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Super Talent Vidego 24T |
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The New Touchy-Feely |
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by Josh Walrath |
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First Impressions The packaging the product comes in is a sturdy blue box with an insert containing the manual, installation CD (needed for Win 98/ME), headphones, and the player itself. It should provide plenty of protection for the unit. The manual and CD contents are very minimal The CD does include the necessary MP3 playback software for Windows use, as well as the video encoder to allow playback of videos on the Vidego. The instruction manual is brief, but it provides enough info to allow the user to run the product successfully.
Consider that the unit is about 1.5 inches wide, and then look at how close the touch points are. Yes, controlling this unit can be an adventure for ham-fisted users. The player is surprisingly small from what I had expected, but it is quite solid and has a nice bit of heft to it. The touch screen is pretty sensitive, and does not appreciate a heavy finger (as it will often activate the button besides the one you are pressing). There is no physical depression of the buttons whatsoever, but people with fat fingers will have to have a bit of patience when working with this player. The menus are very easy to get to and explore, and it has plenty of categories to choose from. Users can easily record their own audio reminders and messages with the built in recording functionality and those files are easily transferable to other players and computers. Video playback is ok, but certainly not great. The player has a maximum framerate of around 25 fps, which is below the 30 fps that most digital playback is handled at. Depending on the quality of the original video, playback can be a bit choppy and broken up by the Vidego. The encoding program that is included is very basic, but it does the job. One really cannot expect a fully featured video playback device integrated into a MP3 player at $69 to really wow with its quality. As it is, the Vidego does its job, and it does it very well. I personally would not be able to watch a movie on the 2.4 inch screen though, but it is fun to carry around short clips for other people’s (dis)pleasure. Audio playback is also good, but not great. The included ear buds are very basic with standard quality sound. They certainly do the job, but not surprisingly well. When plugging in a higher end set of cans, the quality of course improves. The integrated DAC and OPAMP that the Vidego 24T uses are not of exceptional quality, and so it will not do as well as higher end DACs like those included with more expensive audio products. Sound is not nearly as accurate or crisp with the Vidego 24T as compared to the standalone Auzentech X-Fi Prelude. Again, it is a portable player, and one really cannot expect audiophile quality sound from a 2 ounce player.
On the back are the logos and button/port identifications. Very exciting, I know. The most pleasant surprise with this player was the battery life. Super Talent lists this part as having around 8 hours of battery time on its rechargeable internal lithium battery. Through regular use, I have seen playback time at 20+ hours. I was honestly surprised by how long the charge on the battery lasted. Then again, my usage may be different from other people. I tend to listen to my music at lower volumes, and I did not use the video playback functionality except in short spurts. People who crank their volume (really not good for the ears) or watch movies on their Vidego 24T will of course have much lower battery capacity. Under these scenarios the 8 hours listed is probably accurate. The FM tuner worked fairly well, especially outside. It uses the cord of the headphones for the antenna, so if the cord is not extended a fair amount then reception suffers. It was able to pick up the majority of radio stations in my area, but considering the population of Wyoming and how many radio stations we have… that may not be saying much. The micro-SD slot is a bit flimsy, but holds the card firmly. I only experienced one occasion where the card was “lost” by the OS of the Vidego 24T, and I had to reformat the card to get it to work again. Otherwise, the extra space afforded by the slot was quite nice considering the stock player comes with “only” 1 GB of memory internal.
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Copyright 1999-2007 PenStar Systems, LLC. |
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