Comprehensive Review of Wiwoo Mp3 player from long time user
The media could not be loaded. In my photo are four Wiwoo Mp3 Players--I have the previous generation, which were black, 16GB models. The one on the far left was dropped in water for a long period, hence the screen; it did not spontaneously fail. Check out my video too, it shows how to properly turn off the player. After using several of these, I can confidently say they are reliable, but not submersible or waterproof. I've dropped each one multiple times with no damage. The screen is thick plastic and does not shatter. Pushing the power button once is the new "lock" button, and holding the button is how you turn it off. The power button is the one above the volume buttons with the little indentation. AUDIO QUALITY: This is the most important thing for an MP3 player, in my opinion. And it is very good here! Crisp and clear, if you use good earbuds or headphones. I highly recommend not using the supplied headphones; they sound bad. You can get a pair of earbuds for cheap that sound great; the good ones start around 10. The ones that go inside the ears with the silicone tips sound the best on average. Over the ear headphones work with this player too and also sound good, but volume may have to go higher. THE SCREEN: Not a touchscreen. It's about 1.8 inches big. I believe the little red rectangle on the screen shows the bitrate, and the one to the left shows the file format. It displays album art, a little stretched since the space is rectangular and the art is square, as shown in my video. The music files have to be tagged correctly on your PC for it to show up. Use MP3Tag if you want to change metadata easily on your PC. If you get your tracks from CDs and Amazon downloads, most of the metadata will be correct and you won't have to edit it. It will automatically sort tracks by artist, name, album, and genre, if the metadata is correct. If you load tracks but don't see them right away, go to the music menu where you see "All songs" "Artists" "Albums" etc and go to the bottom where it says "Update Audio Playlists" and click that. It will quickly rebuild the music library. OTHER FEATURES: I do not use bluetooth often, but I tested it and it worked fine with my soundbar. I don't know if it works in modern cars, but I use the AUX input so it doesn't matter. AUX/headphone jack gives better audio fidelity anyways, regardless of the player. MENU: You can enter the menu by pressing the button with the three lines on it. From there, you can change Play Mode (options to shuffle or repeat tracks) and Sound Settings, which takes you to the Equalizer, where you can add more bass or treble. I noticed on mine, adding more bass results in a somewhat crackly sound. There is the option for a custom EQ, which is a new feature--it's at the bottom of the list. Not all options display on the screen at once, so you'll need to scroll down using the buttons. TO SHUFFLE: Make sure you're in the now playing screen, where you can see the track title and album art (if you have album art, if you don't, you'll see the bars that go up and down.) Hit the menu button (the one with three lines on the upper left) Then select the "Play Mode" by pressing the play/pause (middle button of the center buttons) Then select "Repeat." At the bottom of the next menu will be "Shuffle." Select that. Then it will be shuffling! VARIABLE SPEED: if you speed up or slow down the tracks, the quality of the sound goes down--keep in mind these are small players, and they don't have a vast amount of processing power. But unlike the previous version, rebuilding playlists (which gets the tracks to show up in the menu) is MUCH faster! The player is pocket-sized, lightweight, and has a soft velvety touch feeling. VOICE RECORDER: Just tested this, sounds good and has optional VOX mode. You can adjust the bitrate/quality of the recording before recording in the settings menu; it will always record in WAV format. When you load the recorder for the first time, it takes a while to calculate space available, but then works fast on future recordings. BUILT IN SPEAKER: sounds good for its size but don't expect massive bass, since it's just a little one. You can turn it off or on in the main menu. Go to the little gear that says "SET" and go to EXTERNAL SWITCH and you can turn it on or off there. I think it is supposed to turn the speaker off automatically when the headphones are plugged in but sometimes it doesn't. OLD VS NEW WIWOO B3: the old one isn't being sold anymore, but for the sake of history: The old one has FM radio, video playback (if in the proper format), but no bluetooth, and only 16GB. The new one has bluetooth but no FM radio or video playback, and it has bluetooth and a small built in speaker. Both the old, discontinued version, and the new, white one have support for a wide variety of files. Despite looking bigger, the screen sizes on both the old one and the new one are the same. The new one has more buttons, so it may be easier to navigate for most people. WHAT I WANT IN A FUTURE MODEL: I think it's perfect as it is, but I wouldn't mind them bringing back video playback and FM radio for future versions of this MP3 player. Granted, the video was more of a novelty feature than anything else, given the size of the screen, but it was fun. FM radio should have a priority! MINOR ISSUE: The player has a very fast fade in for each track it starts. When pausing, it very quickly fades out. This is very subtle, but if you play at a high volume, pause, lower volume a lot, and then play again, it will give fade in from the loud volume before dropping to the proper volume. This is very minor, but an annoyance. SD CARD SLOT: Takes a micro SD for extra storage space. My music library is about 18 GB so I haven't had need of this and cannot comment further. BATTERY LIFE: Seems great. I haven't had it for more than a month but seems to be long lasting. Bluetooth might make it drain faster, but I am getting at least 8 hours of use each charge. I set the screen to automatically turn off after 30 seconds, and I think the screen is the biggest drain of the battery, so if you're playing music with screen off, it probably lasts longer. You can adjust brightness and screen timeout in the "Set" menu under "Display Settings." OVERALL THOUGHTS: Unbeatable value for the money, price continues to drop too. I'd recommend this over any other MP3 player on Amazon because the value for dollar is unbeatable! Read more




















