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I received the player yesterday, after buying the ainol V9000HDA, i liked to have another ainol player with about thesame great video playback with a few extra's.
I liked the fact that it had a higher resolution screen, more buttons, more powerful battery so it should run longer on one charge, better build in speakers and capable of PDF support where you could view A4 pages without the need of zooming in and out the whole time.

Well, let's say i'm not happy with it, not at all. The difference between V9000HDA and the V8000HDY is like night and day, a very good (V9000HDA) media player against a very bad (V8000HDY) one, with the V9000HDA i had the thought that ainol only made good products, well, was i wrong at that.

Let's begin with the good points of the V8000HDY, the only few good points it has:
- The higher resolution screen can only be good for viewing large pictures and viewing PDF's, for the rest, the higher resolution screen is very bad!
- The build in speaker is indeed better, so it would be good to view a movie with it without the need to hear very good to the player to understand what they are saying in a tutorial for example
- The buttons can be handy somethimes
- This player is ONLY good when you view high defenition movies on it, do NOT use this player for standard quality resolution movies, unless you use tv-out.
- In my view, this player is only good for viewing PDF's at the moment, and maybe viewing some HD content.

Now the negative parts:

- At the top of the screen you have some buttons like the home button, a button for adjust the volume and to adjust the brightness of the screen, on the V9000HDA you could use these buttons, on the V8000HDY you can't use these, they are just displayed but you can't use it, so if you have a lot of folders, you have a hard time to go to another one because you always have to press esc for every folder, and you have to use the esc button more if you want to go to the main screen again.

- The remote doesn't work good, it even turns of the player very frequently! If you use tv-out, and use the remote, get prepared to restart the device and start all over to view something again. Also, the buttons on the remote seems to react the opposite way, volume + is actualy volume -, button down works like button up, button right works like button left... No such problems with the V9000HDA!

- 95% of what i have are standard quality files, they look like rubbish on this player, it's so hard pixelated that i hardly can believe that this is a player from ainol! The quality is even more bad then the mobile phone i have that costed less then 100 dollar, including 2 battery's and a charger that this player doesn't have.

- This player has a better battery, well, so says the specs, the reality is, that the battery life is much worse then on the V9000HDA! The V9000HDA can go for more then 5 hours. This V8000HDY player for 2.5 hours, when not playing anything and just staying on the power screen! The latest ainol players are known for a good battery life, but this isn't one of them for sure.

- The player gets stuck, freezes, and turns of by itself without any reason for alot of times! Even when just going trough the menu it turns off!, no such problems on the V9000HDA!

- While the speakers are better on this player, the very bad playback of standard quality files make this player useless for me to view any tutorials or movies.

- every file starts with a little slowdown, and again, the V9000HDA doesn't have this problem either.

Conclusion, i bought this player for nothing, i can only keep it as a backup player, in the hope that there will be a firwmare ready if i need it is a backup, when it actualy works and i can use the remote also on it.

Sorry to say this, but this player is not good at all, since it shows all standard defenition files so bad that i can't believe it (very badly pixelated!) this player is nothing good for me, and it could only be used for tv out i think, when that would work but i haven't tested that out yet, anyway, the remote doesn't work well with it and it would turn off after a few button presses on the remote, this is for the moment also useless.

The only positive thing is the PDF view, i was able to view a standars 16MB file with more then 600 pages with many images (it was a manual of a canon printer), while a smaller pdf couldn't be displayed. I think that this means that it is just the way the file was saved is the problem, and if we know how we should save it, we could realy view pdf's on the go. But even if that was possible, a battery life of 2.5 hours doesn't make this usefull either, so all in al, this player is good for nothing. I have wasted my money with this, every euro i spend on it.

Sending it back... i thought of that, and it's a hard decision, if i send it back, i have to pay the costs to send it back also, and maybe i even don't get my money back, and i did got this for mp4nation, not from ebay, before i get that feedback again.

For others, if you want a bigger screen player, then i think the 8" one from ainol with the lower resolution screen would be the better choice, but stay away from this player if you have a lot of standard quality content.

Edit: i also don't believe this is a real native 1024 x 600 resolution screen, but something like the standard resolution zoomed in or something like that, because if you see good at the text in the menus for example, you can see that the letters of the words are not well displayed, for example, some parts of the letters are displayed in bold, or i don't know how to explain it, it's just not right the way i see it, when you see the menu on the V9000HDA, it is displayed very clear, like i said... a difference between night and day. And i even bought the 16GB version, the most expensive... i wish i didn't buy this player

oh thats bad....
now i am very happy that i bought ainol v9000 hda.....

