hours a day and after 3 solid days I still had tons of battery life left. They claim it's good up 90 hours and while I haven't tried to go that long, I believe it would probably do it. This is not a touch screen but the controls are "touch". The controls are extremely basic (which is what we wanted) and functional. [LIST, BACK, PLAY/PAUSE, FWD & REV]. You can't make a conventional playlist but you can get around that by making folders to store groups of songs or podcasts in and it will play everything in the folder so it works for me. The player is metal cased and weighs a bit so you really know that you have something with substance. It's not dainty or easily broken. I mostly listen to podcasts and for me the sound quality and volume are quite good. The built in speaker ended up being a pretty cool bonus. It's not super loud (this is an MP3 player that fits in your pocket, not a home stereo:)) but we just had a power outage lasting several hours and ended up using my player on the speaker it to listen to some podcasts together until power came back. Long story short, the Z6 has been well worth the money and works and sounds great without the cost of the bougie players.
Cole Trejo
Battery life is great, the transfer speed is amazing! Bluetooth has SOME issues but it’s pretty great, just don’t cover the back with the palm of your hand. My only issue is the lack of support for .m3u files to make customized playlists. Other than that it’s a great valentines gift!
tori
As a music fan of the past, I purchased this for the purpose of consolidating my music collection. I shopped for a few days and decided on this "little power house". A year later, I'm still enjoying it.
In the age of music streaming I miss the days of listening to full albums, along with consolidating my music collection (dig out your old hard drives). Its fun listen to complete albums and experience the same feeling of enjoying like the days of physical albums. The display of album art, helps too! This player seems like it was built for it.
Along with a slick and kind of elegant design, It has strong solid built. The player is about the weight of a smart phone but half the size. The screen has a glass like finish that's similar as well. To my surprise, It already had included, a screen protector that's came applied to it, so there's no need to purchase one. So far, a whole year, and haven't had the need to switch it out. I do however, suggest picking up carrying case for extra protection.
As you probably read in it's features, for the price, this packs a BIG punch and doesn't disappoint. Even though it's useful for typical everyday use, it seems like it was made for serious music fans and even performing artist.
The line in allows for me to record my DJ sets or with it's external mic, I can do voice recordings as well. After a year of using it's Bluetooth, radio, updating firmware, etc., I have absolutely no issues with it.
Because of its massive functionality, there is a minor learning curve in how to navigate, organize and make music selections. The touch screen is mostly a single input prompts that's used to scroll and make selections. Because of our familiarity with other touch devices, this will take a short while to get use to. Though minor, it's the only small but temporary flaw I could think of.
Pick this up, get a 256bg micro card and load it up. For a more enjoyable experience, make sure to add files in the order you'll like them played.
Since having it and with its Bluetooth feature, it's small enough to take it anywhere. At parties and gatherings many of my friends and family are blown away by it.
Enjoy!!
Max
This little player is great for the price, it does everything it's advertised to do, it plays FLAC files and MP3s very clearly over bluetooth, no issues with buffering either.
The build quality feels nice, its surprisingly heavy and has glass on both sides, the buttons are decently clicky and not squishy, I just wish it had physical media buttons instead of the weird touch ones, but its not too bad.
The UI is quite clunky, but luckily its not typically slow, just weirdly layed out, like for example your albums will be sorted via when they were added to the device instead of alphabetically, so that's a bit random.
Another small gripe is how slowly the data transfer is, it took about 3 hours to transfer 20gb of music onto the device, but that's not a big deal, and I'm sure you could speed that up if you used an SD card.
Overall I'd say this thing is pretty nice, its very simple and does everything it's built to do, you just have to get used to the weird UI.
Clay
I had no problem with the sound of this unit; I never found the flat screen or the navigation that easy to use; although customer service tried to be helpful, poor communication/language skills and slow response times made the help practically useless.
After keeping this player on a night table for two years, seldom if ever carrying it around, the bottom (which I discovered was simply glued on, see photo) became unglued making this player useless. Given this sort of flimsy construction I can't give it more than 1 star.
