- Experience high-definition video, music, photos, and text on a generous 5 inch LCD screen
- Advanced processing supports 1080p video in a wide range of popular formats
- Audio: MP3/WMA/FLAC/APE
- World/alarm clock, calendar, and gaming apps included
- FM tuner, integrated stereo speakers and 3.5mm headphone jack
- Video player; Audio player; FM tuner
- 5 inch TFT LCD screen
- Connect and enjoy in full 1080p on your HDTV
- 4GB internal flash memory
- MicroSD card slot (SD card not included)
This review comes from a person with; creative zen-xfi, G1 capacitive tch scrn, Coby Kyros resistive tch scrn tablet, samsung behold,
3 dif. branded 19in-32in Full HD LCD tv's, hp dv7 notebook win7, acer aspire5315 notebook winxppro, pioneer and yamaha home theater equip,
this is just so others know where my opinions reference from.
After researching for almost 3 months for a PMP (aslo known as DMP (digital media player), mp3 video player, MP4 player etc., (AINOL,ONDA,COWON,VisualLand,Trio, sylvania), I was torn between Ainol v6000hdt screen/video quality and Cowon v5 sound quality subtitle function, however, Cowon price was too high for me and amazon did not have the Ainol (yeah, have a good time pronouncing that,and make sure no ones listening if your reading out loud =).
So, without regret (thus far), Coby MP957 media player (83dol from amazon,free ship received in 7 days);
-Very good build quality, feels solid with good weight in the hand, comfortable for personal video viewing/listening.
-Screen size (my measurements) 5 full inches diagnal TFT LCD bright, beautiful, high resolution display vivid colors
and detail (better than my g1, kyros, samsung behold, and zen)
---This is NOT a touch screen. 5 device buttons navagate thru the user interface nicely.
---This is not a "glossy" screen. Very minimal glare if any, my kyros, g1, etc is glossy and glare interferes with video watching.
---There is NO wifi, NO internet browsing abilities of ANY kind.
UPDATE: The player DOES remember last audio file played but ONLY IF it is in the INTERNAL memory in the "Medialib" (media library). Audio files on an external memory card for some reason cannot be remembered as a "last played" file. -My very large audio book KJV Holy Bible plays in order automatically, it does not remember last played if it is located on my SD card but, there is a "star assigning rating" feature, with up to 5 stars, you could if only using this star system for this purpose, use the stars to rate the last played audio file to generally remember last played audio item, which is working for me. The "stars" can be changed or removed. It does, however, remember where you stopped/paused videos, whether they are on the internal or external memory, AND even if you turn the player off.
-TESTED VIDEO FILES (sizes ranged from 700mb-3.8gb, movies were played full length) and played flawlessly, MKV, HD-AVI, AVI, MP4 (no audio video sync issues either). NOTE, M4V files were NOT recognized at all.
-TESTED AUDIO FILES (all played perfectly); mp3 (my high bit rate 320kbp mp3's sound excellent), wav, flac, wma. There IS support for lyrics, but I don't have any lyric files to test (sorry).
-SUBTITLES: External subtitle ".srt" files played flawlessly with mkv, hd-avi, avi, mp4. Embedded subtitles in avi files played as well.
-MICRO SD MEMORY CARDS: My sandisk 16gb, kingston 8gb, transend 1gb micro sd cards work great in this. Manual states UP TO 16GB.
-JPG, Bitmap pics/imgs look beautiful with great detail/color AND can be set as wallpaper. Screen brightness can be adjusted from level 1 to 5, with 5 being the brightest.
-There is ebook support, but I have not tested this yet (again, sorry).
-BATTERY Things to keep in mind with all these media devices, the higher quality files being played, the more battery power required as well as screen brightness and subtitles. With that in mind I played full hd mkv video with subtitles (.srt external file) continuously for 3 hours and 20 min. on the brightest screen setting (5) before it alerted me to connect to charger. 2 standard avi videos (2 average length movies at 420p) SHOULD have no problem playing thru before having to recharge. (Will test 420p and audio/radio and update later).
