Sony WH-1000XM4 on-ear wireless headset good for music listening, video watching, phone call handling, online conferencing and gaming

I believe there is no doubt about Sony WH-1000XM4 being the best consumer-grade foldable, stereo on-ear wireless headset with built-in internal echo-cancelling microphones nowadays (during 2021-2022) for music listening with superb active noise-cancelling (ANC) features.

Well, the following criteria are rules of thumb in determining a good wireless headphone/headset:

• High fidelity of music playback
• Relatively large driver unit (>=40mm)
• Wide frequency range at both low end (<=20Hz) and high end (>=20,000Hz)
• Good noise-cancelling function
• Long battery life per charge, can last more than 30 hours
• Support Bluetooth 5 or above. This is crucial for low power consumption as well as low latency between connected devices.
• Simultaneous wireless connection to 2 or more devices
• Personalize setting profile with artificial intelligence (A.I.) learning and adapting feature
• Comfortability for long-hour wearing

There are several brands with top-range consumer-grade headphones that can meet all of the above, including Sony, Bose, Sennheiser, Jabra, Apple, etc.

The Sony WH-1000XM4 is ranked the best among these best with its excellent noise-cancelling function, superb music playback (with the right equalizer setting), advanced A.I. personalization, and nice comfortability in wearing even for the whole day.

However, the Sony WH-1000XM4 is at the same time losing score in its microphone function, bringing doubts of whether it is still good for handling phone calls and/or speaking in online conferencing.

After using it for some time with its latest firmware, I would say its microphone function is still above average, though not among the best. With a simple 3rd party gadget upgrade, it can even instantly be greatly improved to be ranked among the best in handling calls/meetings and also in voice recording for online gaming, podcasting, video narration, etc.

I had been eying for this Sony WH-1000XM4 headset for several months in 2021, but its price tag of around RM1,500 had made me a bit hesitant to buy it, until the last 2021 12.12 online mega sale, when I saw it selling at RM888 promotional price only, I've immediately bought it.

Now I have used this headset for more than 70 hours, most of the time for online conferencing, followed by music listening, and the least usage time is for answering phone calls. I think it's time for me to write my review about this Sony WH-1000XM4 headset based on my past 2 months of 70+ hours usage experience.

Unboxing the Sony WH-1000XM4 headset

This Sony WH-1000XM4 headset comes with a nice carrying pouch, which is a little bit bulky compared with some other headsets, due to its thick ear cups.

also come together with it in its packaging box are:

• Stereo audio cable for 3.5mm port (without microphone voice out function)
• Airplane in-flight audio adapter plug
• Very short USB charging cable (good enough for charging using power bank)
• Quick reference guide
• Instruction for online registration of its 15 months warranty
• Instruction to download the Sony Headphones Connect mobile app for Android and Apple devices
• A voucher code for 360 Reality Audio 3-months free trial subscription in either one of Deezer 360, Tidal, nugs.net and Artist Connection.

Adding a table-top tower stand for the headset

I have also bought a 3rd party aluminium headphone tower stand for it, at the price of around RM15 only.

Using the 2 buttons at the left ear cup

The Sony WH-1000XM4 left ear cup has 2 buttons. It is very easy for you to locate the correct button by touching and feeling around them with your thumb, without the need of seeing them. A brilliant UX design!

The upper button is a Customizable button that you can use to control either one of:

• Ambient sound control
• Google Assistant
• Amazon Alexa

I have set this button for Google Assistant, and below is how the button works in this mode:

Continue pressing the button to talk or give command to Google Assistant.

When the headset is actively connected to a computer:

• Press 1 time to toggle music start/stop
• Press 2 times also to toggle music start/stop

When the headset is actively connected to your handphone:

• Press 1 time to tell you the current time. Also to read out your phone's notification (such as SMS) for you, if any.
• Press 2 times to stop reading the notification

The lower button is the Power button:

• Press 1 time to tell you the current battery level
• Long press to turn on/off the headset

By the way, the headset has a proximity sensor in this left ear cup. If it detects that you have removed it from your head, it will automatically pause the music and will resume the music when you wear it on again. It will also automatically turn off itself after you've removed it from your head for several minutes.

Using the touch panel at the right ear cup

For the right ear cup, its external surface is actually a touch panel, with the following functions:

• Cover it completely with your right hand to enter into quick attention mode to let you listen to your surrounding ambient sound by greatly soften the music and temporarily turn off the ANC. It will go back to normal operation after you uncover the right ear cup.
• Touch it with 2 fingers to toggle speak-to-chat mode on/off, to let you talk with somebody. In this mode, when there is a human speaking voice around, the music will be paused and the speaker will let you listen to the speech. This speak-to-chat feature can also be set to automatically turn on/off by itself based on A.I. detection of human talking voice, but you might face some minor issues with Microsoft Teams. Therefore, I prefer to manually control it using the 2 fingers method.
• Tap 2 times (when call is incoming) to answer the phone call
• Tap 2 times (in a call) end the phone call
• Tap 2 times (not in a call) start/stop music
• Long tap (when call is incoming) to reject the phone call
• Long tap (in a call) toggle the call handling device between the headphone and your handphone
• Long tap (not in a call) to start voice dial function
• Swipe up to increase the sound volume
• Swipe down to decrease the sound volume
• Swipe forward for next music track
• Swipe backward for previous music track
• Swipe forward and hold at the edge to fast forward
• Swipe backward and hold at the edge to fast reverse

Using the Sony Headphones Connect mobile app

The headset settings can be configured with your handphone using the Sony Headphones Connect mobile app which you can download from Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

The app is able to detect your Sony headset once the headset is paired and connected with your handphone via Bluetooth.

