EZAV EMP 600 1Gig £50 inc VAT + Delivery

seth

The EZAV EMP 600 is a mid / high end Flash music player. Take 2 AAA batteries.


I was after a replacement for my EZAV EMP 200 MP£ player which I sent back to Amazon today (full refund as the battery cover broke and they could not fix it) The EZAV 200 was posted on the Grabbit board this time last year and I wanted another model that took AAA batteries with the same sound quality and advanced features such as book marking etc..

Found a few places with the new EZAV EMP 600 1Gig model in stock, colour, OGG Vorbis and a few improvements such as USB 2, the video is close to useless but a nice colour interface, this was the cheapest £50 for a 1Gig model. This includes VAT and delivery. I emailed them they said it is new not refurb. Never ued company before, checkout via Barclays EPDQ, shipping via Parcelforce (Nextday-ish 95% they say) I will report back on progress / lack of. I've emailed the company and got replies quickly 6 replies in one day. Tried phoning just got voicemail.

I know there are MUCH cheaper Mp3 players, and that the EZAV ones are not expandable. But if you want a high quality player with good sound and support for non music (book marks, non linear FF rew etc the EZAV range is worth a look. 40mW out (20mW + 20mW) very slick interface, ideal for non music users: Podcasts et al. Personally I do not like the Li-Ion models so this one the EZAV EMP 600 takes 2 AAA.

They also have the 512K model of the 600 for £45 a few of the 1G models left.

I though that Scan's Price on the old EMP 200 was too steep! £46 inc vat + P&P!

These chaps have some for sale. Check the refurb section to get the 1G model for £69 and £79 for the non refurb. The refurb only comes with a 2 month warantee which looks weak. For £29 they have the 400 colour Li-Ion.

I left a review of the EMP 200 on Amazon UK if anyone wants to read that.

yezdi

Seth,
This looks good. Could you please comment on the user interface and other things (maybe you could leave a review on AMP3 site) it would be appreciated.
Thanks.

barginboyrob

wow this looks cool, do you think the voice recording format would be good enough to record lectures with?

thanks

HankMcSpank

These folks don't seem that impressed....

http://www.misticriver.net/archive/index.php/t-16095.html

(that said, I bet it wasn't £50 when they commented!)

seth

But the reviews I've read seem to agree the Video is not worth having (small screen , few colours) but as an MP3 player it is very good. Excellent sound, quality, the internal microphone is mono, but you can use an external microphone. The EMP 200 I used to have had user definable bit rate it would encode the microphone or line in directly to MP3. It also had voice activated recording, and automatic gap detection to break series of tracks into individual files (e.g when recording an LP). This was all in the device.

The software was excellent, text to speech to MP3, MP3 Tag and lyric encoding if you wanted to create your own tracks.

I'd hope the EMP 600 would improve on this! I'll post a summary when mine arrives.

seth

HankMcSpank wrote:

These folks don't seem that impressed....

http://www.misticriver.net/archive/index.php/t-16095.html

(that said, I bet it wasn't £50 when they commented!)

Good point these units were £190+ when launched. The acessories and packaging on them reflects this, well it did when I got the EMP 200 for £34 on Amazon. The screen on the 200 did not even have a scrach after a almost a year of heavy use, without the case!

HankMcSpank

It's looks are cracking & it's non-video spec is reasonable.

I'd say it's a good buy overall...but obviously treat the video as a 'novelty side show'.

Tempted to get one myself & I don't even need one!

Any idea what the supplied trasnfer s/w will be like? (ie does it cripple a users wants?) I have a sony mini disk that frankly a joke, I can only transfer MP3s onto it using their proprietary s/w which sucks canal water through it's butt.

yezdi

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Sony products are top quality. Unfortunately the software it uses is unbelievably pathetic. I refuse to buy a sony product that can only be operated by their proprietory !!!!!! software.

seth

I can only comment on the EZAV EMP 200 which I had. I posted a review on Amazon.

The old EMP 200 connected as a USB Mass storage device, I'm sure the EMP 600 is the same but with USB 2.0 support. The latest frimware is

One concern with the EMP 600 is the case is now plastic, the EMP 200 was one piece of aluminium wrapped around the electronics (see the picture below), nice. I think the competition in the portable audio market has caused some redesign which is more price driven.

I think the software on the 600 has been uprated to support the new interface and now it has OGG support.

Got an email today from the supplier titled "Change of status of order" I thought they'd cancelled, but it was just a note they had shipped the product. The email was over 24 since I paid, but they gave me a parcelforce tracking reference in the email...

The latest firmware for the EMP 600 is 1.12 available here. could not get the link working hope the unit ships with 1.12!

From the reviews I read the video format is proprietary and is a joke really. But I'm after it for decent audio. There is T4 model with better video, but I'm not sure which formats it supports. With an OLED screen this size the colour and speed are not going to cut it for video.

