Customer Reviews

Mach Speed Trio Touch Screen 8GB MP3 and MP4 Video Player (Black)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

My teenage stepson wanted a new mp3 player and saved up his own money for it. He wanted my opinion on three that he had narrowed down to. The Trio was one of them. After reading the only previously posted review he was a bit leery, but after I read the review it was clear to me that the reviewer's disappointment came from the wrong expectations and it was worth trying. A simple 5 minute research on this product proved that it was all we wanted, and nothing the previous reviewer wanted. We ordered one and are very glad that we did!. The 4.3 " screen is nice and big, and crystal clear. Keep in mind this is a MEDIA PLAYER, and that is what you get. If you are looking for a stop watch, or a scientific calculator, or even a PDA to load additional software on, then buy one of those items. Which brings me to my next point, the reason the Ebook feature doesn't read PDF files is because PDF's are Adobe proprietary formats and require Adobe reader. The two headphone jack was appealing to my stepson as he and his little sister could watch a movie together on an upcoming flight, and this is exactly what they did. We loaded all his MP3's on to the Trio as well as 5 movies and they all played flawlessly. In short, someone's lack of research doesn't mean the product is faulty. I've ordered a Trio for myself to replace my Ipod Nano, and will be ordering at least 2 more for gifts. At this price this is a great buy!!!

(Note: I am using firmware version 1.1 at the time of this review).

I have been through many portable media players in the past (including an Archos 3, Onda VX787, and a Philips SA6145), although none have impressed me as much as this Mach Speed Trio. I purchased this player brand new and was unsure of what to expect; I had seen a video review and read many reviews here, but there was no solid review about this player. That is, until, now. This player, model number TCH-843D, came in the mail yesterday and I opened it immediately. It comes inside a hard, plastic case, one that is common for most electronic devices. Inside was a box containing the player itself and the multitude of accessories. We'll start here.

Inside the box is the player, protected with two plastic overlay sheets, and many accessories, including the manual, earbuds, USB cable, charger, stylus, and a stand. The manual is a small 3 x 4 inch booklet that contains pretty much everything you need to know. A charger (adapter) is also included that uses the included USB cord to connect to the wall. When plugged in, the adapter lights green, but when charging, it lights red. The stylus is a small, silver tool that works very well, and is surprisingly the exact same one that was included with my Onda. The stand is great; it's a small little plastic thing that clamps onto the middle of the player and has a small little kickstand to let the player stand when watching a movie on a table. The stand also has a little opening to place the stylus so that you won't lose it. Nice touch!

Now, onto the player itself. This Trio from Mach Speed looked surprisingly small, because the screen is nice and large (4.3") and makes the player look tiny. However, the player is surprisingly heavy, likely due to the steel back that gives the player a better feel in your hand. All sides are free of openings except the right side, which houses the power switch, MicroSD slot, USB slot, and two headphone slots, so two sets of earphones can be connected. Nice touch! On the back of the player, we are greeted with the word "Trio" and a serial number on the bottom. On the bottom, right-hand side of the player's back, there is an external speaker which sounds surprisingly good. On a side note, this player internal drive has 8GB of storage space, so you might want to grab that MicroSD card out of your pocket and use it here. This is a touch screen player, and the touch screen, shockingly, is amazingly responsive and surpasses my old Onda and definitely excels my old Archos 3.

When turning the player on, we see a welcome screen and are immediately taken to the main menu. Here, we see the time and battery on the top right-hand side. The main menu itself consists of ten buttons with an icon for each one: Music, Movies, Desktop, Calculator, Photo, eBook, Record, Other Function, Explorer, and Settings. Although most are pretty self explanatory, I'll explain each one anyway.

The Music icon takes you the option list, on whether to sort by All Music, or by Artist, Album, Genre or Favorites. Music playback is good, supporting MP3, WMA, FLAC and APE. Music is listed alphabetically, and when a song is selected, we are taken to the music playback screen. Unfortunately, this player does not support album art. The Movie icon takes you to the list of video files you have on your player. File types supported are AVI, RM, RMVB, FLV, DAT, and WMV. However, MP4 is not supported; you have been warned! Folders are supported on this player, so if you have many TV shows, you can organize them each in a specific folder. But like I said before, this player has only 8GB of storage space, so be prepared to expand. Video quality is amazing and I am very much impressed.

