What to Consider when Buying a Touchscreen MP4 Player
If you’re seriously considering buying a touchscreen MP4 player, you would want to consider the following tips before forking out your hard-earned cash for one.
Screen Durability
As the operation of the MP4 player would depend on the quality of the screen, you would want to find out how durable the screen is. What this means is how many times you can touch the screen before it’s rendered unusable.
A good quality player should last up to 5 million touches, but it all depends on the brand you buy and in the manner you use it. However, even if yours is a good quality player, you should invest in a protective shield to lengthen screen life. Such a shield could be bought from mobile electronic accessories shop. Of course you should ensure such a shield doesn’t hinder the responsive action of the MP4 player.
Recalibration
Check whether the touchscreen player needs recalibration before it could be used. If so, you should ask the dealer to recalibrate it before committing to a purchase. Don’t take the dealer’s word that everything is explained in the manual.
Also test to see whether the protective screen that comes with the shipped player is a hindrance to the responsive action of the player. If so, test to see whether there’s an improvement in the responsive action after the protective screen is removed.
Touchscreen Type
With a resistive touchscreen you would be limited to a single touch each time and wait for response before making the next touch. For your information, a resistive touchscreen display consists of a number of layers with very thin gaps in between. When pressure is applied on the screen the layers come into contact and electric circuits are connected. This tells the player where the finger or stylus is touching.
If the touchscreen display is of the multi-touch type, then you could use more than one finger at the same time. An example of a multi-touch type device is the iPod Touch.
Screen Freeze
One of the drawbacks of using a touchscreen device is the possibility of the screen freezing and locking up the system although media files keep on playing. This even happens with a quality product like the iPod Touch .
So, in case of a screen freeze, confirm whether you could activate a button which takes you Home or you would have to remove the battery or give the player a complete reboot to solve the problem.
Forum Research
If you’re worried that there could be some hidden issues with the touchscreen MP4 player you’re planning to buy, you could do well to visit a forum relating to it. Spend some time browsing through the posts and take notes on issues you could clarify with the dealer before purchase.
A useful site to visit is mympx especially if you’re planning to buy a touchscreen MP4 player made in China via eBay. You wouldn’t be surprised to see discussions on iPod as well. Topics such as reviews, firmware, support/how to, dead players and even bad sellers/blacklist are covered.