Sam
WOW this thing is rugged. A real aluminum brick. You could seriously hurt somebody or break a window if you threw it. Not a fan of the fake buttons you need to see to use though. I was hoping it could at least be waterproof with a design with that, but it definitely is not. It’s above and beyond where it counts, and good enough everywhere else
The firmware is another story. As I said, it’s built like a brick, but it’s about as smart as one too. The Music option is completely useless for anything but playlists. To listen to anything you need to use the Folder option. There is no semblance of sense to how the player sorts and orders its music. I have at least 20 folders of the same artist, all with exactly one song. The albums are full of the most random stuff ever, half of them are just blank, or named some random symbol. The contents are pulled from random albums and artist with no sense of order whatsoever. Picture included
I understand this stuff to an extent, but I cannot imagine what sort of mistake could mess up the organization this badly. Still, if you organized your music right when you put stuff on it, the Folder function works fine…EXCEPT:
Why in the name of anything holy would tracks be organized by date added. Not name, not track number, DATE ADDED. It’s basically randomly ordered, and putting numbering in tracks not only eats into the display name, but it DOESN'T WORK. Picture included
While I still feel like this is a good product, it desperately needs a complete overhaul of its interface and organization, this is just ridiculous.
I’d say I’d buy it again, but I feel like this thing could get thrown off a cliff and run over with a tank and survive, so I’ll keep using this despite its janky firmware
B.C.C.
Doesn't work after 3 months. As you can see in the video all it does is turn on then turns off. None of the touch screen buttons work. I have pressed the reset button and the power button. I can't get it to stop. I contacted customer service over a week ago with no response.
Even before it started constantly restarting, it would repeat the first track of whatever playlist or album you tried to listen to. Even after turning off repeat.
The battery started to fail 2 months in. It was supposed to last a month but by 3 months of owning it, I could get about 3 days of listening.
I would avoid this player and anything made by Phinistec!
Principiante
This 32GB MP3 Player with Bluetooth 5.0, Phinistec Z6 Digital Audio Player with Loud Speaker is like a little tank for strong. Good quality in general with good sound quality and the facility for use with Bluetooth or with a plot connection, delivered its sound through speakers or Bluetooth, with a good memory RAM and super good battery time, is a digital recorded, a clock, a radio, an mp3 player and everything in one portable equipment to have ready in your hands in case you need it. Having a stable connection 5.0 and value for the money I used in my language practice is helpful. Its bass is acceptable, and the sound quality is clear and good. It is absolutely powerful and sturdily equipment. I am happy with its use and I recommend it 100%.
Este 32GB MP3 Player with Bluetooth 5.0, Phinistec Z6 Digital Audio Player with Loud Speaker esta construido como un pequeno tanquesito por su roblusta construction. Tiene una buena calidad en general y esta construido de tal manera que tiene la dualidad de la coneccion tanto alambrica como inalambrica, siendo esto una exelente ventaja pues los equipos actuales la inmenza mayoria solamente son inalambricos, teniendo tambien incorporadas vocinas como extra para escucharlo. Cuenta con buena cantidad de memoria, con un exelente tiempo de durabilidad de su bateria, es una grabadora digital, contando con reloj, radio y MP3, cuenta tambien con una coneccion Bluetooth stable 5.0 y es un equipo para tener a mano invaluable por su precio. En mi caso lo uso en la practica de idiomas y es muy practico. Sus bajos y el sonido en general es bueno. Es un equipo fuerte y robusta, si se cae no se dana. Estoy muy contenta con por su compra por tanto: Lo recomiendo 100%.
M
Once you connect Bluetooth headset it's still horribly low volume even at peak 31? Have tried hardwire and speaker plays music as well as headset at same time wtf? but come on. Built solid but yes software is finicky having to press button multiple times to get it to work. FM Autotune is trash so don't bother.