The Sony Headphones Connect app has 3 major pages under the Headphone bottom menu selection, namely: Status, Sound and System.

In the Status page, you can turn off the headphone from there. You can also view the current battery level of the headphone, its connection mode (Bluetooth or wired), the digital audio codec in used, whether DSEE Extreme is turned on, etc.

You can also perform the configuration for Adaptive Sound Control there. This is a very powerful A.I. enabled personalization feature which can adjust the sound output based on your detected action (either staying, walking, running or commuting), or based on your detected location (your home, office, favourite coffee shops, library, or any other places you frequently visit).

For each of the actions and/or recorded locations, you can have different sound settings for volume control, ANC level, speech handling, etc. Your headphone will automatically switch and adapt its sound settings based on its detection.

In this way, it can always optimize your music hearing experience by having adaptive settings that suit for your action or location. For example, you might want to maximize the ANC level at noisy places, but reduce the ANC level in places (such as your workplace) where sometimes you need to speak with people coming to you.

Scrolling down the screen, you can see information about currently connected devices (up to 2), and the current sound output is from which device. The headphone is able to automatically switch between the 2 connected devices based on the voice priority and importance, as determined by its A.I. You can also manually switch the sound output device here, or to select another device to replace one of the currently connected devices.

When you are using Adaptive Sound Control, the sound volume of your headset can be automatically adjusted to a just-nice level, not too loud and not too soft. The A.I. of the headset is able to fine-tune the sound volume for you.

Beside using the app to determine and change the 2 connected devices from the multiple paired devices, you can also perform manual connection directly from the devices itself.

For Android devices such as your handphone, you can perform audio switch from the Switch Audio notification tab.

and for Windows devices such as your laptop or desktop computer, you can do so inside the Bluetooth & Devices setting screen.

The headset is intelligent enough to determine which existing connected device to be replaced. The longer you use your headset, the more accurate its selection will be. 

In case it has disconnected the wrong one, you can always perform manual connection from either the mobile app or the connecting device to get the 2 connected devices as you want.

The last portion of the Status screen shows information of the currently playing music, and the current sound level. The information includes the singer's name, song title, copyright owner, and album name. It supports multilingual display.

My settings in Sony Headphones Connect

For your reference, here are my settings in my Sony Headphones Connect app.

• Adaptive Sound Control: on
• Detection of Actions: on
• Ambient Sound Control: on with default noise-canceling settings for Staying, Walking, Running and Transport
• Learning of locations you frequent: on
• Registered Locations: I've registered for a few places where I use the headset, including home, office, library, etc.
• Notification Tone When Switching: on

• Ambient Sound Control: on
• Noise-canceling set automatically by Adaptive Sound Control
• Speak-to-Chat: off (suggest to turn this off if you frequently use the headset for online conferencing, particularly Microsoft Teams)
• Noise Canceling Optimizer completed for:
• Personal optimizing
• Atmospheric pressure optimizing
• Equalizer customized to emphasize on human vocal, with added clear bass for musical instruments. Below is my equalizer setting for your reference:

• Analyze ear shape for 360 Reality Audio Setup completed
• Sound Quality Mode: Priority on Sound Quality instead of Stable Connection
• DSEE Extreme: normally off. Sometimes will turn this on while listening to Youtube Music.
• Connect to 2 devices simultaneously: on
• Function of Custom button set to: Google Assistant
• Touch sensor control panel: on
• Automatic Power Off set to off when headphones are taken
• Pause when headphones are taken off: on
• Notification & voice guide: on
• Tips for language: if you want your headset to accurately read out non-English words, you need to firstly change the language to that language (such as Chinese). After that, you can change back the language to English.
• Automatic download of software: on
• Only when connected via Wi-Fi
• Activity Settings: record activity
• Automatic Synchronization of Settings and Records: enabled

Why Sony WH-1000XM4 is excellent for music listening?

