Jens of Sweden MP-500 – review
We’re proud to present the world’s first review of the new feature packed credit card sized audio & video player MP-500 from Jens of Sweden. Pictures and video inside.
The new Jens of Sweden MP-500 is a real eye-catcher. It looks good and is packed with functionality. Before I unpacked the player I had read that it was small, but I weren’t expecting it to be that small.
When you read the list of features you probably will be quite impressed: Video playback, FM radio, line-in recording capabilities, dictaphone recording with built-in microphone, USB host mode which makes it possible to plug your camera to it, watch with alarm, photo viewer, text viewer. Phew, as you can see this player is packed with goodies.
Unpacking the player
Inside the box you’ll find the player – and nothing else. No manual. No USB cable Apparently there is supposed to be a USB cable in the box. Nothing more than the player. In my review kit I got the a bit more than comes with the player ( Koss Portapro headphones, charger, manual and a wiping cloth). But if you already got headphones and a USB cable – you don’t really need another pair, so that’s good thinking from Jens of Sweden.
When you turn on the player for the first time, you get to see a short video sequence of an animated Jens of Sweden logotype. This was cool the first two or three times you turned the player on – but just wait until you switch it on for the 100th time, I don’t think it’s possible to skip it.
As soon as you plug the player into your computer – using a standard USB cable – you’ll find the manual as a PDF-file, a MP3-song, a music video and a couple of images. My player was fully charged so I could instantly start playing with the MP-500.
Filling up the player with albums and songs is very straight forward. Just drag and drop the files you want to download to the player and they’re get transfered. Nothing to complain about here – transfer speed is fast. A typical MP3 album of 75MB is transfered in about 20 seconds or so.
Using the player
The user interface and menu system of the MP-500 is bad. Nothing is intuitive, and the first hour with the player is a struggle! To be able to use a MP3-player properly, you really shouldn’t be forced to read the manual and LEARN things to get going. The main problem is that they seem to have combined three different menu systems, one file browsing menu, one configuration menu and some kind of main menu. Compared to an iPod, the menu system is complicated and difficult. And no, it ain’t just me – I had a few friends play around with the menus just to hear their spontaneous comments. They were of the same opinion – the user interface simply isn’t top notch. “Complicated”, “How do I…”.
I’d love to see a firmware upgrade with a re-built menu system. The current one is quite a pain to use.
Video capabilities
I have recorded a short sequence below where you can see the video capabilities of the MP-500. The screen resolution is 128 x 128 pixles and the screen size is 1.6″ capable of displaying 262 000 colors. When you want to see a video on your MP-500, you need to get through the first obstacle – the encoding process. Forget just draggin and dropping your favorite Xvid, MPEG or DivX files – you have to encode them using a software tool that can be downloaded for free from Jens of Sweden’s homepage. With my quite fast Pentium 4 3.2GHz PC it took roughly 45 minutes to encode 45 minutes of Xvid material. So if you want to stack a whole season of your favorite TV show in the MP-500, be sure to to plan ahead.
Check out this video to see it in action:
One hour of encoded video (setting high quality) takes roughly 100MB of your storage, so having a movie or two on your player will still leave you plenty of room for music and pictures. One good thing is that you can encode your video with subtitles (just place a .srt-file in the same directory as your video file, and start the encoding).
One bad thing is that I wasn’t able to encode NTSC videos to my player (no Lost, no Prison Break or other american 29.997 23.997 frames per second videos) with the current version of the JoS transcoder – but hopefully this is just a bug that will be taken care of in coming versions. It seems to be a frame rate problem since I haven’t had any problems with my European 25 frames per second videos.
Sound quality & Music files
But the most important part of a MP3 player is the sound quality, and the MP-500 truly delivers. All songs I’ve listened to sounds really crisp and clear. Top of the line decoding. The equalizer modes (Normal, Classic, Jazz, Pop, Rock) where usable, and I might even use the sound enhancement modes (SRS, TRUBASS, WOW) in some occasions. You can play MP3- (surprise), WMA- and OGG-files.