Customer
I recently bought this MP3 player and, after giving it a shot, decided to return it. Still, I gave it five stars, and here’s why:
Selection Process:
After spending an entire day researching MP3 players, I narrowed it down to two options. When both arrived, I chose the other model, mainly because I use it to listen to music to help me sleep at night.
Drawbacks (Specific to my own use case):
1. Boxy Design: The player has sharp, unrounded edges, which felt uncomfortable and a bit unsafe to have in bed with me.
2. Touchscreen Controls: Many functions require using the touchscreen, meaning I had to light up the screen. When I’m half-asleep, that sudden brightness is jarring and wakes me up more. I really prefer physical buttons I can feel in the dark.
Advantages:
• Massive Battery Life: The 1500mAh battery is one of the biggest I found during my research. Other players boast long playtimes but have much smaller batteries (90%+ products in the market have only 150-300mAh), which doesn’t add up.
• Bluetooth Connectivity: It connects seamlessly with high-end Bluetooth headphones, so no more tangled wires.
• Built-in Speaker: It even has an external speaker, probably thanks to that large battery.
• Great Price: For all these features, the price is a steal. I’ve seen less capable players going for $75 or more.
Conclusion:
This MP3 player easily outshines over 95% of the competition. It’s a fantastic choice if you’re after a feature-packed device without breaking the bank. Sadly, for my specific need as a sleep aid, it wasn’t the right fit.
I get that the manufacturer probably went with the touchscreen and boxy design for a sleek, modern look, maybe aiming at a younger, style-conscious crowd. But for someone like me, who values practicality over looks, these design choices didn’t quite work.
So, I reluctantly went with another MP3 player that cost $50 more and had fewer features—no Bluetooth, no built-in speaker, a less attractive design, and much shorter battery life. But it does have rounded corners and physical buttons, which suit my needs better.
Cinder
Cool little device. Sound is great as well as the battery life. Music is so clear and has strong blue Tooth. Mostly. The thing that frustrated me the most of that i have to go into folders and make my own Playlist resulting in multiples of the same song total on the card.
The repeat and shuffle are questionable because when I select a folder and them hit repeat all, it plays the first song multiple times until I physically change it to the next song. It will then shuffle but then it plays all of the songs and not the ones in the specified Playlist.
The repeat function is confusing; I hit replay mode and an A-B thing shows up and then it continously repeats the small bit so I have to finaggle with that just to get it to do what I want which is to just have the specified Playlist on repeat for all the songs. Not just one specific song.
I do love this little device and the size.
I'm willing to work with it more to understand the functions, but if I find this to be too much to have to deal with each time I use the player, then I am returning it.
10/11/25
So, still love it but I am now getting issues with the blue tooth. None of my devices are able to pair with it as in the next few seconds it states connection failed. It's not the bemuds or speakers it's coming from the device itself because the buds work on everything else.
MD
Honest Average Consumer Review for Phinistec Z6 Portable Music Player 96 GB MP3 Player
The Phinistec Z6 Portable Music Player is my first experience using a dedicated Digital Audio Player (DAP). The built quality is excellent, comprising of aluminum body casing with glass front and back coverings. The device itself is small and portable, with a hefty weight, but not uncomfortable to carry around. It has dual output for wired headphones and a line out for speakers or modular components. It has the power button on the top and dedicated volume up and down buttons on the side, along with a micro SD card slot and USB-C charging port. The screen is small but bright. It plays a wide variety of music files and can be used even without ear phones via its external speaker at the bottom.
The software is not the greatest among other devices that I have used. The main screen is not a touch screen interface, there are “buttons” at the bottom half of the screen that are used to navigate the menu/interface of the device. Using the interface does take some learning curve, as the settings are not very intuitive. The device did come with an instruction manual and that helped me navigate through some of the options. There is a website for Phinistec that the users can use for tutorials and software update downloads.