The most negative is about the problem that is in this thread also:

http://www.mp4nation.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19191&start=15

However, i see that this can be software related and maybe it could be fixed? I'm gonna see that changing the 720p/1080p in the settings of the video can improve things. However, the problem in that thread is about a lower resolution player then the V8000HDY, because the fact that the V8000HDY has a higher resolution screen, it is even more noticable.

I can only hope this can and will be fixed, the pixelated problem is my main concern because for me, i just will not use it to play anything on the player itself because it looks so bad, i just can't stand it how it looks that way, i just look at it how bad it is and i turn everything i see on it off within 30 seconds.

The only thing that can't be fixed with a firmware is the screen angle that is not so good on this screen, but i did know this before i bought it and i don't have such a big problem with it. The other problem that also can't be fixed is that the screen looks grainy, it's like the screen is full of very small dots, hard to explain but it is very noticable. But that's not the main problem, the main problem for me is the pixelated view of standard quality files. The second is maybe the battery life, and after that all the firmware related problems (and i have seen many, with just 20 minutes of use of trying things out). The V9000HDA doesn't have any of the problems i mentioned, so yeah, you are good that you did go for the V9000HDA

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who is rather disappointed with the 8000HDY. It's a wonderful player ruin by the use of a matte screen, hence the screen has lots of tiny dots. It's like watching a video with a filter over it.

The good points:
- Large'r screen. 7" is probably the max screen for me while still able to hold it with one hand.
- Plays all my 720p movie files.
- Small footprint and slim
- Loud speakers.
- Better battery life than my 5" Onda (to be expected).
- Dual button operated.
- Super-quick FF/RW.

The BAD points:
- Matte screen.
- Poor viewing angles.
- Bit heavy for my liking but understandable due to larger battery.
- Touch Screen operated - some functions are hard to bring up using touch screen, eg. try deleting a file.
- Files don't sort in alphabetical order unless they are copied at the same time.

I'm already looking around for other upcoming 7" reviews, in particular the Newsmy A71HD. The V6000HDT has the best screen PMP to date but it's a bit "undersize" for my needs.

Standard res videos will not look great on the V8000HDY simply due to the higher res screen, images will look more blocky, pixelated and artifacts will be even more noticeable. Probably to those that are loading up the higher res MKV/AVI files will probably enjoy this screen more.

Sorry to hear you're not happy with it, hope something good can come from it.

with this screen size/resolution you must use 720p video
as Raz said, SD video are stretched and pixelated
I have the same issue on my Teclast C700 7", it's not a screen problem

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== Cowon A2 :: Cowon A3 :: Cowon S9 :: iriver SPINN :: iriver Clix G1 :: iPod Touch G1 :: Nationite S:Flo :: Samsung P3 :: RAmos T11RK :: Teclast C430T :: Ainol V8000HDV :: Samsung Wave :: iPad 16Gb wifi :: Teclast C700 8Gb :: Cube H880 FHDR 4Gb ==

It's not only the problem that the resolution is higher on this screen, it is the way the player handles the files. Standard quality video files look much better on my 1080P screen, on a 23" screen.
The V8000HDY is the worst screen i have ever seen on a PMP.

Also, the battery life is very bad, it's only 2h30 minutes of battery life when it is fully charged and just sitting on the power screen without doing anything else and without the use of USB OTG or a micro sd card! The V9000HDA with a smaller battery is more dan 5 hours. I love the V9000HDA and i hate the V8000HDY. And i even spend more money for nothing on this player, i bought a DSi LL pocket to put the player in it, guess what, it doesn't fit, and i just got it today so i'm a bit negative for now...

I bought the V8000HDY because it was the great size so i could see realy a tutorial without missing details because the screen of the V9000HDA is too small for that, but it seems i bought the V8000HDY for nothing. The specs are great, the player itself is noth worth a dollar and i even wouldn't play with the competition to have it for free if i didn't have the player, but did know how it works and how it looks like.

The screen itself bad in itself, but it's not that alone, it's how in handles standard resolution files, and it's like you see a filter over the screen, very details on what you see are gone on the V8000HDY if i compare it with the V9000HDA while i buyd the bigger screen to have more details, i also went for it because it should have a better battery life when it is half of that! And i get the biggest amount of firmware bugs for free with it... i just tested the player in total for about 45 minutes and i get freezes and shutting of the device many times, even when just going trough the menu without playing anything. It even freezes on the power screen without doing anything else! I clicked the exit button like nuts but it didn't work, i thought it was the touchscreen but it wasn't...