-AUDIO QUALITY; There is a graphic equalizer w/8 presets. I'm a bit of an"audiophile" and must say this player sounds great. Highs, mids and lows are clear, bass is adequate... I use SkullCndy smokin buds, Shure E2c, bose quiet comf. headsets. The in-ear (they look similar to my skullcndy smokin buds) headphones that come with the Coby player don't look too bad but I like my own. There are 2 speakers on the back of the unit with good sound and sufficiently loud. No scratchy residue or distortion sounds. I plugged in my HarmanKardon soundsticks system for a fantastic movie experience w/2 friends (who now want my coby player) that helped test the features . Any speaker system w/3.5mm jack will work nicely for a "larger" sound experience.
-HDMI out to tv; works very good, 720p looked better than 1080p in my opinion. I've seen quite a few of these devices that play "out to tv", none of them compare to HD DVD/BR players, but the ability to be able to play something from the player on the fly to a bigger display is a great feature that this player can do. The picture from this player is better than my kyros when i tested both on my tv's. I use this player when working, in workshop or kitchen far away from my entertainment system.
-FM RADIO works very well, however, headphones or external speakers need to be plugged in as their cords act as the antenna, If there's no antenna, the radio screen dims off. There are 12 preset station slots with auto scan for stations and manual. I found all my favorite stations and some I didn't even know about. Radio works excellent and I'm so glad it has it.
-VIEWING ANGLES; this is a 5 inch screen with impressive viewing compared to other devices I have researched as well as tested. 3 people sitting side by side can view a video comfortably, outside that range screen dims. There are 4 good viewing angles left, right, center, and top looking slightly down. If the player is held center above eye level the screen dims. I cannot see this being an issue for most users, however, if using this in a lying down position, a secure "holder" (I made a simple holder from wood scraps in ten minutes) that allows the device to be tilted or to sit straight up without tipping over would eliminate any screen dimming.
-I have only 1 dislike of this coby mp957 so far, and that is that you can not remove the clock or date from the home screen. They are relatively small and transparent, but it would be nice to be able to "show/hide" them.
It's an excellent player at a great price (amazon 83 usdollrs). I'm happy with it. INCLUDED IN THE BOX IS; wall unit charger, charges via usb mini input plug, full hdmi to mini hdmi cable for out to tv, in-ear headphones, user manual (clean easy user interface), remote control, microsuade protective pouch and usb to mini usb cable.
Buy Coby MP957-4G 5 Inch 4GB HD Video Player with HDMI - Black Now
First off, good & bad, the reviews here are very helpful and I'd like to thank the folks who took the time to write them. That being said lets get to the meat of my review.
I purchased one of these over a year ago while I was in the VA hospital, and have used it nearly everyday since.
Pros = Ease of use is outstanding and quite intuitive .. In only moments I was able to fully run nearly all it had to offer. The video quality is excellent on the player, when attached to a television (even an older tube TV) or a computer monitor. It seems to handle nearly every video format I could find and does it without skips, lag or hangups. The sound from the built in speakers is ok but honestly using this item with a good set of headphones or good external speakers really brings out the best in the sound. The photo quality is another feature that is surprisingly great given the price. The built in FM radio works very well and even if it didn't work at all, it'd be such a minor flaw that it wouldn't be worth mentioning. As far as the book reader, PDFs are a bit bulky to maneuver, zooming, etc; however There are a great set of controls even though they take some getting used to. As far as books go, I was having issues at first, then found that if I converted them to plain old text files The quality became very good as well. The calender / clock combo work well for what they're supposed to do (tell time and date). The remote was also a wonderful feature that works extremely well.
Cons = I could name off features or changes I'd like to see but honestly I could do that with any piece of tech. I do believe that Coby and / or the retailers for this item should edit the description to get rid of the mistake "has gaming apps". But since I didn't buy it for games it wasn't really a concern.
Other Thoughts = I'm still quite amazed that this tiny item has made my vcr, stereo, dvd player, as well as the huge collection of media to accompany them, and a few other media devices completely UNnecessary. I've nearly completed transferring the various tapes, cds, dvds, etc over to sd micro chips and I'm stunned to see how much room all that was taking up. For what this is, a media player (NOT a tablet) I haven't found anything as good or better even remotely close to the price. I'll be buying more of these as xmas gifts and probably another for me as well for the other room.