Overall, it is a good device that delivers functionality and style. The device is an eye candy, with a robust built and elegant design. It can play a variety of music files. I personally use MP3 files from old albums that I listen to that brings me down memory lane. I appreciate the dedicated music player because it helps me save my phone battery on a daily basis, and provides long hours of easy listening. The battery life has been excellent! I have used the Z6 for at least 3 hours a day for the past week and I have not needed to charge it yet.
BK
I have been trying to ditch my iPhone and beginning using a normal non-smart phone and so I was looking for an MP3 that allows me to listen to music with wired headset, bluetooth headset and my car's bluetooth adapter.
Wired headset: voice is very good and crisp-clear.
Bluetooth headset: it was fine but better with the wired.
Car bluetooth adapter: this one is the worst but probably it's due to my adapter.
Things I like about it the most:
1- it has speakers to listen to music without headset which is nice
2- it shows time and date and has plenty of physical storage on the device itself and on an SD card (not included with the device; you need to buy one of class 6 and above)
3- has a calendar, e-reader and videos and photos storage and reading capabilities. I haven't used those yet but they are certainly useful if you're like me trying to get-rid of smart phone.
4- intiutive UI and nice and bulky appearance on the outside. It's quite heavy if you're into bulky items.
Things I didn't like about it the most:
I like listenning to music on a shuffle mode, which I can do on this MP3, but there a few songs I like to repeat sometimes and so when I click backward song, not just it doesn't repeat the song. but it shuffles to another song that wasn't on before the current one. Same thing with forwarding. So if only it can save tracks' order, then that would be very nice, for me at least.
biffsteele
The build quality is excellent. The player has a metal body with glass panels for the front and back. The unit ships with screen protectors for the front and back which were not that difficult to put on. The unit also has capacitive touch buttons. I did not detect any issues in using them. I should also mention there are some sharp edges. It would have been nice if they were beveled as the side with the volume buttons are.
I am no audiophile, but the sound quality was more than adequate for me. Again, at this price point (~$40.00). No issues with the built-in 32GB storage or included 64GB microSD card. It would be nice if the player saw it as just one big 96GB chunk of memory though. You have to use the interface to switch between them.
The User interface is the equally bad part. Nothing is really intuitive in how to use it. Easy enough to figure out but it was not like anything I was familiar with. Creating custom playlists are a no go as far as I can figure, other than to the three default ones built-in the player itself(Default Playlist, Recently Add (empty even after adding files unless I used a bad file structure), My Favorite). It does see a M3U playlist I created but can't read it, say no files found. It is also not very intuitive in how to add a song to a list (with a song highlighted, press the Menu key). It really has just the basic play features like Album, Artist, Folder, etc..
Has other functions as well like Bluetooth (no issues connecting, a bit to figure out how though), FM radio, eBook, Voice Recording, Calendar, Alarm, Pictures, Video. The only video I can get it to play is in the AVM format it will not play a native AVI. I did contact support, they were responsive for being in China and did send me a conversion utility to convert video files to AVM. Watch when switching from player to radio, the radio is really loud at 1 or 2 and if player is on anything higher it will blow out your ears.
In my opinion, they need a major rewrite of the player interface. This could have been an easy 5 star device at the price point if not for the player interface. Maybe they can fix some of the issues with a new interface design.
Update: Have found out it recognizes and plays an M3U playlist. The example playlist was created on an Android phone with Poweramp, I then had to edit the path to match the player and change / to \. You will NOT be able to add anything to one of your playlists, just the three built-in ones.
Example old path: primary/Music/Boston/Boston/01 More Than A Feeling.flac
Below is M3U file contents after changes:
#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-RATING:0
Music\Boston\Boston\01 More Than A Feeling.flac
#EXT-X-RATING:0
Music\Boston\Boston\02 Peace Of Mind.flac
Adam
The first thing I noticed right out of the box was that the back button didn't light up like the rest(See photos). However, Still wanted to give it a try. I put half a dozen songs via USB C cable to my computer... And it took a while to move the files over. Don't expect average transfer speeds over 2MB/s even using a USB C 3.0 cable. However, the device allows you to just drag a drop folder or individual songs over without the need for any software or complicated instructions. This is a good thing because the included instructions have no actual information on how to put music on the device. However, the instructions did include two interesting nuggets of information.
