Eurone MP899

The sound quality of the player is—surprisingly—not below par and doesn’t remind you of the cheap 50-buck FM radios that you can buy from the train stations. The included earphones don’t sound like rubbish, though the low frequencies are a little low in response. Two problems here. The earphone slot is on the side of the player, so it’s a little inconvenient to let it slide into your pocket like you can the Nano. The other problem is that the earphones are 2.5mm mini-jacks, so you can’t just buy a better pair and stick them in. You do get 2.5mm earphones, but just not as readily as 3.5mm ones. Anyway, if you’re actually going to spend more on a better pair of earphones, don’t you think you should spend a little more on a better MP3 player?

The fake Nano connects to your PC or Mac via USB 2.0 and doesn’t need any special software to add music or photos—you can just drag and drop. The movies need to be converted to AMV using the included software converter, and the phone book also needs to be created and saved using the 'TelphoneBook' application. The player also recharges its internal (non-replaceable) battery via USB. It also comes with a travel charger, in case you’re out on a trip without a laptop. It lasted for around 3.5 hours of music playback, during which it didn’t dim or turn off the screen at all. I did fiddle around with it a little bit, so if you just let it play undisturbed, you might—just might—be able to get around four hours from it. Not too great, but I think it’s fine for the price.

There’s something even more entertaining than the player in the box—the user’s manual. A direct literal translation from a Chinese source (I guess), certainly done using a very bad software text translator, the manual is filled with precious gems like "The battery is low to give or get an electric shock."

If you’re going to buy this player, I suggest you don’t let the battery run out.