Some Linux software here. Detailed spec here


Audio channels
Stereo (left + right) Frequency range 20Hz ~ 20kHz Files support MPEG 1/2/2.5/3 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG Frequency bandwidth 20Hz~20KHz S / N 90dB


Video Files support
PFL (EZAV Format)


FM Radio Channel frequency
87.5 ~ 108 MHz S / N 55dB Receiver Type Earphone code antenna


Recording
Max 4,360 min (16 Kbps, 512MB)


QUALITY Voice
Sampling Rate : 16 / 22.05 KHz Bit Rate - 16, 32, 48 , 64, 96 Kbps Line-in Sampling Rate : 44.1 / 48 KHz Bit Rate : 64, 96, 128, 160, 192 / 256 Kbps FM 44.1 KHz Sampling Bit Rate : 64, 96, 128, 160, 192 Kbps


Power supply power
AAA x 2 batteries Battery life About 20 ~ 17 hours (128kbps,mp3,normal EQ,Volume15)


General Size
73(H) x 35 (W) x 21(L) mm Weight About 34g without Battery Earphone output 20mW(L) X 20mW(R) PC interface USB 2.0 (High Speed) OS support Win 98 SE / ME / 2000 / XP, Mac OS 9.2 /10.2 Display LCD Full Color (4K) OLED Display Input Internal Condenser Microphone. & 3.5 ¨ Stereo Line-in Jack Output 3.5 ¨ Stereo Earphone / Line-out Jack Accessories/Standard EMP-600, stereo E/P, Mini USB, Line-in cable, USB cable,
user manual, install CD, Neck strap, Carrying case, Armband

seth

Looks good, the product box was not sealed... But the player was new. Perhaps they opened it to flash with the new software? It has 1.12 the latest? Not a refurb as all the accessories are fresh there is NO sign of ANY use.

The screen is VERY clear and easy to read the layout of the controls is as the EMP 200 very intuitative. Interface is very fast and slick. Blue led lights up the joystick. Lots of improvements to the design and the case. Not metal but plastic, but good quality case, protective glove, arm band is MUCH better than EMP 200. 2 conntectors for USB one is rigid the other a cable. Looks like a stock cable not the micro cable.

Unit made in China not Korea, cheaper labour costs. Korean costs are like the UK. User manual is smaller than the EMP 200, not that you really need it

Menus are not (yet in English!) need to work out how to flip to English from Korean!!

Sound is outstanding (using my £1 PMX 60 thanks to MSE!)
Got a credit from Amazon for the old EMP 200 so a bit more and one year of progress got a lovely player. Thanks to MSE for the tip on the orignal EMP 200!

The following is the breakdown of your refund:



Item Returned:
1 x "Xen EMP-200 128MB MP3/WMA Player with FM Tuner"
Item Refund GBP 29.78
Item Tax Refund GBP 5.21

Other Costs:
Return Shipping GBP 5.70

Refund Issued: GBP 40.69


Connects as a USB device so no new software needed to trasfer files. Just installed the software no text to speech included on the CD.

Some sort of synch software for Microsoft Media player. I use MP3 and OGG so not in a position to comment on this.

Got the player menus into English last menu option on the 2nd menu (Has English letters on the menu Icon so even I could work it out!)

seth

No problems the box had been opened (perhaps to reflash) but the product seems new all the accessories are fresh.

Menus were in Korean simple to switch to English.

Remember that book marking and many of the more advance features are turned off by default. Took a minute or so to flip through the menus and options to get it running the way I liked, not had to change the setting since.

Good build quality, plastic not metal, but very well made. This unit is made in China not Korea, the manual is detailed but not overpowering. Use of English in the manual is interesting, but you can follow what is required.

Nice unit very good audio, screen is excellent: clear bright easy to read, user interface is very fast and very inutitive, crolling through files and folder navigation is so quick.

It is USB 2 and file transfers fly along. No drivers needed for XP just plug an go. The OGG support seems to be very good. MP3 quality is excellent the 40mW and audio quality is very strong.

Installed the media software seems to be very sensitive to the type of Video card you have. Works as advertised, not tried the video but at 10 frames per second, I don't expect much!

One Very minor concern: The time search feature is my only gripe as this seems to be linear not balistic. On the EMP 200 if you held down the fast forward for more than a few seconds the rate at which the player went through the file sped up. This meant you cuold get to say minute 42 of an MP3 in 20 seconds or so. The EMP 600 does the fast forward at a constant rate. However it does sample and playback fragments of the file as you fast forward, or if you want to jump forward X minutes it will do this. I tried setting this to 10 minutes and that let me jump near the section I wanted. But as this uses the fast forward function, I could only advance in 10 minute chunks.