Introduction:
Ainol is very well-known for their very good quality players and the fact they are using LTPS screens very
frequently. The Ainol V3000 is no exception, very compact yet having a very good screen, a large internal
memory, and a few new features, the V3000 is surely one of the best. It uses a chip
not used very often in players, the RockChip RK2708, though slightly more powerful than the RK2706.
Design:
Simple but attractive design, low-profile without any flashy colors, it would fit in anyone’s tastes. The buttons
on top are discreet, only the small speakers grills on the front are silver-colored.
Screen:
This player is where it shines the most, the screen is a big 4.3 inches LTPS screens, able to display 16
millions colors, with a maximum resolution of 800×480. While the screen is big, the player look small. You
can also adjust the brightness of it in the Settings menu (the default 3 is bright enough though). The quality
build and quality of the screen is exceptional, thanks to Ainol’s Quality Control team!
User Interface:
The UI of this player, at first glance, you would say “wow!” first because of the screen quality, and then
because of the high resolution of it, a menu in 800×480 looks amazing, in the first minute i turned it on, i
thought this player was running some kind of Linux operating system (like Windows or Mac OS). Menu
navigation is easy, and intuitive enough, using the CH buttons to go up and down or left and right, and Vol - to
go back, and Mode as the “Enter” button, if you hold this button, it will take you back to the main menu.
Play/Pause button is to play and pause music, but also to power the player On or Off (to turn the player on,
you have to turn On the switch, on the left of the player). I think this act as a security switch so you don’t turn
the player on by accident. The V3000 also have a Mini SD card slot for extra memory.
The GUI:
The Graphic User Interface is great, simple, but very well-made, the main menu is composed of the
background you wish to put there (the default backgrounds are fantastic!) and the different menu choices at
the bottom, where you navigate around with the buttons.
Audio:
The audio on the Ainol V3000 is great, It is unknown if it uses the Wolfson WM8987, but it does uses the
Microsoft PlayFX. It does use the ID3 tags, which i think is a good thing. Audio quality is very good, the
internal stereo speakers are good. I always recommend to have good earphones if you want the best audio
experience possible out of a player. Audio compatibility includes mp3, flac, ape, ogg, wma, acc file formats.
Video:
Video compatibility is superb, for AVI (using Xvid codec) you can play videos in 800×480, with a video
bitrate of around 800-900kbps. Videos look nice on it, but it always depend of the resolution and quality
you’re using. The V3000 supports avi, wmv, flv, rm, rmvb, mpg, asf and dat file formats.
Photos:
This player supports JPEGs, GIFs, PNGs and BMPs, it can also handle large pictures size, you can do
rotations on them as well, you can use them as backgrounds in your player.
Other Features:
-FM Radio
the FM Radio in players is a standard now.
-FM Transmitter
FM Transmitter is pretty new in players, and the V3000 is one of thefirst 4.3 inches screen player to have it. You can play musics on yourplayer and listen to it on your FM radio.
-Recording
You can record your voice or anything you want with the build-in microphone, the quality is good enough, you
can also choose Low or High Rate quality.
-Text Viewing (E-book)
You can view TXT files on this player, pretty much standard.
-TV Out
The V3000 can be played from a TV using the included cable, one end go in the headphones connector,
and the yellow end go in the Video (AV out) connector. You need Composite on your TV (standard RCA
cable connectors with Yellow, White and Red)
-Languages
I think this is important to write it here because this player supports up to 20 different languages! As far as i
can read, it supports traditional and simplified Chinese, English, French, Russian, Italian, Deutsch, Spanish,
Portuguese and more!
Accessories included:
The accessories included are the manual, small Quality Control carton, headphones, TV-out cable, 5-pins
USB cable, and a small rubber to put on the Mini-SD slot if you don’t have a Mini-SD card.
Conclusion:
The Ainol V3000 is one amazing player, almost like a work of art! You will surely be one of the many peoples
who will say “wow!” when they turn on their V3000 for the first time. Highly recommended!
As usual, i recommend you to buy a screen protector (buy a 4.3 inches player screen protector and just cut it
to fit the V3000), and since Ainol don’t include a carrying case, they are available on the AllPMP store.
