Customer Reviews

Transcend T.sonic 850 8 GB Video MP3 Player (Black)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this player about a month ago and use it every day. It has all the features I looked for after shopping around for about two weeks. The display is crystal clear with very good definition. What sold me on it was the fact that it has a customizable EQ, a GOOD radio, easy to use controls that are rugged and have a solid feel. The file system is great, so you can set up your folders to find what you want when you want. The sound is truly amazing! You can't do better for the money!

The Transcend T Sonic 850 8 GB Video MP3 Player (Black) is fully loaded with features in an all metal, compact body. Combined with an attractive mirrored finish, this power packed dynamo offers a brilliant multi-line display via a 1.8" high resolution LCD/TFT screen. The image quality is quite vivid and well framed without distortion. Coming out of the box, I would highly recommend immediate laminate protection to keep the front of the device free of scratches.

Navigation is primarily through the on board 3 phase wheel control which easily allows access from one function to the other. As with all MP3 systems and depending totally on the area of reception, the FM radio has been kind of hit and miss. With the help of the customizable equalizer, music downloads are surprisingly crisp.

The T Sonic 850 brings a lot of bang for the buck with these key features;

- FM Recorder

- Video Player (.mtv)

- E Book Reader (txt.)

- Digital Voice Recorder

- Customizable Equalizer

- Preset 20 Station FM Tuner

- Photo Album (jpg/bmp format)

- Karaoke Style Lyrics Display

- Real Time Clock (Displays local & world time)

- Music Player (MP3,WMA,WAV,WMA-DRM10) formats

- 13 Language User Support (For Song/Artist Display)

Whether you're a Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows user, this device is compatible to all three operating systems. For music service subscribers, its a no go with Napster but operates with some hiccups included with Rhapsody. While it does download music files in their entirety, one glaring issue that keeps the Tsonic 850 from receiving a 5 star rating is that it does not download play lists.

The sweetest feature is the voice-activated recorder. It gets high marks on the Cool Meter for it will automatically begin recording when it registers a sound and pause itself when it can't detect noise. In a quiet space it is one gem of a feature.

Powered by a rechargeable Li-ion battery, non stop music play logged in at a little over 20 hours. So much for the 30 hour lifespan. Accessories include the industry standard but comfortable earphones, neck lanyard, mini USB type A cable, zip string carrying bag and software CD.

Overall, the Transcend T Sonic 850 8GB MP3 Player is a cornucopia of features that value conscious shoppers will find hard to resist. However, with its inability to format and deliver playlists its three stars at best.

This is a great product. The only downside i have found is that there is only a single play list. There is no way to select just certain songs/artists. Other than that I would highly recommend this product.

Transcend has really done a nice job in creating a small mp3 player with a good amount of both memory and features. The things I like and dislike about the 850 are all really just preferences, as there are no real "problems" with it at all. Transcend might not be a well-known brand, but I highly recommend the T.sonic 850.

Pros:
1)Price. You can't beat this amount of quality/features for this price.
2)Battery. Has a good battery life, but even better is that it will fit my cell charger (Motorola Razr)!
3)Solid build. It's very light, durable, and even comes with a protective sheath. It's also small enough to not take up your whole pocket but big enough to get a comfortable grip on it. All the buttons feel sturdy and well made.
4)Features. It's got music, video, radio, voice recording, photos, and a text reader. The music has very good highs and mids. I don't have great headphones yet so I'm not sure how the base is. It does have customizable EQ though. The video is OK, but if you want something this size you really can't be too concerned about video. The radio gets decent reception and has plenty of presets. The voice recorder seems good though I haven't really tried it out. The picture viewer works fine and has zoom. The text reader only reads .txt files and wraps words to fit them on the screen, but it's still a great feature that many players like this don't have. It reads in 3 font sizes.
5)Easy to use. It only takes a few trys to learn the buttons, which all have sensible functions.
6)Interface. Some people might be turned off by its simplicity but I like it. Parts of it are purposefully retro (I think).

Cons:
1)Earphones. They're passable in sound quality but aren't comfortable at all.
2)Can't listen to music while reading text.
3)Can't customize the interface.
4)Doesn't show album art.

If you are a PC person like me, this player has some nice qualities. Nothing against Apple (I even own their stock), but iTunes is not where I shop for music, mainly because I want the ability to drag and drop music onto a player or sync it with a program. If you rip a lot of tracks from your CD collection, your gonna like this player.

Right after I checked to see if everything worked, I started off my test of the player by updating the firmware. A firmware upgrade will erase everything you have stored or settings you have changed on the player; hence, it is a good idea to knock it out before you poke around too much. The first thing I really liked about the player is that as soon as I plugged it in to my PC via mini-USB, it showed up as a mass storage device in Windows and I could drag and drop to the device without any additional software. I both created folders on the device and dragged nested folders with music and picture files. They all showed up in the interface (music player or picture viewer) without a hitch no matter where I placed them in the file tree. The file tree is displayed one level at a time but, as long as you don't get too carried away, navigation is straight forward and easy. Then, I used Windows Media Player to sync the device with all of my music files. Once again, everything went off without a hitch. The device showed up in the player and I hit the sync button. It was that easy.

Next, I converted and loaded some AVI files to check the video playback. The unit only plays MTV files so you will need to convert everything to play it. The conversion interface is simple and easy. Loading the player is drag and drop. But, lets face it, watching anything on a screen less than two inches has limitations. It is fun for showing baby footage or something from your cell phone camera from the last hockey game you went to. That is about it for me.

Finally, I took it to the gym for a test drive to see how well it held up in real life.

