SmartQ T5-II review
Introduction:
The SmartQ T5-II, by SmartDevices, is one of the best players on the market right now, on different points. It boast the ADI Blackfin BF547 clocked at 600Mhz, the first and only player on the market using this main chip. It also use the Wolfson WM8987L audio codec, so be sure you will have a great audio on this player.
Design:
The design is more gaming-oriented, designed like a classic gaming system controller, with a D-pad (directional pad) on the left, and 3 buttons on the right, as well as "+" and "-" buttons on top.
Screen:
The SmartQ T5-II have a 3 inches LTPS screen, resolution of 320x240, able to display 16.7 millions colors, the best choice for watching videos and photos with all possible colors available.
User Interface:
As i said previously in the Design, it's pretty much gaming-oriented, with the D-pad to navigate around as well as controlling the volume, changing song, changing pages quickly, and the buttons on the right are intuitive also, the Power On button is also the OK button (or "enter" button), the middle button being the "back button", and the lower button is used mostly for the selected file purpose, and there's the "hold" button, the microphone, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the 5-pins USB connector are on the right side. The SD card slot is at the bottom, covered by a protection rubber. This player is compatible with SDHC cards, meaning you can use up to 8gb SDHC and even bigger cards! (i heard some users said the 16gb SDHC cards work on it!)
The GUI:
The T5-II is easy to navigate, very straight-forward, the D-pad can be used to select in menus, the volume (higher or lower) and going up and down in folders, it can also be used to change songs, fast-forward and fast-rewind in videos. The Power On button can be used at the OK button (select/enter button), the middle button is used as the Back button, and the lower button is mostly used to delete the selected file (when you hold it), and can also display informations of the audio file (ID3 tag) and can display the remaining time of a video, the actual time in your region (you have to set this yourself though) and the file name of the video file. This player have a lot of settings you can do, a lot more than on most players, you can even lock your player with a password. The eBook option in this player is even better than most players around, you can also use your own pictures as the eBook background
Audio:
This player is compatible with MP3 (VBR or CBR), OGG, APE, WMA, AAC and FLAC files. The equalizer options are great on it, very customizable, yet very user-friendly. It also support lyrics (.lrc files) too. The sound is great, with any kind of equalizer used.
Video:
The T5-II supports AVI, RM/RMVB, FLV (Flash Video), 3GP, MP4 and WMV video files. The player can play AVI files with a video bitrate up to around 1000kbps (with Xvid codec) and a resolution of 640x480! PMP manufacturers says we can play video files without converting, but it's always recommended to convert them to be sure it won't lag (some videos can use strange codecs and use very high bitrates). ViDrop is a very good video converter (a link can be found on AllPMP forum to download it).
Photos:
This player is compatible with JPEG picture files, it can handle almost any pictures size, you can do rotations on them as well, and also, you can also use pictures for backgrounds in your player.
Other Features:
-Emulation
The SmartQ T5-II support emulation, the softwares included with the BIOS file are the NES, SNES, GBA and Neo-Geo emulators. A great feature for a PMP, in fact, this player was built with games in mind! If you're not satisfied with the buttons layout, you can always configure them in the menu, as well as using Savestate and Loadstate.
-TV Out
This player support TV-Out, which is a great thing if you want to show videos, pictures or simply use your player as a radio or a music player, or even play ROMs on your TV!
-FM Radio
Radio is very good on this player. It support pre-programmed stations, which are easy to bookmarks (pressing the "file" button once), and also using the auto-search option (holding the "file" button). It also support regions such as, China, US/Europe and Japan.
-Voice Recording
You can record your voice with the built-in microphone on the side, with different record quality options based on KiloHertz (kHz)
-Text Viewing (E-book)
The player support TXT files. The eBook option is more dynamic than on any other players, more inviting to read text on it.
-External speaker
The external speaker is present on the front, like a portable gaming system. It even mutes when you plug in earphones or the TV-out cable.
Accessories included:
Included in the box is a pink cleaning cloth, USB cable, TV-out cable, manual, standard headphones, grey carrying case, manual, registration card.
Conclusion:
The SmartQ T5-II is one of the best players released, with TV-out, emulators, a great and powerful main chip and the best audio codec, 16.7 millions colors LTPS screen, it's a sure-bet, a really good investment. However you will need a SD card because it don't have internal memory, but SD cards are really cheap nowadays. This player will need a bit of configurations and setting up at the very beginning.
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