Player Review – RAmos T11 Pro

This is a review of the RAmos T11 Pro – a PMP that we do not sell, but a PMP that we (I) enjoyed tinkering around with. My first impression was that it somewhat resembled the Onda VX590 (other than the screen size – VX590: 6-inches and T11 Pro: 5-inches), which was the subject of my last blog review. I soon discovered the differences however, the most obvious being that the T11 Pro is a dual boot player which runs both a PMP OS as well as an Android OS – however, with Android comes the expectation of WIFI. This PMP has a lack there of – A.K.A a “smart” PMP. We ain’t got no qualms though, as it has recently come to light that WIFI can actually cause illness in certain cases, as well as kill trees, so no whining there please. Other differences include HDMI, and it’s metallic front shell. However, like the VX590, it also supports 1080p video. The whole thing runs on Novatek’s 1080 processing chip.

The Device and The Box

The actual device itself has a nice, grey matte metallic chrome front shell, with a navy blue, plastic back. Ports wise, it’s got the standard USB, DC and headphone jacks, Micro SD slot as well as it’s HDMI port. It also has an IR (infrared) receiver. As for buttons, it only has the one – the power button. It’s speaker is situated on the top left corner at the back of the device, and plays relatively loudly. As for the display screen – it has a 5-inch LCD resistive touchscreen, with 800 x 480 pixel resolution. It also has OTG and AV-out.

As for packaging, the Box doesn’t actually do the device justice, as the actual colours used (although, to be expected) is a lot more dull and bled-in than on the actual display.  Open the box up and you’ll find a pair of earphone, a remote control w/ battery, a TV cable, and two USB cables of different lengths. It comes with a warranty card and a manual as well but it was all in simplified Chinese.

Of Two Faces: This Is One

As it is a dual boot player, I’ve decided to review the player on both of it’s different OS’. The first being it’s standard PMP OS:

Through the PMP LCD display screen, it came as a surprise when I turned the player on to discovers such vibrant and bright colours on the display. The display loaded up first with it’s Miu Miu logo which filled up with colour to indicate the device loading up, and then whipped an array of strong colours at me which settled as it’s background. For something so small to scream so loud, I was very much impressed. However, the not-so-ugly-duckling really started showing off when I realised the changing background was not an error, but rather an automatic slide show that was turned on somehow. As for the display buttons, we had Music, Video, Picture, EBook, File, Setting, Recorder and Tools down on the bottom. As for it’s sliding side-bar, it had Analog Clock, Digital Clock, Calender, Key Lock and Volume. There was also a nice big analog clock on the top right of the screen, which would pop up in the middle of the screen as the screen saver time display.

As for the 5-inch resistive touchscreen, it ran as smooth as a whistle. Now, I’m actually not very well equipped with dealing with electronic, touch screen devices – what with my naturally sweaty palms and lack of fingernails (I’m a biter) – which pretty much renders me into a rubbing lunatic that goes nowhere on the thing! However, the T11 Pro gave me no hassle. I was slipin ‘n’ slidin all over the place with ease, which was not so with the VX590 – that was more of a dragged feet (fingers) experience.

Going on to it’s viewing angles, as most players are, this device is best viewed straight and is recommended not to hold the device as far right,left,down or up to view the pretty screen, no matter how much you think you’ll look cool doing so.

Video playback was something that I was looking forward to viewing as I knew from the whiplash from the desktop display (exaggerated, I know) that it would be vibrant, bright, clear and in HD – and it was. The demo vid I watched was an animated short called ‘Alma’, which viewed smoothly and had no lag or pixelation. The colours, albeit the theme of the video being a bit dull and haunting, were still shown well on the display. Tracing forwards and back on the video took about 1 second to load, but then played smoothly on from there. All in all, video playback on the device was a great experience. “Why dull and haunting” you say? Well, let me quickly brief you on what ‘Alma’ was about. The award wining animated short was actually a creepy, nightmare-provoking, slow-paced film about a magical toy-doll shop that creates replica dolls of any lone wandering child that happens to stumble upon the menacing looking shop. One child in particular naturally got curious and wanders into the apparently deserted shop. All the other toy-dolls within, radiate a sense of ‘aliveness’ (and creepiness) with eyes watching and one even trying to escape, and just as the child reaches to grab the toy-doll that resembles himself… Well, I’ll let you YouTube it, as, despite it bringing back childhood fears, is a well worth watch. As for what kind of video file’s the T11 Pro supports: MKV, AVI, WMV, MPG, RMVB, MP4, etc.

File sorting for the video is as simple as you would want it to be. Poke on ‘video’ from the desktop, then into the folder, then simply choose which video file to view.

The audio quality of the T11 Pro was quite standard. First of all, it supports MP3, AAC, M4A, OGG, WAV, FLAC and APE, and second of all, the sound quality was similar to that of most other PMP’s. As for filing, it supports ID3 tag system. You have standard All files, Actor (artist), Album, Style (genre), Year and Search File. As for tracking through the track, no problem there. The audio file played as smoothly as the video files did, which should be a given. Speaker wise, the audio plays quite loudly through it’s small speaker, but has slight distortion – nothing overwhelming though. The same goes for when I plugged in my Brainwavz M2′s – which made the sound better overall as it was closed, but as for the device’s DAC, pretty much the same. Oh, and by the way, no, Enrique Iglesias is not my hero..

The pictures by far looked the best, but that was almost to be expected. With the appropriately selected images, the whole thing looked great. enough said really. As for the picture viewer and slide show, that worked well as well. The image on the device below was set at half brightness level.

As for it’s e-book reader, that worked fine in terms of being properly lit and being able to see the letters, however, there will be glare issues if reading out in the sunlight. The major problem I encountered with the e-book reader however, was that the PDF file I put in didn’t work. That could of been to do either my file, the card, or the actual unit, or it doesn’t support PDF on it’s PMP OS, but rather on it’s Android OS, which is most likely the case.

Now on to the HDMI – like stated in the many different features of this player, the HDMI was also a smooth sailor. With the expectation that most things normally don’t all work (innate distrust in all things tech), I was a little surprised that both the 720p and 1080p HDMI output worked fine. The process was as follows: Plug mini HDMI cable into HDMI port, go to ‘settings’, then through to ‘TV-out’ section, then, in this particular example, ‘HDMI Full’ (1080p). At this point, I needed to use the remote, which connected fine and worked as well as most remotes that work do. Clicked on the video file, chose the creepy Alma video again and hey presto! 1080p HDMI on a nice big HD TV screen! The same process and same result were for the 720p HDMI as well. The only issue I had with this whole ordeal was the fact that the remote buttons were in Chinese. You will be able to figure it out through trial and error but it would help to know which buttons do what. Or maybe I should just learn to read Chinese.

So?…

So, all in all, with it’s PMP OS, the T11 Pro is actually quite a nice, solid and good quality portable media player. It’s Novatek’s 1080p chip allows for great 1080p HD and HDMI video playback, and there doesn’t seem to be any hitch-ups when exhausted down to low battery. Even for someone as fumbling and sweaty-palmed as myself, the resistive touchscreen worked fine, even with the protective film on. However, this is only one side to the dual booting player. Let us be reminded that this player does indeed have greater potential, if it’s alter-ego performs just as well. With Android ready and waiting to be booted up, we’ll see if this 5-incher really can hold double it’s weight (well, not double as both OS’ won’t be running at the same time, but you know what I mean), which will be revealed in part 2 of this review – Of Two Faces, This Is The Other.

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Categories: PMP Review, Ramos

Tags: Ramos, T11Pro