The S100 is Ainol’s first touch screen MP4. That paves the way for just how cool a feeling this player really has, and all done with your thumb or forefinger. Yes the firmware version is ‘07′. The older chip being much more stable. Available with up to 8GB of internal memory. In tests, over the course of events, 10 of which were updating the firmware, found the perfect solution on previous versions of the Bugs being the strong point behind the problems in the bigger chip.
Design:
The S100’s size is close to that of the Teclast T50, but with a 3″(inch) screen. I thought it to be smaller, so I measured it myself. The touch sensitive buttons are located along the right side of the faceplate. Along the right side of the player, are the micro SDHC slot(up to 32GB capacity), USB port, and the earphone(3.5mm respectively). Along the left side of the player, are the Power/Hold slide button, the Reset, and the Microphone.
Screen:
The S100’s main function is the WideScreen MP4. having a 16:9 screen, it does still have a small amount of pixels in the darker areas of movies and videos. Having the Jz4732 chip means good speeds and viewing angles, and also having a TFT LCD 400×240 picture element.
User Interface(UI):
This is very Ainol typical. Five touch sensitive buttons along the right side of the faceplate. The buttons in down order are: Right/Forward(right arrow), Left/Back(left arrow), Mode(small circle around word), Volume Up & Scroll Up(speaker w/increasing motion), and Volume Down & Scroll Down(speaker w/decreasing motion). Along the right side of the player are where the Slot, USB port, and earphone jack. Along the left side of the player are the Power/Hold button, Reset, and Microphone. Using a standard USB, 3.5mm earphone jack, and supporting up 32GB Micro SDHC external memory cards.
Graphical Interface(GUI):
When you turn on the S100, there is a green opening screen with Ainol S100 displayed.
In the bottom right corner of the screen, is where you can watch the players loading progress. After this is completed, you will see the menu listing. Consisting of(in order): Music, Video, Games, Animation Picture, Radio, Record, E-Book, Browse All Files, and System Set. This is where you will find: About(consists of memory and firmware), Theme Choose, Display, E-Book fonts, Blight Time(backlight length), Auto Off, Language, Speaker, and Default Set.
Audio:
Compatible with MP3, WMA, APE, and FLAC files. It has about a 20+ hour playback on audio files. I used it myself at work and it didn’t lower the battery level, at all, till the second day I used it. It still took a little while longer than that before it was down far enough to noticeably need charged again. It does support many styles of playback, and handles it quite well. There is no distortion in any of the music we play on it. No skipping, no dragging, no skipping of any sort. It features a built in DIY speaker, capable of crisp sound, and high frequency output. As for the EQ: Prior to the firmware, the bass option was a bit un-usable (too much distortion @ about 22 on the volume level). After the update, I noticed that the bass option had a little more clarity, carrying the tone actually quite well with no distortion at the same volume level of 22. I tried it out on numerous styles/types of music including the Oppo S11 sound demo. Which I must say you should save and use on all your players for the sound testing which you may do.
Video:
Video playback is quite impressive also on this player. With it supporting AVI, WMV, DIVX, MPEG4, XVID, RMVB, FLV, 3GP, and MP4. So far on the S100, we have watched Anamorph, and The Longest Yard. With all the pausing and playing it has held up quite well as far as the battery life is concerned. We used about 8 1/2 hours of play with about two lines of battery left (added a couple more movies and sat here watching them), so it’s hard to tell if I just got lucky with the battery life in this player. I personally use AVI conversion for all my movies and videos due to the clarity of them, so there was almost no problems with them at all. Also, since the JZ chips need less power to run than other chips and players, there is far less battery drain.
Photos:
While supporting of course JPG, it will also nicely handle JPEG, and GIF. Also utilizes the photo album quite well. I have quite a few loaded into the album area and all of it looks very good. Clear, crisp color, and no problem with distortion there either. This screen configuration is just incredible. For all the things that myself and my daughter like to use on this player, it has outsurpassed my expectations. The size of it definately does not make clear just how powerful this player truely is.
Other Features:
Fm Radio:
Works quite well also. The earphones are the antenna, and I have tested it with numerous sets of earphones to determine if there was any difference with them. So far what I found is that it doesn’t matter which headphones you use, it’s mainly dependent on where you are to a radio tower. But it is just as good as most car stereos.
Games:
The S100 comes with a few games built in. Having Snakes(common snake game), Erros(tetris game), and Brick(brick breaking game). The touch panel controls the games pretty good I must say.
