MP3 Player with Bluetooth 5.2, BERENNIS 16GB Portable HiFi Lossless Sound 2.4" Large Screen Music Player with FM Radio Voice Recorder Video Player, Support up to 128GB

Executive summary:If you're looking for a rather good MP3 player at-or-under $30, I have yet to find one that works as well as this one. The sound is good, the functions actually work as described, it's got a nice mechanical switch for the lock, and I suspect someone actually put in a good amount of effort into making this, and it shows. Even the English is pretty good! I've gone through nearly a dozen cheap players, and this one is the best I've found.Long form version:So it's 2014, and I want a dedicated mp3 player so I don't have to drain my phone's charge or disk space, something I can carry and wear around while exercising or working in the shop or mowing the lawn or whatever. My otherwise awesome Creative Zen X-FI had finally died. So I search for 'best mp3 players'.Did you know some folks think their mp3 players are worth 600, even 800 bucks? In 2020? For a reality check, I searched for ipods, they're so a decade ago, so they'll be cheap, right - they're $200? What?Every year since I've pretty much ended up grabbing a cheap ~$20 mp3 off brand mp3 player. Some have lousy range (like, jeans pockets = no connection to headphones), most lack settings you'd think were mandatory (playlists, shuffle, play music while doing literally anything else). Some had no internal storage, and others claimed to be 32 gb, but broke after storing 2 gig. Most of them sounded awful and skipped constantly.So this year, my recent piece of cheaply made red plastic junk died and the manual ("look to on and then from lock with happy to see reset") was of no help, so I resignedly searched for something to replace it. I went big time this year and went up to $30 - I know, big spender.So, enough of my backstory. What did I get? I got an actual decent piece of kit for the first time in half a decade! Yeah, surprised me too.My initial observation was that it doesn't feel cheap. It's made from a pretty solid piece of machined steel, has a nice heft for the size, and while I didn't test it, it seems like it'll take a big of a knock-around before breaking. +1 right there.I checked all the features it claimed to have: plays mp3s, shuffle, connects to bluetooth, playlists, speakers, radio, voice and radio recorder, equalizer, shows pictures, lets you read text files, and video. Apart from the video, it all seems to work as you'd expect. Let's cover the highlights:The MP3 functionality works, and while the earbuds that ship with it are not the greatest, the speaker is loud enough and clear enough to be usable, and with a decent headset (bluetooth or not), it's perfectly clear, no skips, no static. As the pictures show, it also loads album covers if you're into that and put them in your folders.It doesn't even pause or hiccup when you navigate around the device - it keeps playing the song. There's no third-party software to manage the playlists, and I'm still not entirely sure how they work to be honest. What I did find out is that if you put the songs you want to listen to in a folder, use the 'browser' feature to navigate to it and play any of those songs, and hit shuffle, it'll only play the songs in that folder. So, a poor man's playlist, but it works for me.The Radio feature works fine, but it relies on having a (wired) pair of headphones to act as an antenna. Either it can't pick up a signal without that, or the functionality is simply disabled until you do plug one in, but neither the speaker nor bluetooth will play anything until you do. Seems silly to plug in headphones and then listen via bluetooth, but there you go.The Ebook portion simply lets you read text files. It is not text-to-speech. Like the image and video functionality, I don't expect that it's something you'll end up using a lot.Speaking of the video player, it claims to support avi/amv, and that does not mean actual 'avi' but rather, specifically, only the AMV format. I didn't waste a lot of time on trying to get this to work or converting my files. I assume it works, but I only ever got 'format error'. You don't usually buy an mp3 player to watch teeeny-tiny videos on anyway.The equalizer portion isn't very detailed - there's just 6 settings, Rock, Funk, etc, with no description of what they do. I set mine on Rock, and it seems fine.It charges from a bog standard microusb slot (cable included) so your standard 3.6-6v wall wart will work, or you can just plug it into a computer. There's a microsd slot, but I didn't have anything to test it with.There's a mechanical switch on the side to lock the device, so you can slip it in your pocket and not accidentally skip songs or mess with the volume, but the power button itself is a soft switch (hold to power on/off).All the instructions and in-device text is readable english, the only 'engrish' I saw was the bluetooth option screen which had "open," and "off," instead of "on," and "off", and that was easy enough to suss out.The biggest not-really-a-problem I had with the device was that I kept thinking it was a touch screen, and it is not. You use the touch controls on the right to navigate.The only real con I had was those playlists. Not only did the feature not seem to work as I'd expect, there's no way to access them - such as via the USB transfer - so I can't even try to modify them externally. Of course, since I found a workaround, I'm fine, and really this is a small issue for something I'm probably just going to put on "shuffle all songs," anyway.Request to devs: Make the playlists appear in their own folder as text files, one file per line, name of the file is the playlist name. This is a feature no other mp3 player I've seen has, and it'd allow easy management and a simple third party program could manage it in a nice GUI.

Note - After buying another Berennis MP3 Player in the past, I was approached and given this new Mp3 player in exchange for a review; good, bad or otherwise. Other than the item, I haven't and will not receive any compensation for this review, and it has no impact on how I rate this. That being said it's a surprisingly great little Mp3 player as long as you keep in mind that it's main function is to play audio files.The best comparison I can make is to an original iPod, but at a fraction of the price and with a bunch of extra capabilities (recording, bluetooth, video files, memory expansion and even analog radio!). If you use your phone for everything, and thus struggle to have enough battery life or storage space, or need to limit streaming off your mobile data, then pulling your music and podcasts onto an Mp3 player is a great option. I've also run into a number of instances camping, hiking, backpacking or travelling where I didn't have service to stream music, and was glad to have this as a backup, especially with such a long battery life.Compared to the other Berrenis Mp3 Player that I bought (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07D6KWPCY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) ;The screen is larger, clearer and sharper (definite improvement in quality), though in a side by side test the internal speakers aren't quite as loud (note- I didn't even realize either it had speakers until I unplugged the headphones, so pleasant surprise. They aren't that loud if you are outside or in a noisy area, but plenty around the house or quieter situations/background. If you need it louder, use portable speakers).The main difference and toughest part to get used to is the right side control panel, as opposed to the bottom. If you are left handed, this will be a struggle, it is meant to be held and controlled with your right hand. I keep grabbing it with the controls down (like traditional iPods and phones, etc) and have to rotate it widthwise to use. This is limiting if you want to use your left hand, but it hasn't been a big deal.Overall, saving my phone battery, memory and data, being able to bluetooth to external speakers or my car when driving and only charging every week or two (depending on use), this is great value and practical.