Apacer 4GB Audio Steno AU840 Review | Audio/Sound Hardware Reviews

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Apacer 4GB Audio Steno AU840 Review
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Apacer 4GB Audio Steno AU840 Review Apacer’s newest MP3/Video player is barely the size of a matchbox, yet packs a substantial 4GB of memory and a 2.2” LCD screen with video capability. We take a look to see if it’s any good.

The Audio Steno AU840 has an all black appearance with the front of the unit covered over with glossy plastic and free from any buttons or controls which gives it a really cool look, and with these gadgets, style is often an important factor for the user to take into consideration.

Front of Audio Steno AU840 - Turned Off

On the top of the AU840 is your basic controls for music and video playback, these controls also double as the navigation controls for the on-screen GUI, but we’ll get more into that later on. On the base of the unit we have the USB port, which uses a standard Mini-B connection, so no need for a custom cable should you lose the one that comes with it. Also on the bottom of the unit are 2 headphone ports, this is a very cool feature and the first I’ve seen on the market (may be others out there, I just haven’t seen them) and allows you to share your music and videos with a friend or loved one, or be listening on your headphones and also transmitting through an FM transmitter for others to enjoy, there’s a lot of possibilities.

Controls on top of AU840

Controls on Bottom of AU840

To accompany the dual headphone ports are none other than 2 sets of headphones included as standard. These include rubber earpiece covers as well as optional felt covers if they’re what you prefer. The headphones are a lanyard style, with a clip that goes around your neck to keep them nicely in place. Strangely there is a lanyard type tie-down/connection near the 3.5mm jack and yet there’s nowhere on the AU840 unit for it to connect to? Rather odd.

Included Headphones

The sound through these headphones I must say is not the best, now I know ear bud style headphones don’t give the best sound in general, but these were still rather disappointing. It’s not all bad news for the AU840 though, once I plugged in an average set of Sony headphones that I use in the office, the sound was crisp, clear and well defined, just as good as I get out of my laptop, so the AU840 is capable of delivering good sound, but the included headphones just aren’t the best carriers.

On the back of the unit there is a small in-built speaker, and although the sound of it is not too good (rather tinny), it lets you share whatever you’re playing or watching with more than 2 people if you want to, don’t hope for massive volume though.

The 2.2” LCD screen of the AU840 can display at a resolution of 220*176 which is only average for a screen this size (my Nokia phone screen is the same size and does 320*240) yet it still manages to display bright and vibrant colours throughout its menu system and when displaying photos and such that you’ve loaded into its memory. The viewing angle of the screen is not great, it seems to have around a 30 degree (from centre) field of vision, outside of this and the contrast goes all out of whack. This really is below standard for a modern device and is more at home on a laptop PC or PDA from the 90’s.

Front of AU840 Turned On

Screen - Closer View

The AU840 supports MP3 and WMV files, and despite having a screen and being video capable, it does not support MP4 video files in their native format. They must be converted to the right resolution and made into an .avi file using the included video convertor software. The convertor software can also convert .vob (DVD), .dat (VCD) and a few other formats of video files to the correct format so you can even watch full movies. That is if you don’t mind them being converted down to 20 frames/sec which is all the AU840 supports, so your movies will get a bit jerky at times due to 5 frames/sec being ripped out of the stream.

The AU840’s lack of processing power is also evident when loading up image files on its main screen. If you just copy over digital camera pics without dropping the resolution, they will take about 5 seconds to load up each time. Having these features is great, but it really needs more power behind the scenes to support them properly.

An FM radio tuner is also included in the AU840, which gives quite reasonable reception and the ability to store favourites and auto scan, so even when you’re sick of the music in your library, you can always turn to local radio, wherever you are.

To use the AU840 effectively, you’ll need to master the menu controls. While the menu system is rather simple and straight forward, navigating your way around takes some getting used to. A D-pad next to the screen would have been very useful, instead of constantly confusing fast forward for up instead of down, and that ‘mode’ means both enter and exit a menu sub category, but to exit you have to hold mode instead of just tapping it. It’s hard to describe how annoying the whole system is without giving you one to try yourself. As none of the secondary functions of the control buttons are actually printed on the player, it’s either trial/error or study the user manual and hope you remember.

The battery in the AU840 is a 350mAh Lithium Polymer item, which is good for around 8 hours playback, which although not exceptional, is not too bad considering it’s powering a LCD screen and not just a basic MP3 player. Recharging the battery is handled through the USB port, so no separate chargers are necessary, and unfortunately the battery is not user replaceable, so you can’t buy or carry around a spare battery to give you longer playback time.

Transferring files to the AU840 is really not a pleasant experience. While it is easy and no drivers are required, the supposed USB2.0 connection transfers files at around 1MB/s, so a 50MB video file took almost a minute to send across, which is USB1.1 speed. With 4GB of storage space to fill, you could be waiting around for a while.

Conclusion:

Retailing online for around AU$125 for the 4GB version it’s certainly not expensive, it’s actually reasonable value for the specs it has – 4GB of storage, LCD screen, video playback, dual-outputs, lithium polymer battery etc... the problem is that because the player suffers from a serious lack of processing power, none of these features work as well as you want them to, and there are better players out there that are video capable, with the same amount of memory, for around the same money.

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