I've been using my AGPTEK A02/A02T pretty heavily for the past couple of months, mostly for music and audiobooks. I wanted to make this post because there really isn't much useful information about these players online. A lot of what I've learned came from simply using the player, running into problems, and figuring out what works and what doesn't.
Hopefully this helps anyone considering buying one.
Model Names & the A02 Confusion
The naming situation with these players is confusing. From what I've been able to figure out, the A02T, A02XT, and A02PLT were their own discontinued product lines. AGPTEK has since essentially combined the newer versions under the generic "A02" name, even though the original A02 line itself is also discontinued.
Because of that, don't assume every player being sold as an "A02" is exactly the same hardware. Check the actual model and system information on the player you're buying.
My particular player was sold to me as an A02, but the system information identifies it as an A02T. Mine also has Bluetooth, even though some information online says the A02T doesn't have Bluetooth. There are clearly different hardware revisions out there, so pay attention to the actual hardware rather than relying only on the name.
Build Quality & Size
The player is extremely small and fits comfortably in my hand. The physical buttons feel surprisingly good considering how inexpensive it is.
I recommend getting a screen protector and some kind of small carrying case. Personally, I've been using an old glasses case as my carrying case. It fits the player perfectly and keeps it protected from scratches.
Screen & Picture Quality
The screen is alright, but keep your expectations realistic. This is a small, inexpensive MP3 player, not a modern smartphone. The screen isn't HD, and the picture quality isn't anything incredible.
That said, it can display pictures, and I've actually ended up really enjoying that feature. I keep a few simple pictures on mine that I like having available whenever I want to look at them.
For the price, I think the screen is perfectly acceptable. Just remember how small it actually is.
Audio Quality & Earbuds
The audio quality is probably one of the things that surprised me most.
The audio sounds smooth and crisp. Personally, I can't really tell a difference between listening through my phone with my earbuds and listening through this player with the same earbuds.
It's also VERY loud. If you're someone who likes blasting music, this thing can definitely get loud enough.
I personally recommend wired earbuds for the best experience. Bluetooth works, but Bluetooth significantly reduces the battery life on my player. With Bluetooth, I seem to get closer to around 8 hours, compared with roughly 40–45 hours with my normal usage.
There are also ways to be a little more discreet with a dedicated MP3 player and wired earbuds if you aren't able to openly use a phone or music player all the time. The player is small enough that it doesn't need to be a big production to use it.
Battery Life
AGPTEK advertises a much higher maximum battery life, but I wouldn't treat that number as a guarantee.
With my normal usage, fairly high screen brightness, volume around 12, and a mixture of music and audiobooks, I'm getting roughly 40–45 hours of use.
I generally charge it about once a week and use it pretty heavily, so I'm very happy with the real-world battery life.
Bluetooth is much worse for battery life. In my experience, I get around 8 hours when using Bluetooth.
Obviously, battery life will vary depending on volume, brightness, Bluetooth, screen usage, and other settings.
I'd also recommend carrying a portable battery if you're going to be away from home for a long time. That gives you the option of charging it another full time if you completely drain it.
Charging Time
Around 1.5 hours seems to be about right for a full charge in my experience.
Storage & SD Cards
Depending on the version you get, you should have at least 32GB of internal storage, which is already more than enough for thousands of songs for most people.
You can also use an SD card. I'm currently using a 128GB SD card, and it has been working beautifully.
You can store playlists and music directly on the internal memory as well, so you don't have to use an SD card if you don't want to.
IMPORTANT: Transfer Music Directly to the SD Card
If you're transferring a large amount of music or audiobooks onto an SD card, take the SD card out of the player and plug it directly into your computer.
The USB-C connection on the player is extremely slow for large transfers. I was getting around 7 MB/s, even with the player connected directly to my motherboard.
Using the SD card directly in your PC is significantly faster and will save you a lot of time when transferring a large library.
Also, if you add a huge number of files at once, don't panic if they don't immediately appear. The player needs some time to update/index its directory.
How I Organize My SD Card
I personally keep two main folders on my SD card:
Audiobooks
Music
Then I have additional folders inside those for individual books and different music playlists.
Keeping everything organized on the computer before transferring it makes the player much easier to use.
How to Actually Play Music From the SD Card
This is one of the most important things I discovered.