<paraphrasing the broken English instructions>
1) The SD card reader can support up to a 1TB card. However, using cards over 256gigs can cause the unit to freeze/stuck if the card is full. It also will take a long time for the MP3 to scan the card for songs.
2) The Player does not support custom playlists.
Another interesting oddity is that the display will show the full song name along with track info and other data. However, there is a character limit on the album and the artist's names. For example, I can listen to the album called, "The Best Of " or a band called "Cage the E"
Navigating the interface is also majorly clunky. If you only want your MP3 player to shuffle songs, this may be a good player for you. However, if you want to create playlists or be able to find particular music, look elsewhere.
The player did sync to my Bluetooth speaker quickly and without issue so that is a plus.
The MP3 player did come with some type of screen protector on both the front and back. There were also some spare protectors in the box. However, they seem to attract dust. After about 15 minutes of handling, I already wanted to clean it.
In short, I will end up returning this player due to the light not working. I also won't recommend anyone buy it. The hardware feels nice and solid but the firmware is half-baked at best.
Steve
For the price, I think I got a pretty good deal. I like that it feels heavy, like what good MP3 players used to feel like. The control buttons are very sturdy. There's nothing cheap about the build quality of this unit. It comes with a short USB cable to both charge and transfer music and data. I have a bunch of songs on this and hardly used any space. It is capable of handling a bigger micro USB card, but I didn't need it. 32 gigs is plenty for my music. It also comes with an adapter that will convert the cable to a USB-C to USB-C so you can hook to your phone as well. It comes with two screen protectors, so you can change them out if you need to. The charge time is surprising me. it has lasted longer than I thought it would. The overall sound quality is better than I thought it would be. When I hook it to my portable speaker via 3.5mm cable the sound is very nice, especially with the 7 band EQ with several presets and a custom one for your personal adjustment. It comes extremely well packaged with a nice strong box and the accessories are in very nice self sealing reusable bag style keepers. There is a voice recording function that I did test and I am very pleased with the sensitivity!
The user interface is a bit tricky, but workable. Most everything you could want is there, but you may have to search a bit to find it. The FM feature is probably the weakest point here. I found that the headset cable is not quite adequate to receive stations, plus cable placement is finicky. But I found a way around all this. I made a 31" wire (standard FM antenna length) with a small electrical ring connector on the end. By placing the cable through the ring and then plugging into the unit achieves a pretty good signal! Unfortunately, I have found that all my stations play in mono on this unit. I have looked for a "Mono-Stereo) setting and can't find one. the other point I wanted to mention is the volume output is not what I had hoped for. The preamp in it is a bit small for my liking. Luckily I have a good headset and decent portable speakers. The Bluetooth function works...but that is all I am going to give it. linking the blue tooth can be a pain and the volume drops even more. I only tried it in my car and I should try it on my portable blue tooth speaker before I say anything further on that.
My final thoughts are: for the way I use this unit, it was well worth it and I am glad I bought it.
Jim
I do a lot of walking and wanted a dedicated player for my Bluetooth earbuds. There a several reasonably priced compact mp3 players out there, but they all seemed to be week in either the battery life or Bluetooth area or both. I settled on this one because it was big enough to have a robust battery. It does not disappoint in either area. It came fully charged and the Bluetooth does not drop out unless you leave it on the desk and walk a couple of rooms away. I ordered a flip phone case to carry it, but if you have big pockets like a jacket or cargo pants, that would not be a problem. It is very sturdy and has great sound. My main issue was setup. The interface is not as easy to understand as I would like, but once you figure it out, it works great. Unless you are the type of person that is intimidated by size, weight or complexity, you will love this audio player. Instructions are limited and I was unable to figure out how to create a play list. I emailed support ([email protected]) and they promptly sent me the attached video. You can also just create a playlist folder and add that to the playlist. Great battery life, very good sound quality, sturdy build and massive storage capability at a reasonable price. What could be better?
