New Teclast T29 4GB Player Review
Dual Core,Dual Memory (1GB-2GB-4GB),2.0 inch TFT,Xvid .avi Video.
First thanks to
www.houseofdap.com for sending me the player to test drive. The Teclast T29 really is a step in the right direction for Chinese MP4 players with top of the range features for little more than the standard ChiPod price.
The specifications are impressive Dual Processors, 2.0inch TFT and twin memory chips providing 1GB, 2GB and yes 4GB(2x2GB) sizes are available. The full specs I will outline at the end so let's get down and dirty and see what all this means as far as the user goes.
The Package:
The T29 comes well kitted out with accessories, the package includes wall Charger, USB connection cord, Audio in\out lead, good quality earphones with 2 sets of foam covers and a lead clip, slip case, carry strap, cleaning cloth and CD\Manual pack (Only in Chinese at present). Protective silicon covers are also available.
The Layout and Controls:
The main control is the 4 way joystick for navigation and press down for selection. 2 buttons on the top with short and long press functions, Play\Pause-On\Off and A-B\Record. On the right side is the USB\Charger connection point and the mic and player reset point, the bottom edge has the earphone jack.
The joystick takes a little getting used to and I initially found myself going everywhere but where I wanted but after a few hours my aim was greatly improved.
The TFT screen takes up 2\3 of the players front and the joystick is surrounded by a red ring that briefly illuminates when pressed. The screen quality is good with little viewing angle distortion and a generous contrast setting.
When I first saw images of the players red colour theme I was not to sure about it but the graphics are well designed, clear and crisp and the colour is quite easy on the eyes. The main menu has a wave effect background that gently pulses which is nifty. The white text on dark background is easy to read but it is time we saw some new fonts, Courier is a little dated.
The Music:
I mentioned that the T29 was dual core, the main control chip is a Telechips TCC770 and the audio is handled by a Wolfson WM8750S
which delivers some nice features. There are 5 standard audio settings Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classic and Pop and 2 personal settings.
There are a couple of bass and treble boosting effects and Stone-3D for virtual surround sound. The sound is impressive and with an additional 5 channel graphic equalizer there are endless possiblities. I found some of the bass enhancement settings a little much but that may be because I was using Seinhaussen CX300 in ear earphones which are already bass enriched.
Another nice feature is the ability to use other features like games, text reader, photo viewer etc while the music is playing. You can also browse for your next track while the music is playing.
Formats Mp3, ogg, and flac. The flac sample is encoded at 1411kbps and delivers beautiful clarity.
The rechargable lithium polymer battery is rated 12 hours continuous music play.
The Video:
Video format is xvid .avi 220x176 resolution 16fps. There is some conversion software on the CD but it is all in Chinese. After a few hours of conversion experimenting with VirtualDub I managed to find settings that worked well and gave me good image and audio quality as well as excellent compression. My conversion of iRobot finished up at 423MB for 1 hour 40 minutes of run time. If you need the settings pm me and I will email you the profile. The picture is bright and sharp with good saturation.
The Other features:
Picture Viewer supports thumbnail browsing and pressing the A\B-Record button while viewing pictures enables zoom.You can also set photos as wallpaper but I did not find any way to change font colour so only darker images are usable with the white text.
FM Radio, I have to admit I was impressed with the radio feature this is the first player I have had that the radio picked up multiple stations with clarity. Pressing the on\off button toggles between manual scan and channel select.
eBook feature is easy to read and much improved allowing you to bookmark your position for quick access later on. You can also set the page to automatically change at set intervals.
Calendar is standard but unfortunatly the days of the week only seem to support the Chinese language.
Record function through built in mic, from radio or line in. The line in feature will record to MP3 format up to 192kbps.
Games include Russian Diamonds (Tetris) and Wu Zi Lian Zhu (your guess is as good as mine)
File browser, enables you to browse all files on the player and rec button toggles for delete option.
Dictionary
Firmware is upgradable and is done by placing the firmware files in the root directory and rebooting the player. The firmware is then loaded automatically. I upgraded the player to the latest version with no problems.
Summary:
Pros: The Teclast T29 comes with a full compliment of acessories, and is built with quality components. The controls take a little getting used to but once mastered work well. Music is full crisp and clear and there are an abundance of audio settings and effects to tweak to your own personal taste. Video is sharp and smooth with good audio quality and once setup conversion is quick and easy with VirtualDub. FM Radio function works well bringing in clear reception. Thumbnail preview and zoom in the picture browser are nice features. Firmware is constantly being improved and upgraded. The T29 is definatly excellent value for money with features only found in more expensive players for only $20-$30 more than a chiPod.
Cons: Chinese only manual means you have to work out how to use a lot of the players features through trial and error. As the player becomes available outside of China we may start seeing more customising to English and other languages.
The Hardware:
Control Chip: Telechips TCC770
Audio Chip: Wolfson WM8750S
Capacity: 4GB/2GB/1GB
Measurements: 73.5 x 42.1 x 9.8mm
Features:
High-speed USB 2.0 Support
Embedded battery: lithium polymer battery / Plays music for 12 hours
MIC/LINE-IN recording methods
Display: 2.0-inch 262K color TFT color LCD, 176 x 220 pixels
Supports: MP3, OGG (Q-1~Q10), FLAC
Video types: AVI, MPEG4, Xvid (conversion software required)
Photobrowsing support: BMP, JPEG and GIF format photos, and supports zoom in/out
Menu languages: simplified Chinese, English, Traditional Chinese
Supports lyrics 1X-5X 2x rolling
Stone-3D hardware support for 3D sound effects (Sound Enhancement)
EQ equalizer set up two self-definition music, sound effects /RBS QBS around the surrounding sound effects, 3D sound support and overweight bass-conditioning market
Broadcast modes: normal, random repeat, all repeat, random, play contents
Supports five sound effects
Reads ID3-tags
Support high-speed music search 1X-5X
Recording: 32K~192K MP3 audio quality
Other: Power, sleep timer, shut down automatically, Calendar, Clock, Document Classification, Document Management, FM / recording
functions, customized preset 30 channels, TXT text read function, Firmware upgrade
Teclast web site
http://www.teclast.com/t29/index.html 
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When I purchased a 4GB Meizu M6, Tomasz kindly included the 1GB Teclast T29 to test drive with the option to purchase it at cost or return to him.