• Sony has the world's leading-edge noise-cancelling technology. The Sony WH-1000XM4 is superb in both passive noise-cancelling and also active noise-cancelling. After you put on this on-ear headset, you can immediately feel ambient noise around you to be much softer, a pretty similar experience with putting on the pilot headset when sitting in the cockpit of helicopter or propeller airplane. With ANC on, you can totally immerse yourself with the music, without disturbance from ambient noise. I have several experience taking a pee and flushing the toilet bowl while wearing the headset. Guess what? I can hardly hear the flushing sound.
• This headset has a wide frequency range and able to playback the music in high fidelity. You can clearly distinct among the sound from different music instruments, as well as the human singing vocal, and feel their respective distance and position.
• With its DSEE Extreme technology, this headset is able to improve the music from low bitrate and/or compressed music source.
• This headset is very comfortable to wear, and you won't feel it "pressing" on your head or on your ears. The length of its band is adjustable, and I don't feel much discomfort even after wearing it for a whole day.
• Similar to all other on-ear headphones, you can feel some heat around your ear after wearing it for some time. However, unlike most other on-ear headphones, the heat does not continue to build up, and it stays at a still comfortable state, even after wearing it for a whole day.
• Its fully charged battery can easily last for more than 30 hours, even when you turn on all of its features, even with simultaneous equalizer and DSEE Extreme on.
• It can work as wireless headphone, as well as wired headphone. It even comes with an airplane in-flight audio adapter plug for you to connect it to the airplane's in-flight entertainment system.
• Although its 360 Reality Audio feature can only work with several selected online music streaming websites such as Tidal, if you happen to use any one of the supported online music streaming platforms, you will enjoy the great experience of listening to music with 360 degree surround effect.
• This headset is intelligent enough to automatically pause your music when there is a phone call, or when it detects you take it off from your head. It can automatically resume the music from where it stopped after the phone call, or when it detects you've put it back on your head. It also has feature to soften or pause the music when you speak with somebody around you, without the need of taking it off your head.
• This headset is highly personalizable. Its equalizer is working pretty well for you to fine-tune your music listening experience.

Why Sony WH-1000XM4 is good for phone call handling?

• It's Bluetooth connection is pretty stable even though it is quite some distance away from your handphone.
• It's microphone has excellent noise-cancelling function. Even when you are at a noisy place with lots of people talking, or with TV noise, renovation drilling noise, baby crying, dog barking, motor noise, strong wind blowing noise, etc., those noises will be intelligently filtered out for the other party on your phone. However, if you are in a really noisy environment, your own voice might sound a bit "mechanical" due to the filtering effect.
• It's right ear cup has touch panel with pretty many features for you to handle your call.
• Although your voice won't sound as clear and loud as with using headsets with a boom mic, it still can handle satisfactory normally conversation, especially with its latest firmware version. Besides, there is a solution to greatly improve your voice by using 3rd party audio cable with attached boom mic.
• Other than phone call handling, you can also use this headset to communicate with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.

Why Sony WH-1000XM4 is good for online conferencing?

I've used this headset in many video or audio conferencings in the form of Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom Meeting, Cisco Webex, etc. It can function well in all of them, by setting the conferencing application to use the computer system's audio as input and output.

• I found that it's Bluetooth works better with computer (PC or laptop) than mobile device (handphone or tablet). Conferencing on computer using this headset has a more stable and better sound than mobile device.
• Its features such as long battery life, comfortable to wear, does not heat up a lot, etc. makes it suitable for long hour video/audio conferencing.
• Its excellent noise-cancelling features help you to filter out most of the ambient noise around you, so you can still comfortably have your online conference while you are in a pretty noisy place.
• Your voice can be greatly improved by using 3rd-party audio cable with attached boom mic. Normally I use this when I am the main speaker/presenter in the online conference. Note that the original audio cable that comes together with this headset only support audio input but not audio output. When getting the 3rd-party audio cable with attached boom mic, you need to make sure the boom mic supports echo cancelling and noise-cancelling.
• If you are working with multiple computers at the same time, you will find its ability to connect to 2 devices at the same time be very useful.

Why Sony WH-1000XM4 is good for video and gaming?

• With the correct equalizer setting, this headset is capable to bring you great cinematic sound. It sounds so real to immerse yourself into the video or game.
• This headset has very low non-noticeable audio latency when connected using Bluetooth, and no latency when connected using audio cable. Your screen's action is in sync with the audio you hear, without any noticeable delay effect.
• For online gaming that you are going to talk a lot with your partners in the game, your voice will be loud and clear by using a 3rd-party audio cable with attached boom mic.

Some limitation of Sony WH-1000XM4

The Sony WH-1000XM4 will be perfect if the following shortcoming can be resolved, perhaps in the future version of WH-1000XM5.

• It does not have a mute button. If you want to temporary mute it during a phone call or conference call, you need to do it on your phone dialer software or conference application.
• Its original audio cable will be perfect if can support audio out, and comes with a good detachable boom mic.
• It will be nice if its ear cups can be less bulky in design.

All-in-all, if you are looking for a good headset for music listening, video watching, phone call handling, online conferencing and gaming, you won't be wrong getting this Sony WH-1000XM4.

Understanding headphones vs headset vs earbuds, on-ear vs over-ear vs in-ear, wired vs wireless vs true wireless, closed-back vs open-back

It seems that there are quite a lot of earphones related terms nowadays.

It is imperative for you to understand what the terms meant, so that, from their product description, you can understand the nature of the earphones you are aiming for. This will help you ensure that you won't buy the wrong type of earphones that is different from your real preference.

