We bought the AGPTEK A01T so our skilled reviewer may completely check and assess it. Maintain studying for our full product evaluation.
In a crowded lineup of practically similar AGPTEK MP3 gamers, the A01T may simply be the best selection for many who need reliability, performance and affordability. Averaging simply round $36, you get a stunning variety of further options for an MP3 participant, a lot of which aren’t even discovered on the costlier choices on the market.
The capacitive contact panel takes a little bit of getting used to, and the display screen itself leaves loads to be desired, however on a uncooked MP3 playback stage, this participant does the job in a sturdy kind issue at a stomachable value.
Design: Easy with a number of useful touches
The A01T measures simply over 5.5 x 3.5 inches when trying on the entrance, and sits beneath 2 inches thick. That makes it a extremely modern, easy and small gadget on the design entrance. The entrance is constructed totally of glass, the underside half is a sequence of capacitive contact buttons sitting flush with the display screen that occupies the highest half.
The 0.8-inch TFT display screen is fairly small, even for this dimension of the gadget, and the decision is actually grainy and dated. It’s unlucky as a result of when the display screen is off, the look of the gadget is fairly pleasing. The perimeters and again are constructed of a brushed aluminum materials that’s tough to the contact and truly has a barely heat copper tone to it. On high, there’s a rectangular loop that acts as a hook, which is our favourite design characteristic of the gadget as a result of it makes it straightforward to hook it to a keychain or lanyard.
Sound High quality: Satisfactory so long as you don’t use AIF information
We scoured as many advertising supplies as we may discover to determine what the DAC was with this participant, and AGPTEK simply isn’t promoting it. That leads us to consider there actually isn’t a standout amp constructed into the gadget, so in case you’re searching for one thing that gives energy and quantity to excessive impedance headphones, we advocate selecting up a devoted DAC along with this media participant.
The place this gadget actually does offer you some flexibility is within the audio information it helps. Its chipset provides you the power to play a library of information containing MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, and even the better-liked compressed FLAC information. In case your library has high-definition, lossless information that match the above codecs, it actually will sound nice. However, this gadget doesn’t help the Apple-centric file sorts like m4a and AIFF, which supplies it a ding in our e book as you lose some fairly broad versatility on these omissions alone. Past this, in our testing, the sound high quality was completely enough for all of the audio sorts, and we discovered that it has a fairly stunning quantity of quantity headroom for the scale.
This gadget doesn’t help Apple-centric file sorts like m4a and AIFF.
Storage and Battery Life: Entry stage and maybe a bit disappointing
There’s a 420 mAh lithium battery put in on this gadget, and AGPTEK clocks the battery life on this at about 45 hours of music playback. These numbers are, on their very own, fairly spectacular when you think about costlier MP3 gamers provide nearly the identical. What was disappointing in regards to the battery life was that it solely actually lasted us round 30 hours with common day-to-day use.
This included loads of display screen on time as we had been navigating the menus, and we predict that is largely because of the additional energy required to gentle up the capacitive contact buttons (they flash a vivid purple to point out you you’ve interacted with them). Thirty hours could not seem to be the worst, but it surely’s disappointing to see the hour whole clock in at a lot lower than what was marketed. What’s refreshing, is we had been in a position to cost up the gadget in effectively beneath 1 hour (AGPTEK states that it’ll take you as much as an hour and a half to get to full juice).
Lastly, the onboard storage of 8GB is on the decrease finish, not fairly as spectacular because the A01S sequence’ 16GB. You possibly can throw in a MicroSD card as much as 128GB, and this could get you loads of headroom, however it’s one thing to bear in mind if in case you have a giant library of excessive definition music.
Sturdiness and Construct High quality: Actually stable, with a little bit of weak point on the entrance
One of the spectacular qualities of this MP3 participant is its construct high quality. In truth, we had been in a position to check a Sony Walkman choice that price 10 instances the value, and had been much more impressed with the stable construct high quality of the A01T. That is principally because of the weighty, stable aluminum building and the ridged hook on the highest. They don’t actually have a flimsy lid over the microSD slot, which supplies it much less of weak point on the facet. As a result of the aluminum is textured on the again, we did discover it was barely extra scratchable, but it surely was additionally harder to drop. Lastly, the panel of glass on the entrance does seem to be it may very well be a little bit of a difficulty if you’re susceptible to dropping your gadgets. We advocate conserving this in a case to keep away from scratching it in your bag.
One of the spectacular qualities of this MP3 participant is its construct high quality.
Consumer Expertise: Clunky menus with a number of helpful buttons
Since you navigate the MP3 participant with a flat, glass-covered panel of capacitive contact buttons, it’s important to be trying down on the gadget to vary tracks or pause/play music. What’s extra is that we discovered the menu navigation to be each laggy and, due to the small display screen, troublesome to wrap your head round.
Our suggestion is to leap proper into the folder menus relatively than attempting to let the MP3 participant set up your music routinely. The gadget is simple to make use of in the case of transferring information (it really works identical to plugging in a USB flash drive to your laptop), however which means you’re additionally on the mercy for the way AGPTEK needs to parse the metadata in your music — therefore our suggestion to navigate through folders.
There are a number of positives on the UX entrance, First, to avert among the clunky menu techniques, there are some shortcut buttons on the facet, together with a wake/sleep toggle, a lock change and even a shortcut to file voice memos, making it straightforward to shortly file notes. There’s an included pedometer that may rely your steps, there’s Bluetooth 4.0 functionality for wi-fi headphones, and AGPTEK even contains an armband within the package deal right here. This all leads us to consider that the very best use case for this participant is these searching for an on-the-go, exercise gadget. As a result of it’s so sturdy, and it’ll work finest in case you begin a playlist and let it go, that is for the fitness center goers greater than it’s for the audiophiles.
Value: A terrific worth, regardless of the shortfalls
If you’re speaking a couple of gadget that averages round $30 at most retailers, it’s arduous to carry it to as excessive a typical as one thing that prices within the a whole bunch. Actually, even in case you use this gadget to only switch information between computer systems like a flash drive, it may be well worth the cash. That stated, it isn’t even the least costly choice from AGPTEK, so we do discover it stunning that it doesn’t have even a barely brighter, better-looking show. However with the inclusion of an armband and a few primary earbuds, we’re going to file the value within the professional column.
Competitors: Some heavy hitters
AGPTEK A01S/ST: AGPTEK’s A01 line has a number of choices, the A01 doesn’t provide Bluetooth however continues to be 8GB, whereas the A01S/ST each provide 16GB, with Bluetooth current in solely the T model.
FiiO m3K: The FiiO m3K gives you significantly better audio efficiency from the built-in DAC, and there’s extra compatibility in file sorts, however you’ll additionally pay greater than double the value.
Sony NW-A35: The Sony NW-A35 is over $200 however provides you a a lot easier-to-use interface and higher file compatibility for that steep premium.
Learn extra critiques of the very best price range MP3 gamers out there to buy on-line.
Remaining Verdict
A terrific lossless MP3 for the fitness center, with some caveats.
In case your high-definition music library has principally WAV information, then the A01T might be a terrific lossless participant for you, however we discovered it slightly deceptive for AGPTEK to name this a lossless participant when it doesn’t even help AIFFs — arguably simply as standard of a lossless format as WAV information. However in case you’re searching for one thing you may load up together with your MP3s and take it to the fitness center, leaving your smartphone at residence, the construct high quality and comfort of this gadget match that use case completely.
