MEElec RockMee II

With Meelectronics’ recent focus shift toward portable audio, their Digital Audio Player (DAP) lineup was refreshed in suit. The RockMEE II is a second-generation midrange flash-based mp3 player with 8gb of internal memory. With a list price of $129.99, the RockMEE falls square in the middle of the price distribution for most 8gb flash players on the market. However, the RockMEE boasts a very enticing combination of features including a 3” TFT widescreen display and a MicroSD expansion slot.

I have owned Meelectronics’ budget-class MiniMEE II portable player for several months now and - while I do like the player overall - I find it very difficult to recommend over the similarly-priced Sandisk Sansa Clip due to the mediocre user interface and battery life. Is the RockMEE II user-friendly enough to make it worthy of consideration? Let’s find out.

Packaging & Accessories

The RockMEE II comes in a simple-yet-stylish slide-out cardboard box that splits into two halves, revealing the player on one side and the included goodies on the other. I am not a fan of blister packs, so I’ll take this particular packaging any day of the week.

In the box you will also find:

• Meelectronics M2 in-ear earphones with three sets of silicone ear cushions in S/M/L sizes
• USB mini-B charging/data transfer cable
• A/C charger
• Velvet carrying pouch
• User manual
• Minidisc with video conversion software

The accessories are pretty standard but I do appreciate the inclusion of a separate AC charger alongside the USB charging cable. Additionally, the included Ai-M2 in-ear earphones are a major improvement over most stock Earbuds, in both build and sound quality.

Features and Specifications

• 3-inch TFT screen (400 x 240 resolution)
• 8GB internal flash storage
• Supported Audio Codecs: MP3/WMA/WAV/OGG/FLAC
• Supported Video Codec: AVI (video conversion software included)
• Multiple predefined EQ settings plus Microsoft PlayFX and user-defined settings
• Views JPEG/BMP/GIF images;
• Displays TXT text documents
• Additional applications include a stopwatch and calendar
• Built-in FM tuner, voice recorder, speaker, and Li-polymer battery
• Dimensions: 4.0 in. W x 2.3 in. H x 0.5 in. D

Appearance & Build Quality

The dominating physical feature of the RockMEE II is the 64k color 3” TFT LCD display. Though the screen and front inset of the player are plastic, the body of the player is metal and finished in a handsome matte black. The whole assembly is quite robust and feels like a quality product.

Functionality & User Friendliness

The Volume and FFW/RWD rockers are positioned along the top edge of the player and the Play/Pause, Menu, and Return buttons, along with the hold switch, are located on the front of the player to the right of the screen. The buttons are easy to operate and the player can be used with one hand or while in a pocket after some familiarity with interface is obtained.

The right edge of the player houses a microSD card slot (currently supporting micro SDHC format cards up to 8gb in capacity) as well as the headphone jack and USB mini-B charging/data transfer port. An odd property of the headphone jack is that it will not work with 3-prong connectors such as those found on earphones with a microphone (e.g. the Klipsch S4i). In addition, the microSD slot can be a little tough to use for those with short nails. What I do like, though, is Meelectronics’ eschewing the use of a proprietary port in favor of a standard USB connector.

The 400 x 240 pixel 3” screen is sharp and surprisingly vivid. The backlight brightness is adjustable between five discrete levels. I do find the player perfectly usable at the 2nd lowest setting except in direct sunlight. However, the player still managed a respectable 16-20 hours of operation on a single charge when using the medium brightness setting, easily on par with my Sandisk Sansa Fuze and iPod Classic.

Personally, the biggest relief for me was the feel of the interface, which is a huge step up from the lower-end MiniMEE player. The implementation of the menu screens is far more streamlined and the playback screen is one of the most useful I’ve ever seen. Though the spotty translation of the firmware occasionally reveals itself (such as when the player informs the user that “Key Had Locked!” when hold is enabled), the menus are a pleasure to use for the most part.

From the specsheet it is obvious that the RockMEE II is jam-packed with popular PMP features. Though the smaller and cheaper MiniMEE II boasts a similar array of capabilities, most are undoubtedly far more useful with the RockMEE’s 3” display. The loading screen comes up for a second or two when the player starts and then the user is taken to the top-level menu. The top-level menu is very simple, elegant, and intuitive. Besides the icons representing the player’s features the main menu also houses a date display. From the main menu of the player the user is presented with eight options:

Music:

Choosing the music option at the main menu takes you to the music playback menu screen that gives the option to resume from the previously played track or browse the player’s library by Track, Album, Artist, or Genre. Alternatively, there is an option to browse the player’s memory using the folder structure. Other options include the ability to play back previously recorded files, open the on-the-fly ‘Favorites’ playlist, or refresh the player’s media library. An additional interesting playback feature is “Hold Recollection”, which allows the user to resume playback from ‘bookmarks’ automatically set at the last three stop points on the recently played tracks.

