This time I found a good one from a reputable website that sold items from China across the world, instead of eBay.

This device is also known as the Black Hawk MP4 Digital Player or mini Play Station Portable or IHTOOM personal media player.

The mp4 player is boasted to have the following features:

• NES games console
• 3.0 Mega Pixel lens
• digital camera/webcam
• video camera recording
• mp3/audio player
• mp4/video player
• 3″ TFT screen
• AV in and AV out
• build-in speakers
• 1GB internal memory
• SD card socket
• calendar/time/e-books/alarm clock
• microphone for voice recording
• hold button
• built-in rechargable battery

This device is fantastic. The only thing it doesn’t do is make phone calls, but for the price I cannot complain.

From the outset I liked this device, and looked forward to its arrival. One thing I am aware of is that it’s never going to be an amazing build, but this didn’t bother me.

It arrives and I immediately begin to examine the contents of the package.

The box contain: 1x pmp device; 1x white ear phones with a 3.5mm jack; 1x Male USB A to Male USB mini 5 USB cable; RCA to 3.5MM AV cable; 100-240V AC Main Charger (50/60Hz USA plugs 2 pin); GB travel power adapter; Driver/Software CD; English User Manual.

I begin by trying out the camera facility and took some photos. The photos turn out okay, but are somewhat grainy, but tolerable for a 3.0 Mega Pixel. I noticed there was what looked liked a flash, but it didn’t actually have the option for a flash, so I believe there is no flash, but then again it was never said there would be a flash, it was just assumed.

This photo came with the device, I guess they tested it before sending it out.
Another thing worth noting is that the date was wrong, when I received the device it said “2005.05.15″.

I also tried out the video recording, which was tollerable, only 320×240, but not bad. Apparently you can use the device as a webcam too, but I have yet to try this.

I also tried out one or two of the NES games, which seem to be slow. I think this probably is a problem with the device decoding the NES games. I could probably cope with that as I didn’t buy this to play games, even though it looks like a playstation portable (PSP).

I decided to plug it into my computer and load some media onto it. I discovered that the connector into the device was the same as my Motorola mobile phone which was fantastic as it means I could swap between the two without having more cables. One thing I did discover is that when you have your device plugged into USB it does not appear to allow you to switch to normal mode unless you unplug the device from the USB.

Also, the battery seems to wear down after a long period of time being plugged into the USB suggesting that it does not charge via the USB, having said this you can use the DC input at the same time.

I tried transferring some mp3s onto the device, in the form of files and folders, however when I turned on the device and looked for the files, they didn’t exist. I discovered that I must put the mp3s directly into the mp3s folder before I can view them on the device for playback. This was frustrating.

That aside the audio playback has some good features, including repeat, random, equalise and A-B. The bad features are that there is no search feature, files are listed in the 8.3 filename format (which is ugly), and as I said before, there’s no option for folders.

One of the most annoying issues with the video and audio play back functions is that there’s no resume. You can’t resume to the last track or video you were playing, let alone resume to the point you were listening to before you turned the device off.

After some time I realised that the beep noise when you scrolled between items on the menu was getting very annoying. At first I could not figure out how to turn this off, but soon discovered that you can turn this off via the Setup, under a section called “Sleep Off”, its simply a case of setting BEEP to OFF.

Despite this, I decided to convert a video clip to ASF format. I was very impressed by the quality of the video. There was no ghosting, and the picture was very clear. I was very impressed. So impressed I had to say it twice.

A subtle feature I liked was the stand on the back of the device which you can pull out and use it to make it stand up but slightly leaned back, meaning you can stand the player on your desk and watch your favourite TV program or whatever you decide to put on your device.

I decided to then try the bundled ear phones, which are standard fit (3.5mm not 2.5mm). My initial problem was that if I was using the stand, I could not use the ear phones, as the socket is on the bottom of the device, this is simply down to bad design, but tolerable.

The next problem with the ear phones was that when I had them plugged in, the built-in speakers were still being used. At first I thought that I would be unable to use this device in public. However, I soon discovered that there was an option to turn the speakers off under Setup -> Sleep Off.

In terms of physical design, the only “bad ideas” are the rubber “flap” for the SD card, which I can imagine will fall off at some point. I am also under the impression that the stand I mentioned above would probably be very easy to break off.

One of my pet hates is power buttons that you have to hold down to turn the device on. I wish it was simply a switch, similar to the hold button, this would make it far easier to turn on and off.

I also wish this device had better volume control. I find with all of these devices that the volume control is digital, you have to turn on the device to control the volume, yet my walkman tape player from years ago was able to have a physical volume control, why can’t we have these on our new devices?

I’m surprised this device doesn’t have is an FM radio, most of the other MP4 players have a built in FM radio, but not this one, I’m not sure why as it’s a simple feature to include.

Conclusion

This device is worse than I expected. I was hoping that some of the issues experienced with other imported devices would have been resolved, but it seems that is not the case.

If I was to improve this device, I would do the following:

• Change the power button to a switch (on/off state)
• Better volume control, such as a scroller
• Better SD card cover
• Charge from USB
• Better display of mp3 filenames
• Ability to search MP3s
• MP3s should be able to playback from folders
• Playback resume
• Better game decoding
• More game decoding (GBA games?)
• AV in/out should be more accessible, not on the bottom
• Speakers should turn off automatically upon plugging the ear phones in

It sure is no Sony PSP, return to sender.