When i tried to click the buttons i did see no reaction on any of the buttons and the only way was turning off the player and back on... then i tried to play a file, and again... it turned of the player without even touching the file to play it.

The ONLY good feeling i had is when it displayed a pdf file of 16MB of more then 600 pages with alot of images and i could read a A4 page on the player fine without zooming in. That is the ONLY thing the V9000HDA will not be able to do, and that is where the higher resolution screen is good for. But the bad battery life kills this function.

Standard res videos will not look great? well, for me they look awful and i wil not use the player to view content on it. 720p content is many times a no go because of the FAT partition, and if i would use USB OTG on this player then i get less then an hour of a full charged battery maybe, so that's also a no-go. The only way i could use this player is with tv out, where standard defenition files are no problem, but for that... the firmware needs to be improved a lot!!! The buttons on the remote works different (mostly the opposite way) and every 3 clicks on the remote or so turns of the player!!

So at the moment i can't use this (sorry) rubbish! player for anything, even not good as a backup player, or not even good for tv-out because of the firmware bugs, while the V9000HDA is 90% more bug free.

And i have seen news page for this player on the ainol site... They even make it look like a very good player with a very good resolution screen, yeah whatever. I wasted my money for nothing on this one. Well i wil blame myself, i was so stupid for buying this player on mp4nation, so stupid to give money on that thing, and even choosed the most expensive one on the 16GB player! I wish it hat a micro SD card of 16GB, then i could make use of that, but no, i can't even make use of the 16GB memory because i never want to watch something on that player. Maybe someday in the future there is a firmware update that makes the tv-out with the remote works ok. But until the V9000HDA works i wil not use the V8000HDY, that's for sure.

Sorry, but i'm not gonna test more things on this player, i have seen enough of it, i'm gonna let it collect some dust, and enjoy a few times of the V9000HDA.

131 euro lost on this player... so i can only use the V9000HDA, that means the V9000HDA costed me a little more then 250 euro, that's about the only good way i can think about it, that the total amount was for the good player.

Just tell me one thing, how comes that very low resolution also is good on the V9000HDA? also below his own resolution screen... yeah that's why, it plays it how it should play. Does the V8000HDY comes with beta firmware that doesn't rescale the video or something like that? The HDY player just zooms in, pixelated, the HDA rescales fine, that's the problem in this situation, as long as ainol doesn't get a firmware update with this problem solved, and all those freezes/turning off the player bugs i can't use this player for anything. And battery life... well that will never be improved i guess.

Sorry to hear about all the problems you've run into w/ the V8000HDY you bought. I'm not disappointed in buying this PMP and I'm very happy with it.
I didn't have most of the problems you've experienced with your PMP. My previous PMP was the OS-72HR w/ the great screen, so I was upgrading to a newer model. My original intent was to buy the V600HDT, but I didn't think Raz would get any instock, so I went ahead and bought the V8000HDY.

My primary use is to watch movies, I have a long commute so I have enough time to watch a regular length movie on one trip. Secondary use is to read ebooks and listen to music.

Since I bought my V8000HDY, I've used it every day Monday thru Friday, so I've had a lot of time to test it. I watch about 7 movies a week on this while on the Metro.

- the touch screen and buttons both work very well. I use a combination of both to navigate the screens.
- I watch one movie coming to work and usually another movie going home. I think the battery life is great. I've never needed to watch more than two movies a day on a PMP. My old OS-72HR would just last long enough for a regular movie. I also listen to music at my desk at a low volume at my desk during the day. I found that turning the brightness all the way down and have the screen go off extends the battery life. The battery on the V8000HDY is an improvement from the battery on my OS-72HR.
- My V8000HDY doesn't freeze or turn off unexpectedly. The only time my PMP froze was the 2 times I tried to read large PDFs w/ a lot of graphics like a comic or a video game walkthru. I've given up on trying to read large PDFs/ w/ alot pictures on this and I convert PDFs to fit the screen. Since that, I've read ebook PDFs w/ up to 550 pages and it hasn't frozen on me. It also never freezes on any of my AVI or MP3 files.