Loading music onto the RockMEE II is a snap – just plug into your computer and it is instantly recognized as a USB storage device. Music files are placed in the music directory in the root of the device. The player will update its media library when powered on after a change is made to the stored files. The update is mercifully quick – it takes just a couple of seconds even with full internal memory, which is exponentially quicker than my Sandisk Sansa Fuze. Oddly, it will skip the update if the only files modified are on the microSD card and must be updated manually.

The playback screen manages to relay a lot of information without being crowded or confusing. Aside from the usual info such as the selected playback settings, artist, album, and song names, clock, battery life indicator, and volume level, the player also shows the filename, encoding type, and bitrate of the track as well as the elapsed and total track times. Album art is also displayed and the ID3 art support is rather robust – the player will display small images just as well as 800x800 album art. In the center of the screen is either a real-time frequency spectrum bar graph or, in properly tagged tracks, the lyrics. Overall the playback screen’s usability is excellent – nothing unnecessary is shown and yet nothing is missing. The fonts are smooth and easy to read against the black background.

The audio menu, activated by pressing the menu key at the playback screen, offers the usual shuffle and repeat options option as well as the 7 equalizer presets and the MSEQ bass boost and 3D sound settings.

Video:

Choosing the Video option at the main menu brings the user to the explorer menu and asks to choose a video file. The minidisk included with the player contains software that converts videos to the supported avi format and they are transferred to the player in the same way music is. The software does not have an option for encoding in the player’s native 400x240 resolution but the player can be used in narrow-screen mode as well (triggered via the menu key). I managed to get through several episodes of BBC’s Top Gear on the 3” screen. Colors are about as good as one may expect from a small 64k color TFT LCD but transitions don’t seem too washed out and the refresh rate is easy on the eyes.

Photo:

The Photo viewer opens pictures in jpeg, gif, and bmp formats. The filetree browser is replaced by a thumbnail one in photo mode so that images are easy to select. The screen performs quite admirably with photos and the player has more than enough power to display wallpapers from my netbook (1024x600 format). Colors are vivid and seem quite natural and definition is very good. Rendering times are quick regardless of filesize but of course photos resized to the native resolution are optimally space-efficient. There is a zoom feature although it confined to a simple 2x zoom and the panning controls are quirky.

eBook:

The E-Book reader opens .txt files. Unlike the photo and video viewers, the eBook viewer does not interrupt music playback. Bringing up the menu screen in the eBook reader reveals options for switching between three different font sizes, three font colors, and several backgrounds. There is a bookmarking feature with eight save slots and a jump-to-page option. Though I can’t quite imagine reading an actual book on the RockMEE, it works great for small text files such as to-do lists or address books.

FM Radio:

The FM radio is basic and functional. Reception is decent and the auto-scan feature works well. Auto-scanning is very quick and stations can also be browsed manually. Up to 30 presets can be set manually or auto-scanned in. There is also a menu option for launching the FM recorder, which can record in 259kbps WAV format for as long as the amount of free memory on the player allows.

Record:

The voice recorder is quite basic. The high quality setting results in 128kbps recordings in WAV format while the low quality setting corresponds to 45kbps. Recording length is limited only by the battery life and the amount of free memory on the player. The whole 8gb will fit roughly 80 hours of voice record on the “high quality” setting. While not exactly high-def, I was able to record some notes on the player’s functionality while going about my daily activities and listen to them later without any trouble. Mic sensitivity can be adjusted between five levels and doesn’t pick up any more background noise than the mic on my Sansa Fuze. Again I must say that the player is not designed to be used primarily as a dictaphone but it works well enough for the occasional recording.

Extras:

There are only three extras in the player’s firmware at this time – explorer, stopwatch, and calendar. The explorer allows the user to browse the entire folder structure of the player without confinement to one particular file type. When a file is selected the player decides which utility to open it with. The stopwatch is very simple and allows the recording of up to 5 split times. The calendar is equally basic and allows easy flipping between months and years.

Settings:

The settings menu contains all of the options for the player’s general functions. Aside from the usual language, time, display, sleep, and playback settings the setup menu also contains a wallpaper selection screen and options to upgrade the firmware or restore it to factory-stock settings.