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The MP4 Players I was looking at were comparable to the Apple iPod nano in appearance, I knew they wouldn’t function in the same way, but these offered way more features and were far cheaper than a nano.

So I spent some time bidding on quite a few of these mp4 players, making sure I wasn’t paying over the odds to get one, as there were simply loads on ebay, it was silly to try and outbid other people. They were going for between £28 and £40, I was going for £34 max.
Eventually I ended up with 3, two (1xBlack, 1xPink) came from one seller (e-britain), one (1xBlack) came from another (ugoole).

So I ended up with 2 too many, I decided to keep a black one for myself, wrap the pink one for my girlfriend, and then wrap the spare black one for my dad (I figured he’d work it out eventually). I also wrapped mine up, so my girlfriend wouldn’t suspect what I had got her for Christmas, as I knew I couldn’t keep my hands off it.

Note: At this point I have not left feedback for my items, as I know I had not fully tested them.

Christmas comes and goes, all is well. My girlfriend asks me to put some music on her mp4 player, which we do by spending a long time looking through my 80gb external hard drive. We collect 4gb of music she wants to listen to and place it onto the device.

She goes home. The next thing I know and she’s on the phone to me complaining about how she can’t play some of her music and it seems corrupt in some way. She brings it around the following day and I check it out, and try new music on the device.

After some playing around I realise that anything over about 1gb of media and the data is corrupt. I send her away and begin my research.

I took upon me the impossible challenge of trying to work out who the manufacturer of the devices are. I checked all the firmware on the device, nothing, so I check the software that comes with it.

I run the MP3 Player Upgrade Tool (“C:\Program Files\MP3 Player Utilities 4.00\RDiskUpdate\RdiskUpdate.exe”), and low and behold the device name and manufacturer is there.

Device Name: S1 MP3 Player

Productor: Wilson Co. Ltd.

Version: 9.0.43

With these details I soon found a page in the Wikipedia entitled S1 MP3 Player. The Mp3 player displayed here was nothing like the mp4 player I had, I figured they just forgot to update the details in the software I have.

Also I managed to locate the Wilson Co. Ltd. Website, which appears to be down or no longer exists as it did, however through the powers of the internet I am able to use the web archive and view a previous version of the Wilson Co. Ltd. website. To no major benefit, the website contains limited details, and clearly the products are no longer supported.

I go back to the wikipedia page, and find the S1mp3.org forum. A quick search on there and I soon find a thread where people are experiencing the same issues as me.
So just by chance I decide to do a bit of research based on the ebay sellers, to see if I can find where these items came from and what the deal is here.

All the images they use on the ebay auctions are hosted on store724.com which when I visit brings up details about tronfydirect.com.

A quick google search for tronfydirect.com brings up details of ebuyhk.com, i’ve also seen the username ebayhk on ebay quite a few times in the past. A quick search for ebayhk.com very quickly brings up a few references including maskpay.com which is VERY dodgy. However, I will leave that for this time as this goes beyond my concern.

I also searched for tronfy.com, which brings up details of downloads for mp3/mp4 players and an FAQ.

After looking at my paypal transactions again I discover the company is “Tronfy Technology Co. LTD.”, the domain’s whois details the following names: “Tsing Yi, David Chen and Ruihong Chen” at the address “RM2614, Wang Yung House, Cheung Wang, Tsing Yi, NT, HONG KONG”.
I also did a search for store724.com, and instantly top of the list a bunch of websites are returned with people referring to one of the sellers I purchased my mp4 player from “ugoole”.

I take a look at the Procopy Perth website which appears to detail this very well, however it is .au based.

From there I also find a UK based website entitled “mp3 / mp4 players on ebay beware!” reporting the same details.

From here I discover some useful details, including a guide on how to check the size of your mp4 player and details of how to restore your mp4 players size to the correct capacity, which is as follows:

1. If you haven’t already done so, install the “MP3 Player Utilities 4.00″ from your CD now, also sometimes known as “AMV Convert Tool 3.68″.
2. Backup any data/media on your mp4 player onto your computer.
3. Plug your device into your computer via USB.
4. Run the MP3 Player Disk Tool (“C:\Program Files\MP3 Player Utilities 4.00\RDiskUtility\RdiskUtility.exe”)
5. Once it has successfully loaded select the format type as low, and click on the “Partition and Encryption” tab at the top.
6. Drag the slider entitled “Setting encrypted disk capacity” to the far right (until the disk size has reached its full capacity), and press Start.
7. Once complete, return the slider back to the far left, at 0, and press Start. (this will re-format the device to its TRUE capacity).

That is it, exit the program, and your device is set to function correctly. I also found a longer guide here.
Although it seems like i’ve accepted that I’ve been ripped off and solved the problem with the device, I did not stop there.

I contacted the sellers on ebay and threatened to leave negative feedback if they didn’t agree on a deal with me. They eventually refunded me £8 per device, and I have yet to leave them feedback.

Well that’s just about everything, I hope that you find this information is useful.

Also read the The Official Fake 4GB+ MP4 Player Scam On eBay FAQ on ebay, and whatever you do if you DO have one of these items, DO NOT send it back, but DO demand a refund like I did, chances are at least you will get a partial refund.

Note: I have noticed since that e-britain and ugoole have changed their feedback to “private” probably because people were posting links in their feedback. You can still email ugoole and e-britain.

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