Headphones vs headset vs earbuds

• Headphones - the sound device with 2 drivers, connected by a headband, to be worn over your head and covering your ears with its ear cups.

In terms of audio playback channel, they can be of:

• Mono - single-channel audio. Both left and right drivers playing the same audio.
• Stereo - dual-channel audio. The sound is divided into left channel and right channel. This enables the headphones to produce wider sound width, and the ability to create sound directionality, perspective, as well as simulation of real space.

The ear cups can be of type:

• Foldable - more easier to carry in flatter pouch.
• Non-foldable - more suitable to be used at fixed location.

The headphones can be of type:

• Without noise-canceling treatment - you can still hear the external noise, mixing together with the voice coming from the headphones itself.
• Passive noise-canceling - able to isolate external noise with the headphones structure and material used. This can minimize the disturbance and annoyance of ambient noise when you are listening through your headphones.
• Active noise-canceling (ANC) - able to eliminate external ambient noise by producing sound waves with frequency that cancel out the ambient noise frequency. This can create a quiet listening environment for you to focus on the sound coming from your headphones only.

The headphones can be of type:

• On-ear - the ear cups are put right on your ears. This type of headphones usually has smaller ear cups. Some of the disadvantages of on-ear headphones including:
• Poorer ambient noise isolation.
• More tendency of voice leakage - people near you can hear what you are listening to.
• Need to clamp tightly onto your ears, will cause ears pain when use for long time.
• Over-ear - the ear cups are larger and sit on your outer ears. This type of headphones are usually more comfortable to wear, has better ambient noise isolation, can prevent voice leakage. They usually have a more expansive sound stage. Depends on the material used, when use for long time, you might feel heat building up at your ears due to poor air ventilation.

The headphones can be of type:

• Closed-back - the ear cups are fully covering your ears.
• Open-back - there is a gap at the back of the headphones, so that you are still able to listen to your own voice more clearly when you speak. It also provides better ventilation to have less heat building up after long use.

• Headset - is a kind of headphones with built-in microphone to capture voice input. This ability enables the headset to provide functions such as making/answering phone calls, voice recording/streaming, using voice commands to "talk" with A.I. virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa (a.k.a. Echo), Apple Siri, Alibaba Genie, Xiaomi Xiao Ai, Huawei Celia, Tencent Xiaowei, Samsung Bixby, Microsoft Cortana, etc.

The microphone can be:

• Internal - inside the ear cups. Less external parts. Voice quality might not be as good as the one with external microphone, because the mic(s) are located further away from the mouth.
• External - normally in a form of boom mic which can be positioned right in front of your mouth. The external microphone can be of type detachable or non-detachable from the headset.

Better type of microphone has echo-canceling feature to prevent echoing the sound coming from the sound output device.

Better type of microphone also has noise-canceling feature to filter out ambient noise such as the noise from wind, motor, fan, air-cond, moving vehicle, TV, etc.

• Earbuds - are without headbands, small in size, fits directly into your ears. They are very portable, but usually have shorter battery life, and could drop off from your ear when you jump or move vigorously. They are also more intrusive in nature, and some people find uncomfortable wearing them.

The earbuds can be of type:

• On-ear - less intrusive in nature.
• In-ear - to be put into your ear canal. This can provide better passive noise cancellation.

Wired vs wireless vs true wireless

• Wired earphones, regardless they are headphones, headset or earbuds, has audio wire connecting them to the sound-producing device, which can be a handphone, computer, MP3, musical instrument, etc.

The wire can be of one-way type, sending sound signal from the source device to the earphones. On the other hand, two-ways wire can also send sound signal from microphone of headset to the connected device.

Signal sending in the wire can be of analog type or digital type.

For digital type of audio, the coding format can be of:

• aptX (Qualcomm)
• LDAC (Sony)
• AAC
• SBC
• FLAC
• ...

but more importantly for the quality of audio is its bitrate in kilobits per second (kbps). The higher the better.

• Wireless earphones communicate with the attached device using wireless communication, which can be of proprietary protocol, Bluetooth, or even WiFi. 

Bluetooth is commonly used, because it is easier to do pairing, consumes less electric power, but it is also limited by relatively short reaching distance.

Certain wired earphones can work without any battery, powered by the electric current in their own wire. But all wireless earphones need to have their own power supply, usually in the form of built-in rechargeable battery.

• True wireless earbuds refer to earbuds without any wire. This is to distinguish from certain wireless earbuds that are still connecting the right earbud and left earbud to each other with a wire or a band.

Certain true wireless earbuds have internal microphone too, mainly for handling phone calls.

Certain wired earbuds consist of additional components such as:

• Microphone that attached to the wire.
• Control dial to control the sound volume easily.

My Tx8 3.5mm AUX to Bluetooth 5.0 converter for audio transmitting / receiving

My Ruizu X02 MP3 player is without Bluetooth output function, and I think it would be good to add Bluetooth function to it, so that it can output audio to wireless earbuds, Bluetooth speaker, soundbar, etc.