The Desktop icon allows you to choose from 8 different backgrounds all of which are pretty cool. However, I noticed that this player is somewhat dark, even with brightness at its highest level. However, tilting the player upside will improve the brightness level.

The Calculator icon is a simple calculator. The Photo icon takes you to your photos, which supports JPEG, BMP, and GIF photos. However, photos take at least 5 seconds to load, which is quite a while. Perhaps a firmware update can fix this. The eBook icon allows you to read TXT files, and they look pretty nice. The Record icon allows you to record either low or high bit rate WAV files. The Other Function icon takes you to a list of either the Stopwatch or World Time features. The stopwatch sucks and stops a full second to stop after you press the stop button. The World Time feature is pretty cool though. The Explorer icon allows you to view the entire hierarchy of files on your player so you can choose whatever you want to view. And lastly, the Settings icon takes you to a variety of personalization options, including a wide variety of languages.

So, here are my top Pro's and Con's:

Pros:

Great build quality.

Good amount of clever accessories not found in other players.

Amazing video quality.

Dual headphone jacks.

MicroSD expansion slot.

Many settings available.

A lot of cool features to this player.

Amazingly responsive touch screen.

External speaker.

Great value for under $70.

Cons:

NO radio, surprisingly; not even FM.

Dim, not-too-bright screen.

Doesn't play MP4 files.

The software is kind of cheap, unfortunately, with the Menus somewhat substandard. This is especially true for the Settings menus.

Battery life is only average.

Included earphones aren't too great.

Overall, 4.8 stars, rounded up to 5. This is an amazing player that I wish had bought a lot sooner. I would recommend this player to anyone, and for only $70, it's an amazing value. I hope to keep this player for many years to come.

P.S. I noticed many negative reviews on this player based on things that aren't even about this player's functionality (ex. the screen arrived damaged, the player wouldn't turn on when I received it, etc). Well, I have some news: get a player that actually works and then post a review. I think a "DUH" is in order here. But seriously, please ignore these reviews. This player is great and completely exceeded all of my expectations.

UPDATE July 18, 2010:

I have realized a slight error during video playback that has occurred on many of the videos I have on this player. For all of the videos I have with an image size of 640 x 480 pixels, the image resizes incorrectly. There is a feature on this player that allows you to stretch your video to fill the entire screen, or maintain it at its original aspect ratio. However, instead of keeping at its original size like the videos are supposed to be, it cuts of the top and bottom of the footage. The footage cut off reappears when the footage is stretched to fill the screen, but not when at its original aspect ration of 4 x 3. This hardly hinders my regard for the player, but is slightly annoying nevertheless.

Furthermore, I have discovered that the reason why the screen is so dark is because this player doesn't take glare from light very well at all. When in a dark room, my Trio is as bright and colorful as should be, but whenever in the light, even at the smallest amount, the screen darkens and the colors become more and more dull.

Those who think this is a great player may not have a really good one to compare it

to.

I own a PSP 4.3" screen and a Creative Zen Vision Wide 4.3".

With the very same video file loaded and played back side by side, it is obvious

the Mach Speed Trio is not in the same class in performance.

In the compairison the lcd screen is much darker even with the brightness setting

at its highest.

The video playback is choppy/jittery, it looks like skipping.

I agree with the other review the software is like one of those chinese Ipod

knockoffs, cheesy/generic.

Yes its lower priced then some of the other high end ones, but Iv'e seen better

video on some less expensive ones.

To me its a $90 mp3 player because I don't want to strain my eyes watching videos

on this.

The cartoons preloaded dont look as bad as movie video because there's no shadows

and dark places in cartoons, just bright colors.

Shop and compare in person some players in a store before buying this.

Oh, and the manual specs say there is an FM tuner.

Not one that I can find.

I was looking for a video player for under $125, and found this at a local electronics store. While the price is great, the player itself, unfortunately, isn't quite up to what I was expecting.

