Review of cheap Mp3 player made to look like Apple iPod Nano 6th Gen - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2014, 03:31:17 am
content: Hi folks,I bought a couple of these MP3 players for the kids as they were really cheap. Since then I looked on eBay and found them to go for as low as $10-15. They are designed to look almost like the Apple iPod Nano 6th gen. Most have no built-in memory, some do, they take SD cards and charge via USB.Here is a quick review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KApVj-O66BoI was surprised on the feature-set and capability for the price. Even though they generally suck, you have to admit that it is CHEAP and for that price it may actually be worth it just to hack it and get out some parts for projects.Would love to have Dave do a proper teardown and review. Single chip solution to handle everything? Maybe 3 chips... one memory chip, one chip to handle battery, and one big processor to handle reading the memory/SD card/USB driver/screen driver/all decoders/DAC/ACD and just about everything else.Just search eBay for "mp3 player 6th gen 1.8" and you will find tons of them.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2014, 04:30:20 am
content: The title is misleading. The reviewed player is not a fake anything - it is just a similar product.[EDIT:with the title changed, now you wont be disappointed had you click on it to see a fake...This is a good review if you are seeking an MP3 player.Paragraph below is now outdated...]Apple logo is not found anywhere, not on the box, not on the machine. The box doesn't try to fake an Apple packaging. It is black instead of Apple's white. The software is branded as Scholastic or something like that. The label on the back has nothing that remotely implied it is an Apple product.This is like calling a Honda Civil review a "Review of the new Fake BMW" when nothing on the Honda said BMW. Yeah, they are just both cars and both has wheels.I suggest a good thing may be to edit the title. Otherwise, other viewer may also feelthe only thing that is fake is the video itselfby callinga review of a similar productasa review of a fake Apple Nano.May I suggest "Review of A low price MP3 player in the Apple Nano class".Rick

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2014, 07:07:04 am
content: Rick,Yes you are right, I agree with your suggestion and so I edited the title. It is only similar in appearance but none of the packaging implies it is an Apple product. Thanks for the feedback.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2014, 02:08:47 pm
content: That looks like the evolution of the original s1mp3 player - the "hold down menu to go back", the display font, AMV format, and the wording of the menu items all match up to the one I have. They're all highly-integrated - your guess of 3 chips is right, although the actual functionality is split differently: one SoC for all the processing, one NAND flash for storage, and (only on ones with FM radio) an FM receiver IC. The MCU core is a Z80.More info on them here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_playerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMV_video_formathttp://wiki.s1mp3.org/Hardware(<- I wrote quite a few of the articles on that site, likethis oneandthis one)Some of these are really fake-branded "iPod":http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=139(This is the 2-chip version, in the front view image you can see the unpopulated spot for astandard '5767 FM module.)

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2014, 11:41:16 pm
content: Quote from: edy on October 18, 2014, 07:07:04 amActually, my initial wording was a bit too strong... I was expecting to see how good or bad a fake they made, and felt disappointed. Anyhow, we are on the same page now.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2014, 12:14:47 am
content: I am simply amazed they can crank these things out for nothing.... $8-10 usually, sometimes more if they include some built in memory. But their specs are pretty bad.No touch screen. The LCD is 160x128.... for a 1.8" screen the DPI is low. I have to use a converter tool (included on the player) to convert either MPG or AVI to their proprietary AMV format. Which means that for most of my iTunes files which are MP4 I need to first use ffmpeg first to convert to MPEG before the utility can take the file to the second step to AMV.Also, I tried some JPGs from my phone directly imported but it won't open... But when I resized them down to under 320 pixels wide they opened. So the thing can't handle opening large files. Not enough RAM on the CPU? Maybe the AMV format is designed with this RAM limit in mind.Also you can't seek through any of the files. Always play from the beginning. No fwd/rev function. I like the WAV record feature especially for FM radio. Can't compress fast enough to save MP3.It has its uses. Best as a simple MP3 player or tiny radio to drive some background music. You could use some tiny speakers and make a tiny USB powered ghetto blaster. A toy for the kids. ...but a lousy confusing user interface.

author: edy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2014, 12:19:02 am
content: Oh... one more thing... I wonder if they have tried to spin these into an oscilloscope using the ADC and display waveforms, or if they will make these into a smart watch format and capitalize on that trend?

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2014, 02:17:45 am
content: Quote from: edy on October 19, 2014, 12:19:02 amIt is possible but a bit on the slow side and lots of code to write to make it good. I have a couple of those TTF 160x128 with SD. A few weeks ago, I connect one on an Arduino UNO to plot the charge voltage from an lm2596 power board charging a LiIon battery.You can get one of these for $5-$6 on eBayHere is some info from my experiment:The application I have is on the UNO merely to plot current charge voltage each 100ms. Since time was not critical, I did nothing to speed things up. But I was curious about the speed so I collected some display time info.Each loop, one data point is added. The data point (current voltage) is first translated into Y positions then stored in the data array uint8_t. The display time is just time time to run the display code from already collected data.The graphic is a lot faster than text writing. This is because text is drawing the 5x7 font a dot at a time. Double size text (10x14) takes 4x longer (as math dictates).My output orientation is rotate(3) [ie:160x 128y], done with GFX library:(double size text is bold in example below)-------- DISPLAY CONTENT EXAMPLE -----------1.2345V1234mA 1.23mW(160x40 graph here drawn from uint8_t)-------- EXAMPLE ENDS -----------------The text display took about 50-70ms. The graph took about 10ms-20ms to draw.The graph is drawn from data stored in uint8_t. Each loop collects only one new data point, but all 160 datapoints are redrawn by:(1) first erase old line by drawing in background color,(2) then draw new line by drawing line in foreground color.So it draw two lines for each data point = 320 lines up to 40dots long each.So the 10-20ms graph display time is more than adequate. While I have not timed the UNO's ADC, but based on other work I have done, I doubt very much the ATMEGA's adc is fast enough to try to be a scope of useful speed.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2014, 03:52:40 pm
content: Quote from: edy on October 19, 2014, 12:14:47 amHave you tried the left/right keys while a file is playing? On an S1 you can usually hold them down to seek, while a quick press is prev/next file.