There are cheap AUX to Bluetooth converters available, some even priced below RM20. Based on their product description and customer review, the follow shortcomings are quite common to them:

• Single function of either Bluetooth receiving or transmitting only.
• Poor and short distance connection.
• Sound is lagging behind due to low transmission rate.
• Battery only works for short hours before recharging needed.
• Product quality not so good with high faulty rate after some times of use.

Anyhow, I managed to find this Tx8 2-in-1 Bluetooth transmitter and receiver, at the cost of below RM30, with the following features:

• Supports Bluetooth 5.0 for better audio data transmission quality.
• Can work for 8-12 hours before battery recharge is needed.
• Transmission distance exceeding 33 feet.
• Able to remember the paired devices.

It is very compact in size, easy to carry along. It even has a fixed folder design. It comes with USB charging cable, AUX cable, RCA cable, and a user manual.

I have purposely put my Logitech M590 mouse beside to give a better idea about its size.

By connecting the Tx8 with cable to the audio output of MP3 player, computer, handphone, tablet, TV, and any other devices with AUX audio output port, the Tx8 can transmit the audio wirelessly through Bluetooth connection to wireless earbuds, speaker, sound bar, Hi-Fi system, car audio system, etc.

On the other hand, by connecting the Tx8 with cable to the audio input of a speaker, radio, sound bar, and any other audio devices with AUX or RCA input, the Tx8 can receive the audio wirelessly through Bluetooth connection from handphone, tablet, computer, TV, media player, smart watch, etc.

The Bluetooth pairing is pretty fast, and the connection is pretty stable.

If you are looking for similar gadget with an affordable price, you can consider this one.

Using Vidmore video converter to convert MP4 / MKV / MOV / WMV / AVI / FLV video to AMV format

AMV is a kind of compressed motion JPEG (M-JPEG) video format, commonly used in MP3 and MP4 players.

For example, the Ruizu X02 MP3 player can only play one type of video file, which is AMV. I would need to convert music video (MV) in the format of either MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, AVI, FLV, etc. into AMV before my Ruizu X02 MP3 player can play the video without any issue.

There are several websites in the Internet that claimed to be able to online convert uploaded video file into AMV format. There are also several video converting software that claimed to support conversion to AMV format. I have tried some of the popular one, but all of them failed as the AMV file produced by them end-up with "invalid video format" error when I tried to play in my Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

Finally, I managed to find one video conversion software that works, which is Vidmore video converter, and it is surprisingly very easy to use for AMV file conversion.

Vidmore is a freemium software, in which the free version only allows conversion of video of length not more than 5 minutes. This is good enough for music video conversion, because most of the songs are less than 5 minutes long.

Another restriction to the free version is that, you can only convert 1 file at a time. This is also OK for me, as I only need to convert a small amount of MV to put into my Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

To perform the conversion, set the "Convert All to" selection to "AMV AMV General" and leave all the settings as default. Leave the resolution setting to be 170x144.

Then, open the video file one at a time, and click on the Convert All button to perform the conversion.

The output AMV file should be able to be played in the Ruizu X02 MP3 player.

My Ruizu X02 MP3 player with 8GB internal storage

I have bought a Ruizu X02 MP3 player for my kid who is studying in a boarding school. It is a budget MP3 player which cost around RM50.

This Ruizu X02 MP3 player is very lightweight, compact at the size of just 3.9cm x 9.0cm x 0.7cm, and surprisingly feature rich. Its only shortfall is not supporting Bluetooth audio. Anyhow, Bluetooth is supported in higher ranked models of Ruizu MP3 player, such as the X06 which cost about 50% more expensive than the X02.

It doesn't come together with a earphone. well, you can easily get a decent earphone that come with your handphone, or to purchase one from the market.

Its default firmware is not so user friendly, because for certain function, you need to press its left and right button to navigate up and down on the screen. There is a new firmware version available for download in Ruizu official website. After the firmware update, its UX screen navigation is much better now. You can click here to learn about how to perform the firmware update to Ruizu MP3 player.

This MP3 player has an internal storage of 8GB. It also supports using SD card as external storage, but I found that after plugged-in the SD card, there will be additional steps to access and play the music and files, making it less convenient. In the end, I find it much better without the SD card. After all, 8GB of storage is large enough to store in a lot of songs and files.

One of the unique selling points (USP) of this Ruizu X02 MP3 player is its built-in battery's run time, which is able to play music for as long as 80 hours for a full charge cycle.

Another USP is that it supports as many as 25 languages, not only able to display the menu text in different language, but also able to correctly display filename, tag info, lyrics, and text in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, French, and characters of other languages.

Among its functions are:

1. Music player

Its music player is able to play MP3, APE, AAC, OGG, M4A, WMA, WAV and FLAC.

It has a decent software equalizer, and able to play music with satisfactory quality when paired with a good stereo earphone, or a music speaker connected with AUX cable to it.

It supports display of song lyrics with LRC file, and also display of song album image when the music is playing.

2. Audio recorder

It has a built-in mic for audio recording. Supported audio recording file formats are MP3, WAV and ACT.

The effective sound recording distance is less than 8 meters.