The first thing you'll probably notice is that the screen is huge compared to the average MP3 player, so that's definitely a plus. The unit is also heavy, which may be a pro or con, depending on your needs. Unfortunately (and this is my principle reason for returning it), unless you're in a dark room and have it tilted at a specific angle, the video is exceptionally dark, almost to the point of being unviewable. Furthermore, I'm not sure what the FPS on this model is, but all the video I saw was choppy (I tested on 4 separate videos). The sound was loud enough and fine for me, but I'm not exactly an audiophile, so your mileage may vary. I can't really speak about the other included apps because I never got a chance to use them.

Ultimately, if you don't have a lot of money to spend, and don't mind that you'll probably have to hold the item at an angle, in a dark room, to clearly see the video, then the Trio isn't a terrible choice. I intend to use mine at the gym, so I need something with a better viewing angle and brightness (I've decided to instead go with the Nationite OS-72).

I found this MP3 player on sale at an FYE store in my local mall for $70. Since my job requires that I spend long periods of time in a moving vehicle, I decided to buy it and have been quite satisfied with its playback of MP3s. The sound quality is great when put through a car stereo or headphones, however the built-in speaker is very rudimentary. You can tailor the sound quality to your liking with the Trio's on-board equalizer. I found that particular feature to be very useful. Another nice addition is the micro SD/transflash slot on the side. Since I already have an 8GB micro SD card, I was able to double the unit's storage capacity without any additional investment.

Overall, the touch screen quality is okay. Being a sub-$100 8GB media player with a 4.3" touch screen, I wasn't expecting an iPod Touch. If you're planning on using the Trio primarily for picture viewing or watching videos, you might want to invest in a higher-end unit. It's not that the video quality is horrible, but it is certainly far from being the sharpest playback I've seen. My pictures seem to load rather slowly, though I didn't spend much time exploring that feature.

From a connectivity standpoint, I was impressed by the Trio. There is no software to install -- just plug it into your computer's USB port then drag-and-drop your media files. I have a new machine running Windows 7 and experienced absolutely no difficulties in getting all my files to transfer. Windows Explorer treats this media player simply as a removable drive, though the instruction manual claims you can use Windows Media Player to sync your library via that program.

For the money, this was a great purchase. Since my only real use for the Trio is playing MP3s, I'm not too bothered by the unexceptional video/picture viewing capabilities. The calculator, voice recorder, stopwatch, and eBook features are nice add-ons...though I doubt those applications will get much use. Having an 8GB media player that is easily expandable via the micro SD slot is a huge selling point for music enthusiasts. The overall quality of MP3 playback and equalizing capabilities make the Trio a good value in the sub-$100 portable media player category.

My husband and I bought this for one of our teen-age daughter's Christmas gifts. She loves these types of things and is usually VERY picky with her electronics. She also usually doesn't stay happy for very long with her gadgets, this is not the case with this gift... She STILL LOVES this player!! It is like carrying around a mini-flat screen tv that plays everything and anything!! It has AMAZING sound and video quality and has worked perfectly so far for her in every way! It also plays mp3's and holds tons of memory! It is classy looking and doesn't look cheap like so many players do now. She LOVES it and I'm VERY happy with it thus far!

This PMP is one amazing. A touchscreen for $80? I thought that it might not work the best. But guess what? It does! Yes it is a little insensitive. But I don't think its that bad. And you can't expect it to be perfect!All in all I: LOVE IT! Plus it comes with free songs! One of the best mp3 players I have ever seen.

Let's not compare apples to oranges...This is not an Ipod; however, for the price you can't get a better product. How much Ipod can you get for $60? Not a 4.3'' touch screen.

I give the Mach Speed Trio Touch 2 thumbs up!

I bought this as a Christmas pressent for my wife. The unit had to be continuely recharged. Then the screen froze and the unit is now un-useable and being returned to Amazon.

We purchased this item for our son to watch his educational program videos and listen to his audio program files. We are exceptionally pleased with this item. Additionally, being technically challenged and fearful of the learning curve, we contacted technical support to help us get up to speed. We were able to immediately be connected with a live person who was both courteous, patient, and extremely helpful.

Since then we have been using this Trio and have not had any trouble with it whatsoever. We love it, he loves it, his big sister loves it. In the future we will definitely go with this company because of the quality product and exceptional customer support. We absolutely recommend it without reservation.

Christmas is coming up and we are in the market for a couple of other MP3/media players as gifts. You can bet that Mach Speed products will have first dibs on our hard earned dollars!