Update:
This case fits it perfectly.
Nancy
I requested a replacement unit for this MP3 player because the audio quality of the first one was terrible. It had very weak volume and the sound was very strange. To compare the two units, I observed the following differences:
1. Software: The old unit came with version 2.0 of the software, while the replacement unit had version 1.62. It seems that the old unit had the updated software version.
2. Surface: The old unit did not have a screen protection film, whereas the replacement unit did.
3. User Interface (UI): The UI on the old unit with version 2.0 software was not better than the version 1.62. The font was bigger than the old version but lacked a red background, making the words less readable.
4. Audio quality: The audio quality on the old unit with version 2.0 software was unacceptable. When trying to listen to loud music or the radio, I had to turn on the old unit twice for it to reach an audible volume. Otherwise, the sound was very weak and difficult to hear. Additionally, the audio had a noisy background, making it even more unpleasant to listen to.
When purchasing this MP3 player, it is important to pay close attention to the software version and their audio. The standards are not consistent. In my experience, the issues I encountered with my old unit may not be common, but it is advisable to be cautious. Common sense dictates that an updated version of the software should be more advanced and improved compared to the older version. However, it seems that this was not the case with my unit, highlighting the need for better quality control and more reliable software development.
In the end, I decided to keep the replacement unit but gave it 4 stars, because I am uncertain about its long-term quality and stability based on the comparison. Let's see.
TheBob
Issue: the memory allocation is a problem. I show a lot of available memory but albums end up flowing into the folder. It apparently allocates memory for the other crap on the player. Why a calendar, clock etc? People that want MP3 players have cells phones with those things! My answer: I formatted the player wiping off all files. I will only put maybe 15-20 albums on it at a time. Not that painful.
Fantastic. This replacement, I've used almost every day for 5+ hours a day for months, is so much better. I hard wire to a stereo: the battery lasts weeks in that mode. In fact, it's has never run out. Charging takes time (very large battery and safe charging).
Transfers are far faster, it is NOT dropping out of USB (copy/transfer) mode. I suspect they are using better chips and the code is definitely better.
A few gnats like it starts up in shuffle mode but that's a 5 second fix. For this price I'd expect more little inconveniences but that's it for me!
To manage playback you have to start the music playing, THEN press the upper left button to see the list. Shuffle/repeat etc is under play mode. I select Repeat off and it plays the playlist/album straight through.
The speaker is worthless: just for convenience I guess. I don't care. I have speakers, earbuds as most of you do.
Please last a few years!
Evan
The good is:
sound quality meets the price point, I hooked this up to a Onkyo receiver with Klipsch R-50 speakers and it sounded good
Also for the price point the hardware was fine, could be better but for 40$ It is what i expected
Lastly the customer service response email is fast (24 hrs every time) and replaces broken units no questions asked, however they are not English speaking so the communication is a bit lost sometimes.
Unfortunately when it comes to Firmware that is where it all falls apart. Its a combination of bugginess and poor user interface design.
The company tried hard to work through the problems, but ultimately i had to return it. to give a better understanding of why here is the last email i sent to the company:
"Dear Phinistec,
I'm sorry, but every solution you offered has not improved the issues on the player. The reason I am seeking a music player capable of holding 256gb of files is because I intend to put 10s of thousands of tracks and albums on it, so if the firmware is incapable of organizing them in any reasonable manner then it is useless. I have been patient with this player hoping for a solution, but clearly there is currently not enough experience or understanding of music organisation to build the right firmware.
Firstly, In the folders mode there should be no other organisation than alpha/numeric by file and folder name. organizing by timestamp of when it was added to the card has little to no value and creates an issues. The main issue is when loading files a file cache will load multiple files at a single time and if two file start at the same time the smaller of the file will finish loading first before a larger file, so if you drag and drop an album on the card if there is a 2 min song that comes after a 10 min song the 2 min file will load first and therefore be out of order when I try to play album from the file. Another issue with this is, what about when I get a new artist that starts with A and load it onto the card, It will be at the end of the list? This makes no sense, over time any edits you make to your collection will further dis-organize your collection and the only remedy is to delete and reload the entire card, this is not viable.
