The Player



Moving to the player, we see a very sleek and slim design. The dark coloring with the shiny plastic exterior has a very appealing look that will make others take note. It also has a startlingly small footprint measuring in at only 3” x 1.75” x 5/8” in overall size. This works out to 76mm x 45mm x 16mm for those more accustomed to the metric system of measurement. It is also incredibly lightweight, weighing in at a meager 44 grams (that is less than 2 ounces). It weighs less than a pair of standard AA sized rechargeable batteries and this includes a Lithium Ion battery housed inside the unit. You can toss it into a pocket and it won’t be a problem at all.

As for the compatibility of the device, it officially supports WMA and MP3 audio formats as well as its proprietary SMV video format. While I’m not generally a huge fan of proprietary formats, the inclusion of a conversion utility that handles the most popular video files makes this an acceptable practice. As we will cover in a bit, I was able to easily convert both AVI and MPG files into the format required for this player with few issues and they worked well.

Of course, the MP4 F610 does far more than just play a few movies and songs. It also works as a FM radio tuner, a voice recorder, and also allows you to use it as a picture viewer. If this still isn’t enough for you, the player works as a standard USB 2.0 digital data storage device if you just want some extra space to carry those important files. With sizes available from 512MB to 2GB, there is even some flexibility with regards to storage space.



As mentioned earlier, this device allows for video playback of your files. To handle this task you are given a 1.5” square OLED display area that is 128x128 pixels in size and is capable of handling 262,000 colors. Not too shabby for a small device that easily fits into a pocket.

I took some photographs in a variety of resolutions of the display in action, but the modern digital camera picks up the individual pixels far better than the human eye does and they simply do no justice to the display of this device. Picture quality was very good for a viewer of this size and it even did a good job with dark scenes, allowing you to make out the action under less than optimal lighting situations.



Moving down to the bottom half of the player shows us a small control pad that lets you scroll through the different player menus. It also allows you to pause and play your media files, similar to many software applications that are readily available. The center button acts as an “OK” or “ENTER” button.



Turning the device to the left side shows the volume control and the earphone jack. Again, if you don’t care for the in-the-ear type of device, you can use any industry standard set of earphones or headphones with ease.



Flipping over to the other side shows the menu access button and the covered port for the USB cable. Nothing fancy, just a simple interface that seemed to work very well during testing.



On the top edge of the MP4 F610 are the main power button and a locking toggle. This toggle allows you to lock out the controls to keep from accidentally stopping your player when in use. This can be very handy if you are listening to a selection of songs with the player in your pocket. It prevents the device from accidentally turning off when you are using it. You can also see along the top edge of the front of the panel the microphone.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, lets start converting some media and seeing how well this little toy works!