8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Very solid for playing audio and videos
Date of Review: Jun 3, 2007
The Bottom Line: Excellent low-cost iPod substitute, especially if you want to watch videos on a very portable device.
The MoVox is an excellent little device at a great price. The hardware has the look and feel of quality - durable buttons with a solid click, scratch-resistant screen, resilient soft plastic shell, solid wires on the earbuds with a lanyard attachment that prevents the plug from being pulled out of the jack. The only thing that is chintzy about it is the horrible instruction manual. I cannot believe that Centon did not spend a few extra dollars to hire a native English speaker to provide a manual that lives up to the quality of the hardware.
Aside from downloading direct from iTunes, his thing does everything an iPod Nano does at a fraction of the cost, plus it plays video (and has an FM tuner). I use this device almost exclusively for watching TV shows that I recorded on my computer. Although the resolution is only 160x120, it is good enough when you want something very portable. Also, the screen is VERY bright - enough that you can watch it outdoors. The included converter software converts WMV and MPEG1 to the required AMV format and copies it onto the MoVox. The software is pretty quick - about 4x real time. In other words, a 30 minute show converts in about 8 minutes on my computer. (By comparison, the software for the competing devices based on the SigmaTel chip takes about 30 minutes to convert a 30 minute show to SMV format.)
One important tip for playing videos - the software can also convert MPEG2, Quicktime, VOB (from DVD movies), and other formats if you install the appropriate 3rd party encoders. (The README file mentions this.) The FFDSHOW encoders, which are available for free on the web, will support many of these formats. I use MPEG2 for capturing TV shows on my computer, and after installing FFDSHOW I have no problems converting them to AMV.
The user interface is not as polished as the iPod's, but it is usable once you figure it out. The biggest irritation for me is that long filenames do not scroll across the screen, something which even the cheap SigmaTel-based players do. But I am willing to put up with that because of all the other nice features.
UPDATE June 10, 2007
I liked this so much I bought a second one for my daughter. However, they have either revised the design, or they have at least two factories making to slightly different specifications. The durable, soft plastic shell has been replaced by a shiny, hard plastic shell. The user interface is very different. And while they appear to have tried to improve some things on the UI (titles now scroll), the implementation is very flawed (the filenames still truncate after only 2 characters have scrolled by, and while paused the filenames do not show at all - the folder name shows instead). Also, the earbuds are cheaper, substituting plastic parts where there used to be much more durable metal parts. Unlike before, where the included software CD was well-organized, the CD included in this new version has a hodgepodge of software, with no clear indication what it all is, and much of the software is earlier versions vs. the other CD, even though the rev date of the folders is later than the first unit I bought.
All in all, Centon really needs to make some improvements to their version control.
Although I still really like the first one I bought, I am returning the second one for a refund.
