When thinking of popular portable music players the first name that comes to mind is of course Apple and the IPOD, closely followed by Sony and Creative. All have a huge customer base of satisfied users who swear by their devices however it is fair to say that devices from the above manufacturers are not for everyone. Personally I'd never buy an iPod because I don't like being tied to iTunes. Sony has its own software/format also. There are a plethora of other portable media players out there and if the major brands don't appeal to you for whatever reason where does a consumer start to look? Well, it would seem that some of the more unlikely sources can be the most interesting. Today we're looking at Super Talents portable player. Super Talent greatly impressed us a few months ago with their DDR2 PC6400 memory, let's see if the 2Gb media player can do the same.

Packaging/Bundle

The product comes in a box which gives very little information detailing the specifications, there is a good clear image of the product on the front which is ideal, however other than a small panel on the side of the box which states MP3, WMA, FM, REC there really isn't any information worth discussing.

Inside the box we find the bundled components, the Super Talent player comes with a software CD, manual, line in/out cable and a set of white headphones. A USB 2.0 cable is also supplied. The manual is well written and easy to follow which is always a bonus.

The Player

The above shot shows the Super Talent Mega screen Mp3 player. It is a very nice looking unit with a very simple design. The top third of the unit is filled by the 262K Color OLED, 128x128 Pixels screen. And in the lower half we have the function buttons. These buttons allow you to move and select within the menus as well as powering on/off, locking and recording. As they are slightly raised even when the player is in a pocket its easy to find the right button.

With regards to the shape of the button layout I personally would have liked to see a slightly different design, the one used looks a bit like a paw print and this “cutesy” aspect takes away from the very cool look of the unit.

Down the right side of the unit we have the same text that was featured on the outside of the box and under the grey rubber rectangle is the USB connector (USB 2.0). There are also two very small holes, the first is a reset button which can be pressed if the player locks up at any point. The second is a microphone for voice recording. Along the bottom of the player we find the line in/out port. This can send an audio stream out to headphones/speakers or receive an audio stream via the supplied cable.

There isn't much else to speak of with regards to the players externals. What you can’t see from the pictures is the high sheen finish. It adds an air of quality to the unit however its an absolute nightmare to keep shiny and I found myself regularly polishing it to get that shine back.

Size also isn't conveyed too well by the above pictures so here are some comparison shots to give it some scale:

As the above shots show the player is absolutely tiny, not much longer than a standard credit card and a little smaller in width. The depth of the player is less than a CD case. When you add the weight into the equation (at a stunning 36grams) we really do have an ultra portable player which is almost unnoticeable when in a pocket.

Before we discuss the daily use experience of the player here are the official specifications from Super Talents website:

Specification
o Mfr Part Number: MP3/4-2GBK
o Color: Black
o Memory Capacity: 2 GB
o Interface: USB 2.0
o Display: MEGA Screen (262K Color OLED, 128x128 Pixels)
o Music Format: MP3 / WMA
o Recording: Line-in Real Time Mic/Voice Recording (ADPCM Type); Built-in FM/FM Tuner Recording
o Lyrics Supporting
o Language: English/ Chinese/ Spanish/ Portuguese/ Korean/ German
o Battery: Rechargeable LITHIUM Battery
o Operating System: Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP/2003; Mac OS 8.6+; Linux 2.4.1+
o Dimension: 87 x 42 x 9 mm
o Weight: 36g
o Warranty: 1 year
o Items Included: Earphones, USB2.0 Cable, Product Manual, and Drivers.

Daily Use

The first thing we always check when using a media player is whether it is compatible with Windows Media Player and if it is drag and drop compatible. On both fronts the Super Talent unit gets a tick. The benefit of these two features is that regardless of the quality of the bundled software we can use a great media player (WMP10) to manage your music and all of the tracks contained on the PC can be transferred to the player without any conversion processes.

It is also worth noting that the Super Talent player can be used as a 2gb portable hard drive. Just drag any file less than 2gb in size to the unit and its good to go.

Software

Although this product is compatible with MP10 and Drag/Drop we took a look at two of the utilities which come bundled on the software CD, video conversion and picture conversion. The ability to show pictures and video is not well documented on the product/box or website, however the player can handle both formats. The conversion of each is easy, just open up the (conversion) software, select your settings and click convert. Pictures are converted instantly, videos convert faster than real time on most PC's. Video playback isn't great on such a small screen however for small clips, trailers and the like it is perfectly good to use.

The Player:

So once we have some media on the device, just how good is it? We've been using the player now for around 2-3 months in daily use, which has allowed us to get a really good feel for the pro's and cons. In addition to this we have had the chance to go through many of the tasks that end users would also do such as upgrading the firmware. On the whole the player functions well, here are a few aspects which we really like about the unit:

Screen/Menus:

The 256K 128x128 color screen is a great feature, the menus feature animations, are easy to use and the screen can be seen clearly unless viewed in incredibly bright sunshine.

FM Radio:

There are times when out and about that the songs transferred onto the device might not cater for the mood of the listener, in the case of Super Talents MP3 player this is not a problem. Built into the device is an FM tuner which allows us to listen to radio broadcasts on the move, what's more it can also record the FM stream in MP3 format to play back later or transfer to another device.

Line In Recording:

One of the features we really found useful was line in recording. As an example, if there is a file or audio stream which the player doesn't support natively, we can plug in the line in/out cable to the speaker port on the PC, select line in from the players menu and hit record. This creates an MP3 with the streams content. We found it most useful for radio streams being listened to online, recording them to playback later was a breeze.

Player Downsides

The Super Talent Mega Screen Mp3 player isn't flawless, (it’s rare to find a device which is though) and when we were using the device we found a few minor niggles. The first is that you cannot change the volume when the player is not in play mode. So if listening to a MP3 which is relatively old/quiet and you turn the volume up if you then stop the album, select a newer track which has a higher default volume you end up getting your ears blasted off for a few seconds whilst you scramble to turn down the volume. As long as you remember to reduce the volume before stopping it isn't a big problem, just inconvenient.

The second issue we had in daily use was that the player can take a long time to charge (4 hours) via USB. Be very careful not to leave the screen active or it will take even longer. Another power related issue is that if you don't use the screensaver function and leave the screen on at all times you will be lucky to get 4 hours of music playback from the device. Setting the screensaver to turn on after a few seconds of inactivity fixed this issue and battery life increases to over 8 hours. (The screensaver brings up the time on the screen, orange text/black background).