Introduction

At this time last year digital audio player manufacturers were mainly focusing on pushing microdrive players onto the market. Sure, flash models existed, but they were mainly of the 512 MB/1 GB variety, with a few 2 GB players available in some parts of the globe. Then came September, and the iPod nano from Apple arrived. It came in 2 and 4 GB flash memory capacities. The race was on.

Since then the market has seen nearly every major participant jump into the high capacity flash pool, and even some new challengers have entered the fray. The most recent competitors are named Meizu and Oracom, based in China and Korea, respectively, and their latest products are the subject of this review.

Oracom UB-890	Meizu M6
512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB capacities (flash memory)	512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB capacities (flash memory)
Plays MP3, WMA (DRM), OGG, WAV	Plays MP3, WMA (DRM), OGG, WAV
2.0” color LCD	2.4” color LCD
Supports photo viewing (BMP, JPG) and video playback (ORV)	Supports photo viewing (BMP, JPG, GIF) and video playback (AVI)
FM radio/recorder, voice recorder, line-in recorder	FM radio/recorder, voice recorder
Includes games, alarm, text reader	Includes games, calculator, stopwatch
13 hours of audio battery life	20 hours of audio battery life
Product Page	Product Page

Testing was done with the following firmware versions:

M6: 1.007
UB-890: 1.00

article index
page 1 - current : Introduction
page 2 : Accessories
page 3 : Design
page 4 : Design (cont'd)
page 5 : Display
page 6 : Media Management
page 7 : Navigation/Controls
page 8 : Navigation/Controls (cont’d)
page 9 : Audio Playback
page 10 : Video Playback
page 11 : Battery
page 12 : Extras
page 13 : Extras (cont'd)
page 14 : And the winner is…