Ramos T8 Review
Saturday, September 20th, 2008 |
Introduction:
The Ramos T8 and T8+ CMMB are almost exactly the same, though the T8+’s CMMB receiver will only work in China.
The T8 has 4.3-inch screen, full-touch sliding technology, ultra-narrow metal frame. The T8 will support more extensive
audio and video formats: MPG, WMV, DAT, MP4, coupled with the original RMVB, AVI, FLV, most of popular video format support.
Design:
The casing is a stainless steel back with a magnesium front shell. It’s overall weight is about 280g. The touch screen
is capacitive, the ’slide’ or ’scroll’ tecnology is there, but not as sensitive as it should be. The only switch, and
other user inputs are all along the right side. From the top down: TV out - this is for video only, 5 Pin mini USB,
Micro SDHC / TF card slot, the power / rest switch, and the Headphone jack - also used for TV out for the audio side.
On the back of the T8 is where the two stereo speakers are located, and they sound very good, no distortion or crackling
at normal to high sound levels, If turned all the way up there is some.
Also, the ‘on / off’ switch, when holding the player upright looking at it, the switch will towards the bottom - if you press it down and hold it for a second, it will turn the player on or off depending what state it is in before. This is also used in the TV mode to return to the players screen. If press all the way up, this is the reset.
Touch Screen:
The T8 is a capacitive touch screen. It is sensitive to the touch, and selections are ‘double clicked’, Takes a little
getting used to as with my big fingers I ‘missed’ a few times - but soon got the hang of it.
Procesor Chip:
The Ramos T8 uses the RockChip RK2706.
External dimensions:
112×73x9.8mm
Product weight:
280g
Screen:
The T8 has a 4.3 inch screen with 260k colors and a resolution of 480X272.
The User Interface:
This player uses entire touchscreen operation, the straight-forward contact surface chart makes for convenient user
operation, the touchscreen reaction rate is also good. Touch Panel design, so that almost the entire front of the
player is the screen. Only a switch / Reset button installed in the right side of the fuselage, and TV-OUT interface,
USB port, TF expansion and headphone jacks.
The GUI:
T8 menu design is relatively good, 2 rows to 4 columns graphical menu, That are : music, video, photo, record along
the top row. The second row: Ebook, Other Function, explorer, and settings. The main item on the right is the calendar,
the clock is in the upper left corner of the screen. Under the Desktop settings, there are 7 different themes / or
desk as it calls them.
Audio:
Music format: MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, APE, OGG, WAV.
The T8 has Built-in seven kinds of sound effects, divided into: normal, rock, pop, classical, bass, jazz and my
sound - which is a customizable EQ, sound effects in addition to Microsoft PlayFX here also divided into three,
namely MS3D, MSBAS, MSLEQ. With the MicroSoft PlayFX the sound is very good, even the Bass sounds right. The Music player
interface can display the lyrics or the spectrum, the replacement player mode, and can adjust audio settings.
Audio players controls are at the bottom of the main interface. Does support ID3 tags, lyrics, and can sort by: artists
title, favorite and album.
Video:
Video frequency formats: MPEG4, AVI, RM/RMVB, MPG, WMV, DAT, MP4, DIVX, FLV, 3GP.
I had no problems playing any of
these types of files, they all work and play very well. However, as with most of the players I have had, FLV format
that is over 480X320 does play very well, but does not support REW, FWD, Pause - and most of the time players need
to be reset to exit these.
Photos:
Picture format JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG. Can be displayed either in a list or as thumbnails. Picture can be rotated
left or right, zoomed in or out, and pan also works for those images larger then the screen size. I have found that
images can not be made into backgrounds for the different screens.
E-Book:
LRC support TXT e-book format. The font size, and color can be customized to the users likes. The E-Book has the abilty to make up to five sharing bookmarks or resume.
TV-OUT:
T8 because the TV-OUT feature is only available for video output, so the menu or any other screen are not seen on the TV. Simply hold down the video player interface in the bottom left of the TV button, to turn the video output to a TV screen, sliding on the power switch of the T8, the video image to the TV / T8 switch between screen. If there is no audio line connected, sound will be played through the T8’s own speakers.
Also, the TV out seems to be in PAL. So you will need a ‘monitor’ with NO tuner for it to display right.
Voice Recording:
Sampling rate: 8K/16K MIC sound recording format : WAV
Battery:
Has a 1500mah battery that runs Approximately 28-30 hour audio use or 5 hour video use.
I played two movies one after the other about three hours, on a full charge and it brought it down to about half.
The audio only, I left it on repeat mode for about 15 hours and only one bar of the five was missing.
Also about charging this….The USB will charge the battery, but it is very slow. I had mine plugged into the PC for about 6 hours and and only charged to half battery. I think this is due to the screen always on while connected to the PC, even if in the ’safe to remove Hardware mode’. So, I tried mu USB wall charger - about 1 1/2 hours from almost dead to full charge! With the wall charger the screen shut off after about 20 seconds.
USB:
2.0 High Speed connection.
HeadPhone jack:
Standard 3.5mm Also the only way to turn of the external stereo speakers is to have the headphones
or the TV audio pluged in.
Other Features :
FM Radio:
None
Games:
None
Clock:
Upper left corner. 24 hr format. Set from the ‘other Functions’, under the calender settings.
Calendar:
Month, Year and Date, Settings allow changing of date and time.
Stop Watch:
Play, Pause, Stop, Multiple times / Laps.
Updating:
Very easy with the RockChip players, with the Ramos T8:
Make sure battery is fully charged first, dont want it to turn off during the update!
1. Copy the new FW to the root of the player - named: T8.RKW
2. Safe remove from PC.
3. Disconnect from USB cord.
4. Go into settings, then to Update.
5. It will then show a progress bar, and when finished re-start with the New FW being used.
Conclusion:
My first impressions of the Ramos T8, was WOW! Thats a big screen. The screen quality is very good, very bright.
The fact that the screen is pretty much the entire front of the player with no buttons, make this a very good
choice for video’s and movie watching. The RockChip processor is also far more ‘louder’ then any of the Ingenics
Chipped players that I have. On my vx777 With headphones I listen to music at about 15, and movies at about 18.
With the T8, Music I have it set at 7, and movies at about 10 - sound level goes up to 32. The Ramos T8 Has very
good sound qualities.
The Cons:
I have found that if the player is used for a long time, it will get ‘warm’ to the touch on the back, but this
does not affect the normal use of T8. I ‘used’ it for about 25 hours without shutting it off just to see how warm
it got and to test it’s stability. Like a Laptop the battery - located on the back between the speakers - gets warm, but not so warm that it can be touched or held.
And though it will charge via the USB on the PC, I recommend using a wall charger for it.
Also, the touch screen still needs some work, it is responsive, but not like the Teclast T50 or the IPhones for
the scroll screen functions. I did do this review with FW 2.0 installed.
Found another thing too - may help with the touch screen for others. It ’seemed’ that it was ‘off’ just a little bit…WHere the smaller Icons for controls are on the bottom. So, I went to the re-calibrate screen and ‘played’ a little with it. Found that if I instead of pressing exactly on the cross’s…that if I ‘touched’ just a little above them, that the screen responded a lot better and the smaller icons at bottom were much easier to use!