The music function, which is the keystone of a portable music player, is so far from being what it needs to be. There is no reason that the artist function should break up "Jimi Hendrix" into 50 different folders with one song in each, and the Jimi's are not all in a row so there is clearly an issue with alpha/numeric. Also note that the artist data on those tracks was edited as a group so their tags are identical, there is no reason these should not be grouped into the same folder. Also as mentioned in previous email at no point has the player displayed the song name, always displays the file name NOT song name. i.e. 1-02 Sugaree.mp3, instead of Sugaree
In the future software needs to be able to read all of the metadata in each file and organised as such
Artist
- Album
- Disc Number
- Track Number
- Song Name (from metadata, not file name)
Therefore it knows which comes first
i.e. song: Deal, disc: 01 of 02, track: 10 of 10, album: Live 1982, artist: The Grateful Dead. - would come before
song: Shakedown Street, disc: 02 of 02, track: 01 of 07, album: Live 1982, artist: The Grateful Dead. -This being the first track of the 2nd disc
There is also a metadata form for Artist sorting, This is not necessary but does give more customization for how to organize music and is mostly used to solve the problem of "The" and "A". For example if I wanted "The Grateful Dead" to list with the G's instead of the T's, I would fill the artist sorting form with "Grateful Dead" without a "The" and it would be listed in the G's even though the Artist Form Is still labeled "The Grateful Dead" which would still be displayed as the artist label when the tracks are being played.
Other features that are important, Ability to keep the files indexed after the player has shut down, in order to prevent the player from having to search for 3-5mins every time it is turned on. The search should only be necessary after editing the card or internal memory or changing the card, but once it searches it needs to be good until a change is made. It is very inconvenient to wait for this search EVERYTIME you turn on the player, this is the only player I've ever owned that does this.
I would also add there should be no cap or an extremely high cap on the number of songs that can be organized with the music section, with 256 and 512gb cards it is very easy to have 50,000 to 100,000 songs on a player, I have over 7000 Phish tracks and 12,000 Grateful dead tracks alone. And live music collectors like myself are a huge part of the market for high capacity portable music players, since this volume of live shows is not available on platforms like Spotify etc.
In addition to that there's some debugging to iron out such as why you have to open the card folder just to get the artist folder to show anything, this is clearly a bug and not intentional, as well as other little things like album art sometimes show sometimes not etc.
If at some point in the future you feel the firmware has been overhauled and meets these specifications send me an email and I will consider trying your product again. There are a lot of players out there and they all have quality hardware but the firmware is what is lacking in basically all of them. This Quality firmware seems to be the holy grail of a Quality player. The discontinued Apple Ipod Classic had the best Firmware of any MP3 player that i have ever used, and believe me I have used a lot. The Ipod Classic limitations lay in it's fixed HD capacity, which was high in their day but at 160gb is low for today, and also music licensing and PC compatibility make the Ipod unusable for Linux desktop operators like myself. If you could create firmware as streamline as that your player would surely work its way to one of the top rated players out there.
This is a different tangent but have you considered a PC software that integrates with your player, so I could load my songs into your PC player first to give more editing capabilities and to see how the file will organize once on the player?
Thanks Evan Gamble"
Review note, I did not test Bluetooth, record, video, pictures, or the radio.
The built in speaker is similar to an older Iphone, not great, but its useful for troubleshooting audio output, and can be used for white noise to get a baby to sleep.
Mee Lin Youk
stuck on seaeching 10%
Isaac Desam Ysaias BM-160738
I got this last month and only used it 3 times, the item stop charging and turning on, I tried it with different chargers and nothing happened, it just overheats and showed low battery I guess the battery stop workong, also it is heavy AF, rather my money back
$48.99
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