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** yeah we may aswell call this the next S:Flo **

This is one very impressive player, well at least on paper. The T51 is not a normal player, sure it looks similar to the older T50/S:Flo, but the internals on this machine are just jaw dropping. The T51 will have at its core the new Rockchip RK2806 chip, capable of supporting HD video playback (1280x720) and supporting 720p AVI, H.264 (MKV) and RMVB. It will also have two Wolfson WM8740 audio chips and it...WAIT! TWO Wolfson chips! why you ask, well there will be one chip for both left and right audio channels, allowing for unprecedented isolation and high audio quality for each channel, not to mention a max 120dB PER channel.

The combination of Rockchip with Wolfson in the past has always resulted in some of the best sounding audio players, but now with dual Wolfson chips, well it sure makes my mouth water just reading it, but the goodness doesn't stop there. The T51 will also have a line out feature for use with your Hi-Fi system, built in will be TI Op Amp OPA2604 chip. The TI amp for the line out is joined by the Philips UDA1308 professional headphone amplifier for the players headphone output.To make sure that there is even more limited loss of audio quality Teclast will be employing a CBB polypropylene filter capacitor, now frankly i have no idea what that does and will do to a player, but from my quick googling it does seem like a good thing also it does look like something that is general used on much higher end devices.

There also many of the features we like in the original T50/S:Flo that will be kept in the T51, such as a capacitive touch screen, a good user interface with dynamic scrolling and good battery life. One really good addition is the expandable memory slot, something that so many people wanted on the T50/S:Flo. We have also been told that it may come in 16GB as well as the standard 8GB. So far it does seem like this player is in its very early stages, with a prototype being ready within the next few weeks (we hope sooner) and mass production within a 4 - 8 weeks time. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these!

Press Release via IMP3

Update: 3.5" Screen not 2.8" screen.
Tentative pricing for 8GB anywhere between $110 - $130

Update: Player pics viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14803&p=152573#p152573

Update 17/9/09 Sample arrived, first impressions:

I got it, arrived at the office today and a small package was waiting for, hadn't been so excited to see a courier parcel from China in such a long time.

Ok so here is a very quick over view (i have been using it for under an hour):

Overall the player is much larger than the original S:Flo, its thickness and size kind of reminds of the latest generation of iPod classics, but its not huge, the thickness and overall size work well together. The player has a bit of weight to it, but due to the where i am feeling the most weight coming from the player i am going to assume this actually has one big battery. The back of the player is metal and not plastic, nicely made and good paint job, not complaints there.

The font is pretty much the exact same as the S:Flo when it comes to material used and finishing, offcourse its now just much larger, right away i can tell the screen will be just as scratch resistant as the original S:Flo. The front button is the same size as the one on the original S:Flo, i am still 50/50 if i like how the button looks or if it look strange to have such a small button on the front of such a large player...maybe the factory could have enlarged this in proportion with the larger screen too. As we thought, the front button now is the on/off button.

The actual screen is great, i really do not know what the resolution of the screen is, but the factory did not go cheap here, images are sharp and vibrant, with ry good viewing angles.

On the bottom are the headphone and line out, as well as the scroll wheel for the volume, which by moves very smoothly, but is recessed enough that it shouldn't move when in your pocket, also this is currently the only means of controlling volume on the player.

The UI....well i was told by the factory to not read too much into it as for the most part its still being developed, however the layout of the music and video player will be the same, except the graphics will be tweeked. Also lots of the menu layouts are very, very crude, these still need to be done. I am not going to really look to much at the UI overall as i know its not going to be the same in the final version. There are elements of the UI that are very similar to that of the T11RK - i think a video review would better show this than me trying to explain it here.

The audio...what this player is all about, well i have been listening to music for over the last hour with a pair of Pro Alphas and i can tell you the SQ is brilliant, its better than what i have heard from other devices such as the M8 or the T11RK, you can certainly hear the amp at work as you really don't need to use the EQ to enhance the bass, heck using the playfx bass option makes the bass sound insane, it was a little to intense for me, but i think bass heads may go googoo over the combination. I make no claims to be an audiophile, but i know good sq when i hear it and this is really good. Also i checked already, no phase issues here.

I will post more as i keep using it, mostly more on how the UI interaction is. So far i am loving it.

i can see it now .....Nationite S:flo 2nd Generation
im glad mp4 players are finally coming back to this design with a user friendly ui (hopefully), which made me buy the sflo in the first place.

looks impressive

wow - on paaper there is a lot of tech in there, i am suspect of using the same sreen as the T50 as, like it or not, autopilot was always a problem, does it have a speaker at all, this would round it off nicely

now this raz does seem really immpressive, the digital line out puts it into a different league, if they coupled that with as proper sorted music database and gapless playback then audiophiles would take a serious look at this baby

mmm .. i can almost hear the nationite cogs spinning

very intersting

/me faints

omg, will this be teclast's answer to my never ending call?

i'm so excited and crossing my fingers they can pull this off

well i hope they dont mess this up, we know they can put all the hardware in and throw around the buzz words but will they truly make use of it all, i hope so
raz, do you think teclast actually did listen to you about the phase problems then and this is their answer???
ma - i really hope they get this right. long battery is needed (20+ for audio at least) and raz - hassle them to the ends of their lives about listing music properly, hell i will send them my P3 so they can see what the hell its supposed to do!!!!!!

YES! finally the sflo with expandable memory!! WHOOOO!

got my e5 today its awesome!

Now we are talking . A small player with great audio and the new Rockchip chipset will sell like hot cakes I'm sure. If they mess it up with out-of-phase problems or autopilot or some such we will have to assemble a lynch mob to go visit Teclast and exact punishment but hopefully this won't be necessary.

The expandable memory and line-out are the icing on the cake, go Teclast !!
Kick those locked down capitalist players in the dust where they belong !!!!

this player gives a tingle of excitement and also rings alarm bells, i am not sure teclast know how to truly work with the wolfson chip, the phase problem swa that, for hat its worth, if raz gets a couple of samples in is to send it out to someone with all the full on gear to truly put it through its paces, test the phasing, test for true audio out and really give it a full on going over to see if what they are claiming is indeed true, i hope it is because this, if all goes well will be a big hit -but there are alot of thingds that can go wrong here, time will tell but it really will need a thorough testing by someone fully in the know with all the gear

Just talking to the factory, this actual had this player out for about a month now, but they were selling it under a different body design, they did not give me all these additional details about the two wolfson chips or amps, but it does look like this model is already in production (in some form), i am going to get a sample of this asap to see how it is. I am guessing it will be very similar to the S:Flo UI, probably the exact same if my assumption is right. I do think the auto pilot will be an issue on this still, as i think its an issue with the screen technology they are using, but i hope i am wrong.

Downside, this is not going to be a cheap player, the original S:Flo was always expensive compared to other 2.8" RK2706 touch screen players and this will be expensive, but compared to similar DAPs that on some level have similar hardware and audio dac/amps, its still going to be pretty cheap, the 8GB will be somewhere around USD$110 - USD$130, thats based on the initial price the factory quoted us today with what we think we can get it down to.

also to note, i have been told it will be slightly thicker than the original S:Flo due to all the additional stuff

I was think more on the lines of the S:Flo Pro......but then the abbreviation would be the S:FLOP, lol

Yeah either PRO, 2ND, II etc

You are right mad, a full test makes perfect sense once we get our grubby mitts on a few samples.
Here's to hoping they get it right.

I want this.

Its got a 3.5" screen, not 2.8"

If they get it right the price is definitely ok for it. Will probably be ok for video, depending on the screen quality, processing power should not be a problem with the chipset used.