3. FM radio

It makes use of the connected earphone wire or AUX cable as antenna for its FM radio. It is able to memorize up to 30 favourite stations, which is quite a lot. It is also able to perform FM radio recording.

4. Photo viewer

It is able to display JPG, JPEG and BMP files on its 1.8" TFT screen. Do not expect much, as the screen resolution is low.

5. Video player

It can also play video in AMV format of resolution 128x160. You can convert Music Video (MV) into this AMV format, and it will be able to play the MV.

6. E-book

It can display content of TXT files, and allow you to put a bookmark onto the reading file. Text files with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. are supported.

7. Games

Its default firmware does not come with games, but after updated its firmware to latest version, there are 3 small games found in it, namely Snake, Sokoban and Tetris.

8. Other functions

Other functions include clock (as screen saver), calendar, stopwatch and alarm.

It would be nice if it could include a simple calculator as well, but that is lacking.


All in all, this is a feature rich MP3 player with very affordable price. A nice gadget for students in the situation that use of handphone is very restricted within the school compound, but MP3 player is allowed, particularly in the library area.

Converting video files to be playable from USB drive in Toyota PX-3834A-I display audio head unit

The Toyota PX-3834A-I display audio is the stock DVD-AVX head unit of Toyota Vios 1.5L E/G variants.

It is able to play the following multimedia files in a USB thumb drive:

• Audio music in MP3 (*.mp3), WMA (*.wma) or AAC (*.m4a) format
• Video in XVID (*.avi or *.mp4) or MPEG (*.mpg) format
• Picture in JPEG (*.jpg) format

For audio files to be playable, they need to have a sample rate between 8,000 Hz to 48,000 Hz and bit rate between 16 kbps to 320 kbps.

For video files to be playable, they need to have a frame size of either 720x480 (4:3 NTSC) or 720x576 (5:4 PAL).

When the car parking handbrake is engaged, the video will display on the screen, otherwise, there will be a statement on screen saying that the video will not be displayed while driving, while the music in the video still continue playing. This is a safety feature so that the driver will focus on driving instead of watching video on the screen.

In order for any video to be playable in this Toyota PX-3834A-I head unit, the easiest way is to convert it into MPG format with the following custom settings:

 

 

Conversion can be done using a free software called Freemake Video Converter. Alternatively, you can also use another free software called Format Factory to do the conversion.

 

Avantree SP850 multifunctional wireless speaker with FM radio

I have purchased an Avantree SP850 multifunctional wireless speaker with FM radio for my father to replace his CD player that is now faulty and possibly reached its end-of-life.

This Avantree SP850 has many overlapping function with the BC-01 multimedia bluetooth speaker that I purchased 2 years ago. It costs higher at the price of RM96, but its sound quality is comparatively better, with a removable (and therefore replaceable) Nokia BL-5C Li-ion battery, and much straightforward and easier to use.

Note that this Avantree SP850 does not have alarm clock function and also unable to display the time.

Its 3 main functions are:

• Play music and audio in MP3, WMA or WAV format
• FM radio
• Act as handsfree to answer/reject/hang-up incoming calls when connected to mobile phone using Bluetooth

It can accept audio source from the following:

• FM radio
• Micro SD card
• AUX 3.5mm audio cable
• Bluetooth

and it can output audio to headphone or external speaker via 3.5mm audio cable plugged to its headphone socket.

Its operation is menu driven with its LCD screen display. You can navigate the directory structure of the Micro SD card to pick the music file to play.

It supports the following music playing repeat modes:

• Repeat all
• Repeat folder
• Replace once
• Random

It has a built-in equalizer which you can set for the following music modes:

• Natural
• Rock
• Pop
• Classic
• Jazz
• Soft

It has 10 numeric buttons on top, makes it very easy to select song and to tune the FM radio.

You can get the FM radio to perform auto-searching of available channels, or to manually input the channel frequency number by using the numeric buttons. The manually set channels will be automatically memorized. This Avantree SP850 is able to memorize quite a lot of FM radio channels.

Due to its easy of use, this Avantree SP850 is suitable for everybody use, including elderly people.

You can watch the video below to have better understanding about this Avantree SP850.

Converting video files to be playable from USB drive in Honda 39102-T9A-T8XX-M1 display audio head unit

The Honda 39102-T9A-T8XX-M1 display audio is the stock head unit of Honda City 2017 Facelift 1.5L E/V variants.

It is able to play 4 types of multimedia files in a USB thumb drive: MP3 music, WMA music, JPEG photo, and MP4 video.

When the car parking handbrake is engaged, the video will display on the screen, otherwise, the video will become a blue screen while the music in the MP4 continue playing. This is a safety feature so that the driver will focus on driving instead of watching video on the screen. If you want to bypass this safety feature, you can search for a compatible "bypass cable" for this head unit and install it.

In order for any video to be playable in this Honda 39102-T9A-T8XX-M1 head unit, you need to convert it into MP4 format with the following custom settings:

• Frame size: 640 x 480
• Adjustment: Original
• Video codec: MPEG4
• Frame rate: 15 fps
• Bitrate type: Auto
• Audio codec: MP3
• Channels: Stereo
• Sample rate: 48000 Hz
• Audio Bitrate: 320 Kbps

Conversion can be done using a free software called Freemake Video Converter.

