Good value mp3/mp4 player. Reasonable sound quality.

review by: Anonymous rating:
os: Not Applicable

Having had my Stage Gem mp4 player for a few days here is a review of the unit.



Screen. Bright and colourful. 40mm x 32 mm. 50mm diagonal. Mp3 file playing info could be bigger but it's OK.



Sound. The sound is quite good - but the bass is a little weak. There are a number of equaliser settings to tweak your preferences - mostly effecting the treble end. The headphones that come with the unit are standard cheapo types - the sort that you would expect with a budget player. I have better ones that I intend to use with it.



Video. Will only play 'AMV' video files - there is a converter utility to convert most other types to the required format. The native format for the screen is 208 x 160 pixels - and you need to use v4.10 of the converter found on the mini CD included. You need about 120 MB per 30 minutes.



Photo. Yes it can display digital images. But the screen is too small to be particularly useful.



Ebooks. The unit can display text files - but the screen is too small for me to want to read to much on.



Memory Card . The blurb states that the unit will accept SD cards. These are not the full size SD cards but the miniSD card types.



Radio. Nothing to complain about here. It is possible to save stations to memory. Uses headphones for the aerial. FM stations only.



Voice Recording. Can't get this to work. I'm not particularly bothered - I would't expect the qualtiy to be up to much anyway.



User Manual. Typical comical translation into English. Some of the instructions are hilarious - but not necessarily informative. Most of the functions can be figured out anyway.



Battery. Built in battery looks to last about eight hours - as stated. Charger supplied.



Operating System. Pretty straight forward. Mostly intuitive. Via a PC you can organise music, videos etc into difference folders - should you want to.

Via Windows XP shows up as a drive - no driver installation necessary. You can operate the unit when attached to PC USB port - which will also charge the internal battery.



Gripes. Nothing much really. I occasionally get a button error, i.e. the right arrow sometimes does a mode button function instead.

There is nothing on the box, CD, guarantee card or unit to inform you who made the unit or any web address. So, the stated abilty to upgrade the firmware is unlikely to be possible.



Overall. I quite like to unit. I bought it to use in the gym and running to and from it - and for that it seems near ideal. I've got a folder for running tracks and another for everthing else. The other functions are a bit of novelty as far as I'm concerned - the screen is too small for my preference when it comes to video, photo's and ebooks - I have other gadgets that do those functions better.