Read Best Reviews of Coby MP957-4G 5 Inch 4GB HD Video Player with HDMI - Black Here
I purchased 2 of these for my kids (20m.o. and 4y.o.) for use during our recent 3-week trip abroad. The 4y.o. was able to navigate the menus to the point where she was at least able to say "daddy, I want to do it." and she started her own movies. (I only had movies loaded on.) She was able to adjust the volume as well. She had trouble with the power button to power-up or down since it required an extended hold.
On the other hand, my 20m.o. son thought that the buttons were the best part and I sometimes found him in menus or with feature options that he shouldn't have been poking at. So for this case, I would really prefer to have had a combo-button-push lock feature so that once I started a movie, I could lock the buttons out.
I had the screens normally set on brightness #3 (of 5) .. and normally got 5hrs of play out of them using mainly the internal speakers.
The HDMI out didn't seem to work in my initial attempt on my TV but since this wasn't my intended purpose, I didn't pursue it. When I plugged it into my A/V receiever the TV reported that it could not understand the stream or something. When playing around with the HDMI/AV/etc out trying to get it to work, I did find the COBY device go black and unresponsive .. I held the power button for a while and it did eventually come back. I know that others have reported unresponsive devices, I wonder if it had something to do with trying HDMI out.
My son's unit even survived a full-on assault of car-sickness.
The units travelled with us wrapped in some foam packaging padding and inside a hard-cardboard box (from an old cellphone purchase) .. my 20m.o. did end up dragging his (by his Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Headphones) about 25feet across a hardwood floor and bouncing over 2 doorway saddles .. and his is still ticking.
I should note that I also purchased additional 16GB card Sandisk 16GB MicroSD Memory Card for each and it worked flawlessly as well.
Last note was that I set them for NEVER Power Off and NEVER Screen Timeout. Since I did find that one of them seemed to flick off during the middle of a movie .. and since I was normally driving I couldn't have a screaming kid tell me their movie went off again every 5 mins. I just always made sure to manually power-down when they were done with them. After the 3 weeks, I have no complaints at all about the battery life. In fact they have a nice power-meter feature in the options screens which provides better information about the remaining battery life. It reports for example "73%" rather than "3-of-5 battery bars".
I'm not sure how best to store them now .. fully charged, fully depleted .. hmm.
Want Coby MP957-4G 5 Inch 4GB HD Video Player with HDMI - Black Discount?
The coby mp957 4 g has been a good purchase for me. The unit itself has played just about anything I have thrown at it, from Divx files to H264 and MKV, from mp3 to Aac+, the images are clear and sharp.
The only reason I did not give it a 5 stars rating is because in some video files , if the file has more than one audio track it will only play the fist one but not the others and the same goes for the subtitles. Also there seems to be no way to turn off the subtitles , if they are displayed (this happens mostly in MKV files) .While playing music, the sound is appropiate for allayed this size, with earphones the sound is very good, almost amazing.
While playing video the image does not skip nor freezes. While using the HDMI output the image is clear and sharp, every once in a while you will notice some artifacts, but this could be the way the videos were encoded.
Overall this is a very good player for the money and I am looking forward to the second generation .COBY could be on to something with this player.
Save 59% Off
Notes before the Pros and Cons are listed:
I haven't yet tested the HDMI
I dropped it 4 feet onto the concrete and at times the screen is a little blurry.
Pros:
5 inch is nice. For about 20 bucks more they have a 7 inch one
Very easy to download songs and videos onto it
Can buy a Micro SD card to make the 4G turn into an extra 16G
The speakers are adequate they can fill up a 12 foot by 12 foot room when there's no extra white noise
You can adjust the brightness of the screen and you can adjust the duration screen display
Cons:
There is no 'auto off' switch, so if you forget to turn it off, the battery will run out of power. Many times I will be listening to something, pause it, the screen will go off, but the power will still be on, and hence it will look like it's turned off but it is not and it is slowly draining power.
The book reading section is inconvenient. Don't get this product for book reading purposes
Not able to change the background
All of the buttons are spread out the power is in one top corner, the volume is on the other side, I still get confused on where the select button is and where the escape button is.
The battery seems to wear out quickly. I charge it about every other day. I use about 90 minutes to 120 minutes a day on MP3 (my work commute)
The albums or folders are not listed alphabetically; they are listed in the order that they are downloaded.
Summary:
I guess I hate the battery capacity. But this product has many features for a great price.