Although the car audio manual claimed that it is able to play video in H.264 Base Line Profile format, I have not succeed to make it work with any H.264 video.

The car audio manual also claimed that it is able to support video frame rate up to 30 fps, but if you set the fps higher than 15, the video might not be playing smoothly on the screen.

As the car audio manual has stated that it supports VGA size video only, the frame size is best to be 640x480. If you set it higher than that, the video will be totally unplayable with the "not supported resolution type" error.

Luckily, this head unit is capable to play MP3 in pretty high sample rate and bitrate. Its music playing capability is quite OK, particularly with the 8 speakers in the V variant, despite its video playing capability is really primitive.

Converting video files to be playable from USB drive in Sony XAV-W650BT double DIN player

Sony XAV-W650BT is a decent double DIN (Duetch Industri Normen) car head unit with DVD player. It has all the functions you need: radio, USB, AUX, Bluetooth, NFC, DVD/VCD player, steering control support, reverse camera support, etc.

It is able to play 3 types of multimedia files in a USB thumb drive: MP3 music, JPEG photo, and XVID/MP4 video.

Playing MP3 music and viewing JPEG photo is pretty straightforward, but playing video file might need some conversion work done to its compatible format, as it will face difficulty playing video that exceeds its maximum supported video resolution of 720x576. It also requires the video to have compatible codec and frame rate.

The conversion can be performed using a free software called Freemake Video Converter.

You need to convert the video file into MP4 format, with the following custom settings:

• Frame size: 720x576
• Adjustment: Auto
• Video codec: MPEG4
• Frame rate: 30 fps
• Audio codec: AAC
• Bitrate: maximum 4096 kbps

Even if your source file is already in MP4 format, it might not work well with the head unit if the setting is different from the above. Therefore, conversion is still required to ensure it will work well.

Now, you can run your conversion and put your favourite music videos, movies (MV), recorded TV programmes, etc. into a USB thumb drive that can be played in your Sony XAV-W650BT or similar head unit in your car.

BC-01 multimedia bluetooth speaker with alarm clock and FM radio

I have purchased a BC-01 multimedia bluetooth speaker with alarm clock and FM radio for my kid. This made-in-China gadget is pretty cheap, with the price of around RM60 only, and its quality is not too bad.

The BC-01 has 2 colour options: white and black. It is pretty small, with surface about the size of the palm of an adult. This small footprint, together with its built-in 1,500 mAh Li-ion rechargeable battery, makes it very portable and easy to carry long, especially when travelling.

With a low power consumption of around 3W, the battery is good enough to support for many hours of continuous music playback. It can operate in clock display and alarm mode for a few days at a single charge cycle.

It has a pair of stereo speakers, which is pretty decent with sufficient loudness in volume. Do not unfairly compete it with Hi-Fi speakers, but its sound quality can really beat the speakers of most of the smartphones and tablets nowadays. However, probably due to the use of internal antenna, you'll probably be disturbed with some hissing sound when using it as a radio.

So, what can this small gadget do?

First of all, it is an alarm clock with pretty large LED time display, as you can see from its photo above.

Then, it is a Bluetooth wireless speaker for any multimedia devices that support Bluetooth pairing. It also has a built-in microphone and can act as Bluetooth hands free speaker for mobile phone, able to pick up calls and have phone conversation with it.

The phone recognizes it for phone audio (to handle phone calls) as well as media audio (to play music streaming from the phone).

It also has a micro SD slot that supports micro SD up to 32GB. You can store music files of MP3, WAV, APE or WMA format in a micro SD card, slot in the card into its slot, and use it as a music player.

It comes with a special USB cable with 2 split connectors. One of it is the USB connector used as external power source and for battery charging, another is an audio jack which you can plug into another music device, computer, handphone, etc. and use it as an external speaker for such device.

Lastly, it is also an FM radio with internal antenna. It is able to automatically search for radio stations and remember their frequency.

Despite its multiple functions and features, it only has 6 control buttons, as shown in its photo above. Therefore, it takes some time to figure out how to use it. It comes with a paper User Manual and I highly recommend you to RTFM before you start using it.

One thing I dislike about this device is that, it only uses a single button to sequentially rotate and switch among its functions as Bluetooth speaker, micro SD card multimedia player, FM radio, AUX line-in speaker, and alarm clock. So you need to keep on pressing its right button until you reach your desired function.

All in all, this is a pretty cool device for bedroom radio and alarm. It is a good candidate as Christmas or birthday present too.

Converting your handphone / MP3 player to mini radio station with FM Transmitter

If your car CD player is capable of replaying MP3 music, you'll need to burn the MP3 files into a finalized CDR disc, which has a capacity of up to 680MB only.

If your car audio system has a USB port to play MP3 music, you'll need to copy the MP3 files to a USB thumb drive and plug it into the USB port of the car audio system.

