The MP3 Players

You might not familiar with Teclast since it is maily appear in China mainland. The company is the first MP3 manufacturer that introduces dual core in MP3 players. Err0r has sent me his exclusive review on his Teclast T29 on the new Teclast fansite - Teclasters. The T29 is third generation of Teclast’s dual core MP3 player that powered by Korean’s Telechips TCC770 and UK’s Wolfson WM8750S

The Teclast T29 is a small, great looking and cheap player. It has all the regular functions required of modern digital audio players as well as some additional ones. A generous accessory pack is bundled with the player. A great piece of additional eye-candy is that the background “pulsates”, fades and un-fades.

It has some points that annoy me somewhat. First off, it displays a Unicode font (Courier?) – the type of English text you see when browsing Asian websites. Secondly, the slightly loose top button. Thirdly, the fact that the strap only can be attached to the pouch and not the player itself. Finally, the navigation can take some time to be understood and mastered.

The Teclast T29 is a great player. Good functions, good bundle of accessories, good sound and a nice exterior. Its small size makes it very portable and its cheap price makes it very affordable. Teclast are prompt with firmware updates. Just two days ago a new firmware was released for the T29 fixing some problems and improving navigation, making it more logical. If this continues, in some time some of my annoyances towards this player could be extinguished.

[ Read full review here ]

Thanks, Err0r!

SigmaTel has filed a lawsuit against the Korean based semiconductor company, Telechips. This lawsuit alleges that Telechips is infringing three SigmaTel patents.

The company has been successful in protecting its intellectual property in the past and continues to amass ammunition for that fight,” said Ron Edgerton, CEO and president of SigmaTel. “SigmaTel used two patents against Actions and is using three different ones against Telechips. Two of the three patents in the Telechips lawsuit issued in February 2006, and these are just the tip of the iceberg. We anticipate having up to another 100 MP3 related patents issuing over the foreseeable future. These patents will cover the semiconductor content and system architecture of MP3 players and similar devices.

Could the resignation of Actions Semiconductor’s founder, Zhao Guang Min relates to lawsuit with SigmaTel?

[Full story ]

EnzoTen of Anything But iPod has brought us an interesting review of his MobiBLU DHH-200. He gave a positive review on this Microdirve based MP3 player, except some dissapointments on user interface, iJoy Wheel navigation and audio in video playback.

I really love the size of the DHH-200. It is a great size for an 8GB MP3 player, making it small enough to fit in your pocket but big enough to comfortably use it. This player will appeal to those who love features, as this MobiBLU has plenty. This player also does very well at recording and encoding. Overall it is a decent player and should be considerd if you are looking for a Microdirve based MP3 player.

However, what I’m more interested is that EnzoTen has opened his new DHH-200 and shown us the components inside!

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Most of the Korean prefer made in Korea in any kind of stuffs, even a small component insides MP3 players. Because of this strong sense of nationalism, they come out with a reputable brand, Telechips, in the digital audio player industry.

Generally, its position is between Sigmatel and Philips‘ decoders. It has better sound quality than Sigmatel and yet it can still maintain lower price than Philips. Due to the stragegic position, Telechips has the supports from many Korean manufacturers, such as DATUM, DEC, WEWA, and so on. Thus, it makes Telechips a reputable brand in the industry.

The most common model of Telechips’ solution is TCC73x series.

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