In a nut shell, I liked:
- The drag and drop capability from any PC without additional software
- The easy sync with Windows Media Player (if you choose to)
- The ability to use it as a BIG portable storage device for any file type
- The in recorder function has good quality and records from the FM receiver built into the player. It is also voice activated
- It comes with a protective silicon cover
- It is very light
- The display is well laid out and easy to read
- Navigation is easy, even while exercising
- The supplied headphones are good. I have never heard really good headphones supplied standard with a player, though

I did not like:
- The only supplied charging option is via your PC
- The supplied neck strap is not very practical. An arm band would be better
- The supplied headphones could not compete with the sound at the gym. The excessive ambient noise ruined the listening experience

All in all, the player is not perfect. However, the good qualities combined with the price make it a compelling buy.

Once you get the hang of it this is wonderful. I love it. I charge it, download music, and I am off. I exercise everyday and it keeps me going. Well worth the money and the amount of space I have only one-fourth of it used up. Highly recommend this product!

I bought this player a month ago, and so far love it. Benefits: Easy to use. Plug-and-Play with no setup on PC. Coes with protective cover. Smaller than a credit card. Negatives: A little difficult to use with Windows Media Player's or Rhapsody's digital rights protected files. The instruction manual provides a work-around for it, but a bit troublesome if you have a library mix-and-matched with protected/non protected files.

Otherwise...I think this player is a GREAT buy for the money. I am fairly new to the portable music thing, so this player holds my whole library of music, and still has plenty of space left for use as a flash drive.

The Transcend T.sonic mp3 player is a great gadget for the price. It does everything it says it does and does it well. The audio quality is pretty good, and the voice recorder works great. For the money I do not know of a superior product. The only feature I did not bother with was the e-book reader as I can't imagine trying to read a book on something about the size of two postage stamps.
The device comes with it's own case, and neck strap and once again for the price it is a terrific bargain. My only complaint with the product is the difficulty in navigation when trying to select amongst files. I guess my iPod has spoiled me, but this seemed a slightly annoying task and one I can't imagine trying to undertake while driving. And as others have emphasized you can select the song you want, and it's not true that this won't play audio books, perhaps the other reviewer simply did not have the audio book in a compatible format.

The Transcend T.sonic 850 media player is a very affordable option for people who aren't looking for the most stylish design and who aren't hung up on using the ideal file formats. This makes it a great gift as the first media player for a young person.

The affordability colors expectations for the player - it's far from perfect in many regards, but the sheer amount of functionality that you get for less than half the cost of any comparable unit is what makes it worth seriously considering.

BUILD

The T.sonic 850 is thicker than any iPod yet thinner than most flip phones. It is as compact as possible while still holding its 1.8" screen and navigation buttons below. It has a solid feel except the face buttons have a looseness to them that hopefully won't get worse with time. The screen itself is a very nice display: sharp with nice color and contrast.

PERFORMANCE

The T.sonic 850 only handles a small variety of file formats: MP3 or WMA for audio (and even then, it needs to be pretty heavily compressed or else the player can't decode it) and some proprietary .mtv format for video. You need to use included software to convert your video files to readable .mtv format. This is a real downside because the hassle greatly diminishes one of the player's strongest attributes: the great-looking screen. You can also put pictures or text files/ebooks on the unit, although the screen size argues against using the latter.

With that said about the compressed audio files, I was pleasantly surprised by the sound fidelity that the unit gave, especially given how underwhelming the included earbuds felt out of the box. Using the "rock" equalizer, I got treble that was crisp without being too bright or harsh. Bass was minimal, but that's to be expected with almost any earbud design. Busy songs had good definition between instruments; however, quieter, acoustic pieces showed the limitations of the MP3 compression. Overall, I was impressed with the clarity of the sound.

Navigating through the player's menus is simple and intuitive. The display shows music and video files in simple text lists - nothing fancy, but it works. When music is playing, you see the (hyper) equalizer display. Once this novelty wears off, you'll wish that there was a way to turn this off in order to conserve battery life.

Moving content to/from the player is very easy and I appreciated that it required no additional software (aside from converting videos). When you plug the player into your PC, it appears as a detachable USB drive, letting you move files onto it via Windows Explorer.

The unit comes packaged with a nice array of simple, baseline accessories - a silicone case (similar to the Wii remote jacket), a USB charge/sync cable, a neckstrap and the earbuds. All of this further makes the case that the T.sonic 850 would make an excellent all-in-one gift for the right person.

PROS
* Lots of functionality for such a low cost
* Ease of operation
* Surprisingly good audio fidelity

CONS
* Restrictions about file formats supported, especially for video
* Unit must be charged by a computer via USB

CONCLUSION
For the right consumer, the Transcend T.sonic 850 could be the ideal media player. If you're not fixated on perfect, lossless audio and your library is already in MP3 or WMA formats, then it's a great unit. The unbelievably low cost just makes it an even better option. If you plan on using it to play video, just be aware that you'll be spending some time converting your existing files to a format that the reader can process.

Of all places, while wandering around a Walgreens, which is the equivalent of a Rite-Aid, Sav-on or Thrifty, I saw a bunch of these against a back wall not getting much attention. So, I scratched my head and headed over to read the packaging.

I saw several different models of this and they were all on sale for at least twenty-percent off.

The drag and drop feature of all file types is a great feature. Being able to use it without any additional software was also cool. I didn't bother with the cheap headphones that come with it nor did I even mess with the lanyard which hit the trash, so I definitely have no complaints.

8 GB's is a lot of space for the value, especially when so many companies are vying for your money for the next biggest thing.

This is no iPod killer, but I'm not ashamed to use it by any means and navigating the menus are a breeze. I bought several of these and gave them away as presents which every one loved.

Fantastic and very simple MP3 player.

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