I got a sample of a Ainol V3000, 8GB version, the box itself if much like that of other Ainol players, so nothing really special there, apart from the very bad Engrish they have on the back, i am assuming a automatic translation program was used, its even more strange as they have the player description in Engrish and only the player specs in Chinese, i guess it’s Ainols way of poshing this up.

Well it looks like this can play OGG files, something that many of the new players haven’t been supporting, but i do think more and more RK2706 chip based player are now coming out with this file support.

The players overall finishing is very nice, but it feels a bit boxy, also one side is heavier to the other making the player to feel somewhat unbalanced, my best guess is that the battery is located to one side of the player as opposed to the center like most players have their battery. The back is probably the best back i have seen on a player for a very long time, it is a nice metallic back casing with circular indents, i am probably not explaining this well, but i am sure most people have seen and felt something very similar. Like most AInol players, the V3000 has a microSD slot, which today, i think is a negative aspect, they really should have gone with SD or MicroSD, these two type of cards are both decreasing in cost and are available in higher memory capacitive than MiniSD cards.

!!!!!OMG THIS SCREEN FRIGGIN ROCKS!!!!!

No seriously, this screen ROCKS!@!@!@!@!@!@! I mean wow, Ainol seems to always push the bar when it comes to the screens they use, even in their V2000, they were the first to use LTPS before other Chinese makers and again they are the first to use a higher resolution LTPS screen. Images just don’t look good on this screen, they look amazing, they are clear and crisp. I really wish i could better describe the image quality, but all i can describe it as is amazing. Check out some of the other images:

Hi Res RMVB Demo File, just look how figgin nice that looks, even on my crappy camera! This was the only video file in 800×480 res i could get to look this good and play smoothly, all other files i tried played fine, but didn’t look as nice as this video did, the files were in a lower resolution than 800×480. When i tried a XVID file in 800×480, the player was able to play it, but like most RK2706 based chipset players, playback was at time quite jerky. So great screen, but you still need to resize videos somewhat if you want smooth playback - which causes another problem - if the videos aren’t in 800×480 resolution, then they look pretty much the same as they do on a lower res screen, like that of the VX767 or the S:Flo. Scroll down for the comparison video. This is a BIG let down!

Viewing angles, pfff, it’s harder to find an angle from which the screen doesn’t look good than to find an angle it does look good in. I suspect the only angle that you will find having trouble to see the screen from is from the back. Really i can’t say enough about how very good this screen is.

Ok now that i have covered the main good point of the player, let me go onto the MANY shortcomings, firstly there is no English language support, but this will probably change soon on the next firmware update, so i am not really holding this downside to much against the player, it was just a bit annoying trying to figure out what all the options did.

The navigation buttons are on the top of the player, much like the VX767 and they are very tedious to use, its really a shame as they make the player very hard to use, i really do not see any one really using this for other than video playing or displaying images or maybe using the music function but just having it on shuffle, the controls are just a pain to really use.

The look of the UI layout is similar to that of the VX787, but it looks much nicer, however the navigation buttons fail this, its just very hard to go through all the options and scrolling through music on this is pretty slow. Also many times words and icons are represented very small, i found this a bit annoying. The loud speaker is HORRIBLE, i mean really really bad, audio sounds very distorted at even mid volume, audio out of the headphone jack is good, like that of any other RK2706 chip based player.

The remote is pretty cool, but it feels pretty cheap and not like it will last too long (especially if sat on), it works alright, if within less than a meter away from the player, then it can control the player without needing to be in direct lines sight of the IR port on the player. Anything further than a meter and upto 3 meters, then the remote needs to be in almost direct line sight of the IR port, anything more than 3 meters and it won’t work. The remote actually makes the player easier to use than the buttons on the player.

V3000 Vs VX767

Below are some side by side comparisons of the V3000 with its LTPS 800×480 resolution screen and the Onda VX767 with its TFT 480×272 resolution screen, you can clearly see the difference.

Apart from the last two photos which show a comparison of a video paused, the others are of image files, each image file was in a 800×480 resolution, they looked amazing on the V3000 and not that great on the VX767, this is expected, seeing how the V3000 screen support higher resolutions. Now check the last two photos, see how the two screen images look the same. The images are from a demo video in AVI format in a 480×272 resolution, surprisingly the video actually played smoother on the VX767.

Ainol V3000 Vs Onda VX767 Vs Nationite S:Flo

FIGHT!

Just look at those viewing angles, WOW! Ok the V3000 wins for overall viewing angle, thats a no brainer, but video performance is actually better on the VX767 and to a certain extent even on the S:Flo, i think the RK2706 chip used in the V3000 just isn’t powerful enough for both the hi resolution screen and hi res videos.

The V3000 is a good player, the screen is pretty much the main reason why anyone would get this plkayer, but like many Chinese players it has many faults, the main being that although the screen supports such a high resolution, the RK2706 chip can’t, you will never be really be able to take advanatge of the sreen for video viewing. Even in the comparison, the demo video actually looked just as good on the S:Flo and on the VX767 as it did on the V3000.

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