Have you been bitten by the bug yet? The PMP bug? If not yet, then ladies and gentlemen, head straight to your cornerwallah e-store and check these cute little PMPs out (I was sent one to view).
Transcend?s T.sonic 840 personal multi-media player, combining a creamy white, mirror-like surface with a metallic body, will catch your attention for sure. The small but solid looking player stands smart in the company of iPods. In fact at just glance you may confuse it with iPod Shuffle.
The shining mirrored-front bezel has nothing but the display screen, rather smallish 1.8-inch colour TFT-LCD (176×220 pixels) screen. Though there is ample space for a bigger display screen, why it has not been utilised beats me. Had the free space been used to increase the length of the screen thus creating a wide-screen display of sorts for a better video viewing, the T.sonic 840 would have been a one of its kind PMP. The rear bezel is solid metal in shining steel finish with etched markings. The top panel has just three tiny holes for a very sensitive microphone and the lower panel has a socket each for 3.5mm headphone jack and mini-USB connector.
The two-way rocker switch for volume control and one-touch recording buttons are placed on the left panel. All the navigation functions are achieved by a three-way clickable jog wheel on the right hand panel of the player similar to the jog-dial on many Smart-phones. This jog-wheel is fun to use for fast-forwarding through songs and navigating menus.
Design and placement of all critical function buttons are such that they can easily be controlled by one hand.
The brilliantly designed graphic user interface menu displays, slides across the screen in full colour and can be selected by a flick of the jog wheel. The menus are user friendly, with attractive icons and labels.
The display screen, though small, is very bright and crisp, and is capable of reproducing life-like still and video images, even in bright sunlight.
The compact (82 mm?40.5 mm?12.5 mm) player weighs just 70gms including the rechargeable Li-ion battery and comes in 2GB (white) and 4GB (black) of flash memory storage.
Despite its unconventional looks and design, it sports all the features of conventional PMPs in its class. It plays MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10 audio formats and videos using the rather uncommon ?.mtv? format (the footage has to be converted into .mtv format using the supplied conversion software). Stills need to be in JPG and BMP format. The inbuilt FM radio is of high quality and can store 20 preset channels. The music from the FM radio can be directly recorded with the flick of the record button and stored in the player for future listening.
The T.sonic 840 can also double as a voice recorder par excellence with a built-in mic and voice activation detection system. The player can also be used to read e-books and other documents in TXT format.
Installing music on it is easy. Just connect it to the PC with the USB cable, select the audio files and drag and drop them in the music folder. Video reproduction is very sharp and bright with vivid colours and only a little trace of flickers, but the size of the screen spoils the impact and one gets tired soon peeping deep in to the small picture frame. The audio, though loud, lacks in depth specially the bass. Spoken words and high frequencies just about manage to reach the eardrums. But this is because of the earphones, the ones provided are a shame. Replace them with your own high-quality in-ear phones and the whole world changes.
So, for an MRP of Rs.6500, if you don?t expect too much from your PMP and spend a little extra on a decent pair of earphones, then T.sonic 840 can be an ideal companion for you.