- I don't have a problem w/ the screen on the V8000HDY. I've compared the OS-72HR, V7000HDK and V8000HDY playing the Planet Hulk movie side by side. The OS-72HR has a better screen w/ perfect angles. This V8000HDY has a bad bottom angle. But I like the screen on the V8000HDY and prefer watching movies on this instead of my OS-72HR because it has a much larger screen. I found the included plastic stand is perfect for this V8000HDY. It tilts the PMP back at a good angle for me to watch movies or read ebooks at my desk.
- It has a reflective screen. So does my Blackberry, Motorola V360, OS-72HR, Insignia Pilot and V7000HDK. I deal w/ this the exact same way that I've dealt w/ every other piece of electronic equipment that I've used to watch video clips on. I tilt it away from sources of light to minimize reflections on the screen. I watched the Book of Eli coming to work today before I posted to this thread. There are a lot of dark scenes in it, especially at the beginning. I held it in front of me like a PSP and tilted the screen to get the best view. I didn't have a problem watching the movie.

- I don't have a problem playing regular DVD rips on this PMP. I rip DVDs on my computer using DVD Shrink and convert to an AVI file using Handbrake w/ the subtitles burned into the file. That's how I been watching movies on PMPs for years. I don't have any high definition movies or rip any blurays. I do agree what high definition files would play better on this than standard quality. But I don't agree that this isn't a good PMP to play standard quality. One thing I should note, I alway convert my AVI files to high quality using Handbrake. This brings down my battery life, but I don't want to convert movies to low quality AVI files.
- The higher resolution screen does come in handy in viewing larger pics and PDFs. I think the 1024x600 screen resolution hurts video files that are lower resolution. I don't think you are going to see a lot of 7" players in this resolution, instead falling back to 800x480 resolution.

- The home icon and volume icon on the touch screen work for me. I'm sorry you were not able to use them on your unit. I press right on the number beside the volume icon to make the blue slider bar pop up. I press right on the home icon (just by the front door) to go back to the home screen. However, I've never been able to get the brightness icon to work on touch screen.
- Even if you can't use the home icon, you don't have to back thru every folder. at the botton left hand corner, click on the Icon and on the menu, click on the icon that looks like an Arrow making U-turn. That takes you back.
- I also don't have a problem deleting files directly from the player. I just press on the option icon to the right of the file name and choose delete.

- I use the old remote control from my OS-72HR almost every day. It had never turned off my V8000HDY unexpectedly. I don't have a problem w/ the remote. I have to aim it directly at the IR module at the bottom of the player and I don't use it from a very long distance. I'm already used to using the remote on my OS-72HR and I get the same level of performance. I just use it to pause, go forward and go back on music. My remote only turns off the PMP when I press the power button. I've done a lot of button mashing on my remote in testing it and I never turned it off unexpectedly. When I bought my V8000HDY, the site did not sell a remote so I ended up using the OS-72HR by chance.

- I've tried four different cables and I've never been able to get the TV-out to work on this V8000HDY.

- This PMP has good playback of music files. I use the Natural EQ setting. I copied all of the music I had on my Insignia Pilot over to this and they play very well. I listen to music from the back speakers when I'm at work and plug in some noise-cancelling headphones when I'm commuting. There's nothing wrong w/ the music playback on this PMP. Coming from the OS-72HR, I think this is a better music player.
- I agree that this is a little heavy. I prefer to hold it like a PSP. I can slip it into my front shirt pocket, but it's weight make me be careful it doesn't slip or bounce out of my pocket. I can hold it one handed, but prefer sitting it in it's stand or holding it w/ both hands.

For me, this is my main PMP and my OS-72HR is my back up. This has also taken over as my main ebook reader from my Blackberry ever since I started formating PDFs to fit the screen size. I'm glad I bought this and I'll recommend this to anyone looking for a larger screen PMP. My second recommendation would be the V6000HDT. I bought this for about $150 and it wasn't a waste of money seeing that I've watched about two dozen movies on it already.

itsme32m, can you look on your player and tell me what the firmware version ID is please? Thanks.

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TroyNation, thanx for your review.

At the moment i have the brightness at 2, and even that low the time is remaining at 3hour 4 minutes when it is on 95%
The ainol V9000HDA has a brightness at 8, at 86% a remaining time of 4h53, if i turn it to 2 like the 8000HDYn then it remains at 6 hours 50 minutes remaining battery life.
How much battery life gives your 8000HDY? The results i gave are without a USB OTG cable, keytone and vibration are also turned of.
Firmware ID: V8000HDY.SC1118.0712 - Software version: 0X00010525
Since your player is able to use the home button it is very clear that you have another firmware version, what version do you have? One of the biggest problems for me is the pixelizing of all standard quality video's, then firmware bugs, then battery life. Hopefully the battery life that is displayed is wrong...