What if your car audio system doesn't support the above 2 ways of playing MP3 music?

Well, you can convert and burn your MP3 files into an audio CD, which can store about 10 songs, and play it with your car CD player.

There also exist a kind of FM Transmitter that plug into your car's cigarette lighter socket, which you need to copy your MP3 files to an SD card and slot it into the FM Transmitter. Then, you can tune your car radio to the same frequency with the FM Transmitter in order to listen to the music.

But I have a better choice. I use the kind of FM Transmitter as shown below which can turn your handphone, MP3 player, or any kind of gadgets that support audio output to a universal 3.5mm headphone jack.

This FM Transmitter turns your gadget into a mini radio station with broadcast range of about 15 meters only. It supports devices with the 3.5mm headphone jack including handphone, MP3 player, voice recorder, tablet, laptop, etc.

The audio transmitted out can then be received and played by any radio device within the range. This could be your car radio, a normal radio, a Hi-Fi, a handphone with FM radio function, etc.

This FM Transmitter is able to transmit high-fidelity stereo sound with the digital PLL (phase locked loop) technology. It supports full range of FM transmitting frequency (87.5MHz-108.0MHz). It has stereo isolation of >= 38dB.

You can use it to output any kind of audio from the connected device, with audio frequency range of 100Hz-15,000Hz.

It has its own built-in 120mAh Li-ion battery, which can be recharged with its micro-USB port.

Its usage is similar to the cigarette lighter FM Transmitter. Just tune your car radio to the same frequency with this FM Transmitter in order to listen to the music.

Pretty cool isn't it?

Sony ICD-UX523F digital voice recorder (MP3 supported)

Digital voice recorder is an essential device for students to record lectures, seminars, group discussions, etc. It is also commonly used in business for recording meetings, presentations, dictations, notes taking, etc.

Although your smartphone (iPhone, Android phone, ...) or tablet (iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, ...) is most probably having the feature and app for digital voice recording as well, it is still preferable to use a dedicated digital voice recorder device for better recording quality, longer battery life, longer recording hours, and special features such as voice activation, index markers, intelligent noise cut, pitch control playback, A-B repeat, etc.

Here are some considerations in choosing a suitable digital voice recorder:

• The price (of course)
• Stereo recording capability (some basic unit only support mono recording)
• High voice sensitivity
• Maximum recording time
• Battery life (better to be >20 hours)
• Ability to record in MP3 format (some basic unit only support LPCM format)
• Easy to operate
• Internal storage capacity (better to have at least 2GB)
• Expandable storage with MicroSD card
• USB connect to computer
• Windows and Mac support
• Compact and handy in size
• Support for Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software (for transcribing)
• Recording and replaying features available

If you are looking for a digital voice recorder below the price of RM400, you can consider Sony ICD-UX523 which is available in Sony Center in the shopping malls. The shop will probably sell the ICD-UX523F model with FM radio function, which I think this "F" for FM radio is not that important though.

 

The Sony ICD-UX523F is a 4-in-1 stereo recorders:

• Voice recorder (LPCM/MP3)
• Music player (MP3/WMA/AAC )
• USB flash memory (4GB internal)
• FM radio

It has a USB Direct connector that can be slided out to connect to the computer (Windows or Mac) for battery charging and file transfer, or to connect to a USB AC adapter charger for charging. It operates with one NH-AAA rechargeable battery that comes together with the unit.
 
It has a microSD memory card slot that supports MicroSD/MicroSDHC for more storage. Its maximum recording time is as follow:

and its battery life is as follow:

It supports the following preset recording Scenes:

and the default setting of the scenes are as follow:

It comes with a very brief printed Introduction sheet. Its complete Operating Instruction Manual (hundred over pages) is stored inside its internal memory as PDF file, and available in various languages.

However, if you format its internal memory, these PDF file might be erased as well.

Its feature buttons/switches are well explained in the Operating Instruction Manual:

• T-Mark: to add a track mark at a point during recording, pausing or playback, at which you would like to divide a file later or locate during playback. You can add a maximum of 98 track marks to each file.
• Noise Cut: when you set the NOISE CUT switch to “ON”, ambient noise other than the human voice is reduced. A file is played back with clear sound quality because the noise of all frequency bands including a human voice is reduced.
• A-B: to play back a specified section repeatedly
• DPC: Digital Pitch Control to adjust the playback speed in a range from 0.50 times to 2.00 times.

Some other terms related to this digital voice recorder:

• VOR: Voice Operated Recording starts and stops the recording when sound of a sufficient level is picked up by the microphone. This feature saves valuable recording time by not recording periods when there is little or no sound.
• Intelligent Noise Cut: Sony technology to significantly reduces ambient noise during recording for clearer playback.
• Low Cut Filter: helps reduce the effect of wind noise in your recordings.
• Sync Record: when recording directly from an external device, the Sync Record function can be used to automatically pause the recorder during silence and resume recording when sound is detected.

The Sony ICD-UX523F comes with a CD with Sound Organizer software to manipulate the files. It is compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking software to perform voice recognition for a file and convert the voice to text.