Geeks.com MP4 Player Reviewed (Verdict: Barely Functional)

CrunchGear reviews the a generic 2GB media player from Geeks.com which is styled suspiciously like a certain Apple phone. Sadly it appears that the player, which costs just $70, is a bit of a turd, barely able to be connected to a PC (and not at all to a Mac).

Sure, it does everything as advertised. But the theft of the iPhone UI – for no good reason – coupled with the shoddy manufacturing, the various failed attempts and “value-added” applications, and a general unsuitability to any task makes me want to puke. Call me a stickler for shit actually working, but I couldn’t even set the date, let alone play the built-in game, Explode Pigboat.

I always scratch my head at poor quality Chinese knock-offs, because it should be within their ability to make clones with a reasonable simulacrum of a quality user interface. It’s like cloning a car piece for piece but then replacing the steering wheel with a wrench clamped to the column. Just go the extra mile, guys!

Perhaps it’s because the primary market for these sorts of electronics are places where the original products are too expensive, so offering a perfect copy is unnecessary.

Review: Geeks.com 2GB MP4 player [Crunchgear]

1. [ROSSINDETROIT]

   “Perhaps it’s because the primary market for these sorts of electronics are places where the original products are too expensive, so offering a perfect copy is unnecessary.”
   That’s exactly right. The customer for this is probably a person who has only seen the original in a photo and never tried one. All it has to do is LOOK right, and how could they prove there’s any difference?
   About that steering-with-a-wrench thing, have you actually tried that or did you make it up? It sounds pretty interesting. MY sister in law once worked around a broken throttle cable on her car with a dog leash that was operated with a left arm out the window. Worked pretty well after you got used to pulling on the rein to GO rather than STOP.

   • [Joel Johnson]

     I don’t know where that particular vision came from, Ross. I can’t say I’ve ever done it myself, but it seems like the sort of thing that could work, given a long enough wrench.

2. [midknyte]

   uh, you don’t want to set that bar for quality using cloned Chinese cars…

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5SRyG6UR2A

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06LjugtIUo

3. [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

   Vise-grip pliers, I thought.

4. [ROSSINDETROIT]

   Yes, to finish the wrench/pliers issue, in the days before airbags steering wheel locks like The Club could be handily defeated by removing the steering wheel Club and all and steering the vehicle in the manner of a tiller equipped Edwardian motorcar with a pair of Vise Grips clamped to the steering shaft. Never mind how I know that.

   I read the Geek.Com web pages for this player and the larger 4G version ($130). The specs, features and claims are quite sketchy. If it’s really that lousy, which I don’t doubt, they’re going to have a lot of dissatisfied customers on their hands.

5. [Anonymous]

   It’s too bad the game doesn’t work; it would probably be the device’s saving grace. Who could resist the appeal of a game called Explode Pigboat?

6. [Enochrewt]

   I don’t care about the product, I just want to play “Explode Pigboat”. With a name like that it has to be a GOTY contender.

7. [dculberson]

   I just came in to say.. Explode Pigboat! I want that on my iPod.

8. [ROSSINDETROIT]

   Here’s what you’re missing. Quoted from a copy of the manual:

   Explode pigboat is shooting game. A battleship fires missiles and
   makes sink a submarine. Also a battleship avoids the enemy’s attack.
   
   Move: [LEFT/RIGHT] button
   
   Fire: [DOWN] button
   
   Start/Pause: [PLAY] button
   
   Quit: [POWER] button.

9. [michaelportent]

   Notice how Steve Jobs hasn’t even bothered to release the cease-and-desist hounds on these guys yet. He doesn’t even have to. The tech blogs will boo this thing off the stage before it even starts its crappy comedy act.

10. [Simon Greenwood]

    These things pop up on alibaba.com and dhgate.com all the time. Not one of the clones comes close to the functionality of the iPhone, so yes, I think part of it is the look, particularily for the far east market, where people will change their phones every few months. The inventiveness is impressive, but very few Chinese companies seem to manage to come up with something innovative.

11. [JtCann]

    Ha ha my company gave these out to every employee for Christmas. I tried putting some videos on it but they wouldnt play so i just used it for the game it came with Pirates of the carribean, you shoot cannons at another pirate ship and move back and forth, now its covered in about 4 months of dust somewhere behind my computer desk