Epson Debuts Portable Multimedia Device

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.designtechnica.com/article8587.html' target='_blank'>http://news.designtechnica.com/article8587.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Epson today added a new product to its Multimedia Storage Viewer family. The P-4000 Multimedia Storage Viewer is available now for $699. The P-4000 Multimedia Storage Viewer comes with an 80 GB hard drive for storing over 75,000 images, over 25,000 songs or about 90 to 300 hours of video and a 3.8” color LCD with special Epson technology for added viewing clarity. This portable viewing device supports JPEG image files as well as RAW, MPEG-4 and Motion JPEG video files and MP3 and AAC audio files. Features of the P-4000 include support of USB 2.0 for high speed file transfers, built-in CF and SD/MMC memory card slots, an on-screen menu which Epson says makes it simple to create albums to categorize and group files and the ability to print directly to select Epson printers."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/p4000.jpg" /><br /><br />Lots more information <a href="http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?oid=61555441&amp;category=Products">available here</a>. I have not seen the device myself but does it remind anyone of the TI-92 calculator? It looks a little large but the specs are amazing. I don't know if any of you have purchased a PMC device but if you have, it would be helpful to know what your criteria usually are when you pick one.

[jeffd]

640x480 support, an enhanced screen, compact flash (will also support memory stick via cf adapter) and SD slots, if there was ever a holy grail in portable movie players, this has my vote. Saddly it has the price to match it, but if money was no object...wonder how the interface is.

[bdegroodt]

I have one of these on order and a couple of criteria were essential to my selecting this unit.

-Had to be self-powered
-Had to have a screen for review
-Had to accept CF cards without the need to interface to the camera

There are many other units out there that either suck batteries fast, have no screen, or use a cable to transfer pics from the camera (and take a long time doing it). It's too bad there's such a premium for these features. The Epson is certainly at the very upper end of the price range.

That said, I can't wait to get mine. I debated just buying another few 1GB cards, but the space this affords is pretty amazing.