Voice Recording:
Personally tested it, and it sounds just as good as the music, video, and FM radio. Very clear and understandable.
Text Viewing:
The S100 supports this function, and it is big enough to view with little effort. Also features an autoscroll, which you can set yourself to whatever speed you would like it to move.
Accessories:
It came with headphones which are typical to Ainol and good in quality. Microfiber cleaning cloth, USB cable, User manual(not english), and warranty card. Also included in my package were a very needed carrying case, screen protectors, neckstrap (which cannot be used with the S100 due to there not being anywhere to connect it), an earphone fish(earphone organizer), a sock case(which has a snug fit), and an extra set of earphones (that don’t sound too bad for an obvious offbrand).
Conclusion:
The Ainol S100 4GB PMP has definately changed my mind about slimmer players. This little player has lived up to the Ainol Stereotype. Very good UI, easily used, compact w/ great viewing experience, oh and did I mention Child Friendly. The only thing that I have yet to find about it that I don’t like, is the fact that I cannot find a silicon case of any sort that will fit it, and still leave the side touch panel still accessible. Otherwise, this player has passed the Da_Tinker tests.
Enjoy your players.
These 3 players have been attracting many people’s eyes. How different are they? Maybe this video clip could help you better understand the difference!
Ainol V3000 is a innovative PMP combining the function of remote controlling, TV-out, FM transmitting, RMVB direct play and 15:9 high resolution screen. Ainol V3000 has a RK2708 chipset. Its dimension is 115×75x13mm. The player has a 4.3 inch LTPS screen in 15:9 scale and 800×480 resolution supporting 160m colors. P100 supports lots of audio and video formats, including MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, APE, AAC, WAV, CUE, AVI, RM/RMVB, FLV, WMV, ASF, 3GP, MPEG, DAT, MP4, etc. Regarding the image viewing function, V3000 supports JPEG, GIF, BMP and PNG formats. Apart from this, this player supports TV-out function. Just connect the player and your TV, everything shown in your player will be also shown in your TV. One of the highlists of this player is the FM transmitting function. You can output the audio at the frequecy of 76Mhz-108Mhz. The receiving range is about 10-15 metres. V3000 has a remote controller at the range of 5 metres, just put and player on the stand and use it like a DVD set. Besides, V3000 also has eBook function, game, FM radio and voice recording (with built-in mic). The USB 2.0 transferring speed is 3.4MB per second. The miniSD extension slot allows maximum 4GB external memory for the player. The estimated time for audio and video playback are 12 and 5 hours separately.
Ainol has just announced its V3000. V3000 has 4.3 inch LTPS screen (800×480,WVGA,16m colors). It has a beautiful user interface (probably immitating iPhone) and TV-out functions. Other from this, the player supports MP3, FLAC, RMVB, MP4, AVI and more media formats. If you are interested in a video playing device, you should keep an eye on V3000.
Ainol V950 has a lot more in common with the LG Prada than Apple’s iPod Touch. The stylish black-and-white home page is a dead giveaway. It has a 2.8 inch (320×240px) non-touch screen, which supports horizontal viewing. It comes with PlayFX for enhanced music and plays MP3, WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, AVI, FLV, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TXT. It supports additional storage option via miniSD.
The Ainol T20 plays tons of audio and video file type. It also allows for FLV playback allowing users to download off sites like Youtube and watch the videos directly on this player. Most importantly, it receive analog TV signal. The TV function is set to work in most of the countries. It supports these regions : China, USA, Korea, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Philippines, Vietnam, Wester Europe, Turkey, UAE, Afghanistan, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, UK, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Japan. It supports these languages : English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Swiss, Thai, Danish, Polish, Turkish, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew. *TV function is not guaranteed as some regions may not be able to receive the signal.
I found that the design and craftsmanship is far better then I had thought it would be. The fit is very snug / tight, it goes in easy but it wont just ’slide’ out on it’s own. The seams are all double stitched  and there are no ‘loose’ ends or anything of that sort to worry about.
The button holes, cut outs are exactly where they need to be to leave the Player usable while still in the case.  While the button holes are where they should be, and most are very easy to use, the front ones will take some getting use to as they are harder to press.
The hole for the screen itself, is also right where it should be, all of the screen is clearly visable while it is in the leather case.
A very inexpensive but well worth it Leather case to protect your V2000/SE, from harm.