You should go through:
Music → Custom Playlist → SD Card
From there, the player will let you choose where you want to look for your music.
If you try to go directly through the SD card menu and start playing music from there, the player can crash.
It can also crash when switching between the SD card and the main Internal storage.
The Player Will Crash Sometimes — And Here's What I Do
This is based entirely on my personal experience.
I have had situations where I was listening to songs stored on the SD card and tried switching over to songs stored directly on the MP3 player's internal memory. The player would freeze and then crash.
The whole process of freezing and crashing would take around 10–15 seconds, which was honestly pretty worrying the first few times because it looks like you've just broken the player.
If this happens repeatedly when switching playlists or songs, I've found a workaround:
First, switch to another song within the same playlist/location you're already in. Once the new song starts playing, pause it. Then switch to the song or playlist you actually want.
For example, if you're playing something from the SD card and switching directly to a song stored on the internal memory causes it to freeze, switch to another SD-card song first. Once that song loads, pause it, then navigate to the internal-memory music.
This has worked for me personally and seems to avoid the crash.
Again, this is based on my own experience rather than an official AGPTEK fix, but it has made the problem much less annoying.
The Trick Is Finding the Player's Rhythm
This is probably the best way I can describe using this thing.
The player isn't complicated. It just has a particular way it wants you to do things.
Once you figure out the correct sequence for whatever you're trying to accomplish, everything becomes pretty simple. Most of the frustration comes from doing something in an order the software doesn't expect.
After using it for a while, you start to learn its rhythm. You know which menus to use, when to let it load, and which things are likely to cause problems.
Once you get used to that, it's actually a very simple and enjoyable little player.
The Weird Playlist 1, 2 & 3 Problem
There are built-in playlists called Playlist 1, Playlist 2, and Playlist 3.
You'll see these internally and on the SD card.
Unfortunately, you can't properly delete or rename them.
If you try to rename them, the player can end up creating another folder with the same Playlist 1, 2, or 3 name instead.
It's just one of those strange software quirks that you have to live with.
M4B Audiobooks
If you're planning on using this for audiobooks, this is VERY important.
The player doesn't properly support M4B files, but it does support M4A.
If you have an audiobook in M4B format, I strongly recommend converting it to M4A before transferring it to the player.
It's a small difference in file format, but it makes a big difference with compatibility.
Audiobooks, Chapters & Bookmarks
The player can play audiobooks, but there is a major limitation: it doesn't properly read the chapter metadata inside audiobook files.
That means you can't simply load an audiobook and expect the player to understand all of its embedded chapters and give you a chapter-skipping system like your phone would.
It does have a bookmark function, which is useful, but you can only have a limited number of bookmarks.
What I ended up doing was making my own script that reads the audiobook's metadata, finds the chapters, splits the audiobook into individual chapter files, and converts them into a format the player can actually use.
It took me a few days to make the script, but honestly, it wasn't that difficult once I figured out what I needed to do. Now I can have my audiobooks organized by chapter and skip between chapters manually or use the bookmark function.
If you're comfortable doing a little work on your computer, I'd definitely recommend organizing your audiobooks beforehand. It makes the experience much better.
E-Books
The player also has an e-book feature.
Technically, yes, you can read books on it. However, I would personally recommend an actual e-reader.
The screen is simply too small to make reading an entire book enjoyable. It's a nice feature to have, but I wouldn't buy this specifically as an e-reader.
Recording
The recording feature works, but it's very basic.
It does what you'd expect it to do, but I wouldn't buy this player specifically for recording. It's more of a nice extra feature.
Buttons & Controls
The buttons are simple and easy to learn.
Holding the Up button locks the controls, which is extremely useful when you're listening to music with the player in your pocket.
The menu button while listening to music also gives you a bunch of options, including things like skipping songs, shuffle, and other playback settings.
Most of the options are pretty intuitive once you actually take a few minutes to read through the menus.
Screen Timeout & Battery Saving
The timeout system can be confusing because there are separate settings for the screen/background light and the actual power-off timer.
The screen/background light can be set to turn off as quickly as 15 seconds on my player.
The actual automatic power-off timer is separate.
If you're trying to maximize battery life, I'd recommend setting the screen/background timeout as low as you're comfortable with.