Bells and whistles
The MP-500 is packed with functionality. You get recording capabilities with Line-in, a built-in microphone, built-in FM radio, built-in stereo speakers, a watch, alarm, USB-host mode, display text documents, view photos – there’s a lot in here. If the user interface just would have been a bit better.
Summary
The MP-500 looks great, sounds great and is packed with functionality. It’s an eye-catcher, and will get you attention if thats what you’re looking for. Battery time is great (15 hours audio and 8 hours video), the sound quality is excellent and even the built-in speakers sounds good – but there’s one problem with the player and that is the menu and navigtion system – it’s really non-intuitive and just too darn complicated – you have to LEARN how to use it. If that will be fixed in an upcoming firmware, this is a great player!
The 1GB version cost $190 and the 2GB version cost $240.
Pros
+ Small
+ Looks good
+ Great sound quality
+ FM radio
+ Recording capabilities
+ Stereo speakers
+ USB host mode
Cons
- Non-intuitive menu system
- Not capable of encoding NTSC material properly (at least in current version)
- Real tiny reset button (you need a needle)
Update, 8:th of February Jens of Sweden have published a firmware upgrade to fix the navigational problems. You can find the new firmware here.
Specifications
Memory: 1GB & 2GB
Size: 81 x 40 x 13 mm
Weight: 51 grams
Speakers: Built in stereo speakers
Microphone: Built in microphone
Charging Time: 2-3 hours (30 min with charger)
Working Temperature: -5C – 40C
O/S: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/2003, Mac 10.2, Linux 2.4.0 or later.
Connection: USB port
Firmware type: Upgradeable
Languages: English, Swedish
Video file support: MP4 (WMV, AVI, ASF, MPG, MPEG) *
Video resolution:128 x 112
Music file support: MP3, WMA and OGG
Bit Rate, MP3 8 Kbps – 320 Kbps (Supports VBR)
Bit Rate, WMA 32 Kbps – 192 Kbps
Bit Rate, OGG 44 Kbps – 500 Kbps (Q1 – Q10
Sound Enhancement: SRS/TRUBASS/WOW
Equalizer: Normal, Classic, Jazz, Pop, Rock and 5 User EQs
ID3 Tags: V1, V2
Headphone Output: 10 mW + 10 mW
Speaker Output: 110 mW + 110 mW
Frequency Range: 20 Hz – 20 KHz
SN Ratio: 90 dB (FM Radio: 50dB)
Display size: 1.6 inches
Type: Color TFT LCD
Colors: 260K Colors
Resolution: 128 x 128
* When converted with the provided transcoder
Jens of Sweden: MP-500 [JensofSweden.com]
/Mikael – Fosfor Gadgets
If you like online music and streaming music, be careful of piracy issues when downloading your music today.
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2006 and is filed under Gadgets.You can follow any responses to this entry through the Comments Feed. You can Leave A Comment, or A Trackback.
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January 27th, 2006 23:54
[...] [...]
January 28th, 2006 17:26
Hi Mikael!
Great review!!! As you said, i had great trouble understanding the menu when you showed me the player. It’s a great looking player thou…
January 29th, 2006 12:41
Nice review – digg the video!
I think the player looks very familiar – is it a design rip-off?
January 29th, 2006 14:58
It is a Dyne Tuny 8
But the battery life of the Jens is much better!!!
January 29th, 2006 15:00
Take a look at their site: (Dyne)
http://www.dynetel.com/english/product/product_02_801.html
January 29th, 2006 15:05
or is it a : Ichiban AFM-61
http://tinyurl.com/7enxf
January 30th, 2006 01:32
45 minutes sound like awfully lot for an encode in 128*112 resolution. Have you tried using apps like virtual dub to do the same thing?
January 30th, 2006 18:30
what kinds of sync software does it use?
their propietory?
January 30th, 2006 19:24
“(no Lost, no Prison Break or other american 23.997 frames per second videos)”
Wrong, NTSC is 29.97frames/second. I wonder where from you got 23.996frames/second.
