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More and more of these miniature "Unbranded" Mp3 and Mp4 players coming out of Japan, Asia,&and
China. There are many different styles and many
scammers selling them as name brands. Bellow are somer guidelines you need to follow while shopping for one of these online.
Above is the most common one found on Ebay right now.
This one has been called the ipod nano killer. This player has stolen 40% of ipod sales from Apple.
Watch out for False Advertising.
The biggest scam sellers are doing is to alter photos of a real ipod nano and putting those on display in their auctions or using real ipod nano stock photos.
This has generated alot of sales for them and people and up with the style they dont want. Just because there are many styles of this Nano like Mp4 Player,
you should examin the photos very well. In the photos below you will notice differences in all of them from the frames around the screens, sometimes there is
writing under them, screen size or shape as well as how the buttons are designed on them. The differences may be slight, but always go to the manufacturers
website and copy and save a real picture to use as a comparison. But remember as easy as it is for you to copy and paste the real photo, it is the same for
the scammers.
There are over 20 known versions of this player and more keep coming every month.
  
When you see pictures like this one bellow, move on. These are altered Ipod nano photos.
Some will have the play button moved to the center and have the
Volume on the bottom, some will have the screen changed (the nano screen is 128x96, but the fakes are 128x128)
The differences between an Mp4 player and a real Apple Ipod Nano.
MP4 Player Ipod Nano
1. The Click Wheel - The click wheel on the Ipod nano has the Play pause button on the bottom area of the wheel, Also the Mp4 Players click wheel is
button interfaced, while the Nanos click wheel is scroll interfaced. The scroll wheel will be easy to identify simply because the play button is in the middle
circle.
2. The Earphone Jack - The Earphone jack on the ipod nano is in the bottom right corner on the underside of the Ipod Nano. The Earphone jack on the Mp4
Player is on the bottom right corner on Side of the player.
3. The Screen - The Ipod nano has a Wider screen that is more rectangle in shape. The Mp4 player has a Square screen. The ipod Nano also has Rounded
edges on the screen... The Mp4 Player has Points on its corners. Youl also notice that the Screen on the Ipod Nano has a more silverish tint when it is turned
off, this is simply because the screen technologys are different. The Mp4 players screen is a dark grey to a black color when off
4. Computer Dock - Charging Plug - The Ipod Nano has a wide docking bay connector. it is a standard for ipod accessories. The Mp4 player has a Sub
Mini Usb Connector on it... Both of which are on the Underside of the player.
5. Power - Hold Switch - The Top Left corner on the upper side of the players has a switch. on the Ipod Nano that switch is a hold button. On the Mp4 player
that switch is an on off switch.
These are the key Physical differences in the ipod nano and the Mp4 player's the only other difference it that the Mp4 players are 1mm Thicker than the ipod
Nano. This can only be determined by viewing the player in person.
***Reduced Memory Storage***
There has been a breakout of sellers selling 4GB and 8GB players that are only 256 Meg and 512 Meg . Be safe and review the sellers feedback
and buy from trusted, verified sellers with a good history. If they even have one feedback about an item not being real pass on this seller.
The biggest problem coming from overseas (China) for the most part and from resellers in the United States and other countrys who are selling Mp3, Mp4 and
Ipods with reduced memory space. They'll sometimes take a real closeout model Ipod with a small storage space and reprogram the chip to say it has the
larger storage space like the current models. Since the shell is basically the same the buyer thinks they are getting the real deal. Most people don't find out
untill after positive feedback has already been left and they realinze that the storage space is much smaller than the Mp3 player says.
There has been a rash, and this has been with any unbranded mp4 players. many people (by the thousands) have been reporting getting Mp4 players with
128 Mega Bytes when purchasing 1 Gb players, but the players are altered to show the Computer that you have 1Gb of space...
As soon as you receive your player plug it up to your computer, open the drive and check the capacity. After you do that, Format the drive to FAT (not fat 32,
this will ruin the player) a full format, this will than show your true capacity, if the capacity hasent drastically gone down in size than your ok.
Buying Guidelines for this player!
Avoid buying these from sellers who offer no Warranty, Return Policy, or exchange policy.
Stay away from sellers in
China,
Japan, Asia,
Singapore ect. ect. try to buy from someone as close to you as possible, and not from overseas. There have
been sellers sticking their buyers with paying the customs fees, Vat fees ect. VAT/customs fees are the responsibility of the buyer. Some sellers will pay the
VAT fee's with your shipping. Some will mention their non responsibility for them and others will just not mention these fees at all which makes more of a headache for something you can buy locally.
Fakes! If they are trying to sell 4, 6, or 8 Gb capacities DO NOT BUY WITHOUT EXTENSIVE RESEARCH ON THIS SELLER. the reason being is because
Apple has bought up most all of the 2 Gb and 4 Gb memory chips from where they are making these things.... when they say Gb the seller could be saying
GigaBIT instead of Gigabyte for example: 1 GigaBIT (8 bits in a byte) is 128 Mega bytes, 1 Gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes.
Video Capabilities Theres an interesting Thing about these players. Different versions of the Mp4 players play different versions of Video formats. Keep in
mind when these player say they play video. They dont mean AVI, Mpeg, Divx ect. They mean they play 1 kind which is their Kind. Stay away from the MTV
format. If the player description says AMV or DMV it is good. The best format to go for is AMV, it has the easiest to use conversion software and the file size
of the movies are smaller, dramatically smaller compared to the MTV format which doesnt use compression. The Players mostly come with software for video
conversion. They will convert any video format under the sun, as long as you have a codec for it. The Software may or may not be in english though.
Computer operating system and software.. Do you have an Apple PC, windows 95, linux, Be os? If you do you may want to reconsider. Most autions say
these devices are compatible with Apple. Well they are if you use them with the drag and drop interface. Most of the provided software is only for windows 98
and above.
Headphones : These devices use a nonstandard 2.5mm Jack instead of the 3.5mm jack, unless yo want to get an adapter for your headphones or if you can
live with the headphones it comes with or maybe consider a different Mp4 player.
Manuals - Some are very poorly translated into english, or in a foreign language (depends on which market it was ment to be sold or where it was
manufactured).
Charger: Make sure the charger works for the US some sellers are giving out overseas chargers with their players. Make sure you get the appropriate
charger for your country.
Comparison Photo for Review.
Bellow is a Fake ipod with real looking accessories. | 