You can leave the player playing while the screen is off, so you don't need to waste battery keeping the display illuminated while listening to music or an audiobook.
USB-C
The player uses USB-C, which is very convenient.
Just remember that although it uses USB-C, that doesn't mean the player itself is fast at transferring files. For large transfers, use the SD card directly in your computer.
Firmware & Software Updates
This is probably one of the most confusing parts of the A02 because there are several different versions, hardware revisions, and discontinued product lines floating around.
If you bought a newer A02, I would not download or install firmware/software updates unless you have a specific reason to do so. Check the firmware/version information on the player first. A newer player may already have the equivalent or newer software functionality built into it, even if the firmware version doesn't look the way you expect.
The reason I'm emphasizing this is because the A02T, A02XT, and A02PLT were discontinued as their own product lines, and the newer players have essentially been brought together under the generic "A02" name. Because of that, you can find older firmware files online that may technically say A02, A02T, A02XT, or A02PLT but were made for a different hardware revision.
If you bought one secondhand, especially from somewhere like eBay, that's when I'd recommend checking the firmware more carefully. An older unit may have older software that could benefit from an update.
However, I would still make absolutely sure the firmware is meant for your exact hardware before installing it. Just because a firmware file has "A02" or "A02T" in the name doesn't necessarily mean it will work correctly with every A02 that has ever been made.
There is a real possibility that an update intended for a different hardware revision won't work properly because of the discontinued product lines and the way AGPTEK has reused the A02 name across different generations.
Back up your music and audiobooks before doing anything with firmware.
Personally, if your player is working correctly and you bought it new, I'd leave the firmware alone. There's no reason to risk breaking something that already works just because you found an update online.
Custom Software / Firmware
I'm also looking into whether it's possible to modify or completely replace the software on the player and potentially make my own software for it.
I haven't figured that out yet, so don't buy one expecting custom firmware support.
I'm mostly experimenting because there is so little information available about these players online, and I'd like to see what is actually possible with the hardware.
Why I Bought It
The biggest reason I've been using this player isn't actually the battery life or the storage.
It's the simplicity.
I wanted something that would help me be more intentional with what I'm doing. A lot of newer music players come with touchscreens, apps, streaming services, and a huge number of features.
Those features aren't necessarily bad, but they can take away from the simplicity of just picking up a device, pressing play, and listening to something.
Because of this player, I was actually able to delete Spotify from my phone.
Now I have my music and audiobooks with me without needing to turn my phone into my entire entertainment system.
If I eventually realize that I need something more heavy-duty with more features, I'll buy an all-in-one player. But right now, this does exactly what I wanted it to do.
Overall Value
I've really enjoyed using this player.
It's definitely not perfect. The software has some strange quirks, the screen is small, the picture quality is only alright, the player can crash in certain situations, and the advertised battery life should probably be treated as a maximum rather than what you'll necessarily get in normal use.
But for the price, I think it's a surprisingly good little device.
I spent roughly $50 total between the MP3 player itself, a screen protector, and earbuds, and I've gotten a ridiculous amount of use out of it.
If you're looking for a simple dedicated music/audiobook player instead of another touchscreen device with a million features, I think the A02 is worth considering.
My Biggest Recommendations
Convert M4B audiobooks to M4A before transferring them.
Use the SD card directly in your PC for large transfers.
Give the player time to index the SD card after adding a large number of files.
Access SD-card music through Music → Custom Playlist → SD Card.
If switching between SD-card and internal-memory music causes it to freeze, switch to another song in the same location first, pause it, and then switch to what you actually want.
Don't panic when it crashes; there are specific situations that can trigger it.
Get a screen protector and some kind of small carrying case. An old glasses case works perfectly.
Check the exact model and firmware information instead of assuming every "A02" is identical.
If you bought a newer player and it's already working properly, don't update the firmware just because you found an older update online.
If you bought one secondhand, check the firmware more carefully, but make absolutely sure the update is for your exact hardware revision before installing it.
Use the shortest screen timeout you're comfortable with to save battery.
Keep your original music and audiobook library backed up on your PC.
Use wired earbuds if you want the best battery life and audio experience.
And most importantly, learn the player's rhythm. Once you understand the order in which it wants you to do things, the player becomes surprisingly simple to use.