January 30th, 2006 19:45
Calista: No, the whole purpose of the review was to try it out with their own software – I guess virtual dub would be a much faster way of encoding the videos…
Smersh: It’s called ‘Transcoder ver 2.0′.
Richard: You’re right, I meant 29.997.
Frank: thanks for the links.
January 30th, 2006 20:01
I got some questions in the mail regarding the internal speakers of the players, so I mention them here as well.
The internal speakers are really small, and so is the player – but they are in fact useable. They work quite fine when looking at a short videoclip or play a song or two, but don’t expect any real volume or high fidelity.
January 30th, 2006 21:34
no wmplayer then? that is weak..
is this transoder doing both audio and video?
January 30th, 2006 21:53
i wonder how good is the fm radio signal ?
January 30th, 2006 22:18
i just i just want to know how smoothly the sync software runs. itd be cool if you can take a few screen shots.
any complaints about that as well as its navigation system?
January 30th, 2006 22:22
i guess it doesnt play protected wmas?
and since you mentioned that it was drag and drop for you, is transcoder just another independent method for transfering files? so no playlists?
January 30th, 2006 22:40
[...] MP-500 MP3 Player from Jens of Sweden source [...]
January 30th, 2006 23:14
Colbert: It’s good, but not top notch. It seemed to depend on what kind of headphones you have attached to the player.
January 30th, 2006 23:19
Smersh: Here’s a screenshot of the transcoding software. It’s possible to do a queue, but as I said in the review – it didn’t work with the 29.997 fps videos for me:
http://img.infotropic.com/i/060130.gif
I had the swedish version installed, so there are
some swedish words on the buttons ‘Open’ etc.
January 31st, 2006 00:08
I ordered this (I’m in the USA), received it in record time. However the PDF was in Swedish, as was the language and prompts on the unit. Don’t speak a word, but after approx. 30 minutes of futzing around I managed to get it switched to English, then was good to go… (By the way, for anyone who needs to know it’s Visning -> Sprak -> Engelska i.e. Display -> Language -> English)
January 31st, 2006 00:53
sni, does it play protected wmas? or takes playlists? i cannot tell whether it’s drag and drop only..
January 31st, 2006 15:55
[...] Review of Player – Thanks Rich [...]
January 31st, 2006 20:36
is this worth buying?
and does it takes playlist?
February 1st, 2006 06:08
If you have problems with playing the review movie click on this links :
http://www.youtube.com/w/Jens-of-Sweden-MP-500?v=RiI6anoZQc4&search=jens%20of%20sweden
February 1st, 2006 17:19
[...] Ein erstes Review gibt es bei: http://gadgets.fosfor.se [...]
February 4th, 2006 12:35
[...] upd: Mikael указал линк на более развернутое описание. [...]
February 8th, 2006 20:03
[...] A week ago we published our review of the Jens of Sweden MP-500. Our verdict was a 7 out of 10 and our biggest concern was the menu / navigation system of the player. I got a phone call from them today telling us that they have listened and published a firmware upgrade to fix these problems. Nice. [...]
February 18th, 2006 10:09
I Ordered a exentric version, and today it was delivered !
The player looks verry cool.
But more inportend how does is works :
The player works like they say in the Fosfor review !
Great sound, even the built in speakers are great.
So if you want something cool with real good working build in speakers, this is the one.
I’m working as a tram driver, and I take it with me on the tram. It’s not alloud to use earplugs. So I use the built in speakers to listen to the radio.
It’s a great player , I am verry happy with my mp-500
Greetings to all,
Frank Hillebrand.
July 7th, 2006 02:22
I have the REAL deal–the DYNE Tuny 8! Christmas I obtained this on! It is very sexy-looking and compact! The “circular” menu button (touch-sensitive) looks much better then that white square-shaped menu button on this GAY POSER. This shit SUCKS and the “REAL” (Tuny 8)one is much better. They should cease all productions of this MP-shit now!! And I trie its firmware on my unit and it is clumsy and dog shit! BOOO!!!!
July 7th, 2006 02:23
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February 3rd, 2008 23:00
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