Epson P-5000

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2007/02/20/Epson-P-5000-Multimedia-Storage-Viewer/p1' target='_blank'>http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2007/02/20/Epson-P-5000-Multimedia-Storage-Viewer/p1</a><br /><br /></div><i>"I should imagine that there aren’t many digital photographers around that haven’t run out of space now and then; the dreaded ‘card full’ symbol is enough to make anyone mutter a few expletives under the breath. Fortunately, Epson have come to the rescue with a handy little storage viewer that will fit into virtually any camera bag pocket. Now you don’t need to panic when you’re down to your last few megabytes of space! The P-5000 is a versatile, reasonably well put together package that goes above a beyond a simple picture viewer. It offers a variety of card formats, video and audio capabilities, and a respectable list of practical features, including a gorgeous high definition LCD screen, a fast 80 gigabyte hard disc drive, a rechargeable Li-On battery for long life, and a high speed USB 2.0 connection for complete storage and management capabilities for both PC and Mac operating systems."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/espphotoultra.jpg" /><br /><br />I can see this being useful for hard core photographers who spend a lot of time in the field. I'm just not sure if that is enough of a market for this type of product to be successful. Sure it has video and MP3 capabilities to make it more useful, but I think it would make more sense to design a unit as a portable media center first and just tack on a card reader.

[sdattilo]

I just went on a cruise of the Eastern Carribean for the last week. I bought the P-3000 from BH photo about a week before that. I found it greatly usefull in a few ways.

Fist I belive the main differnces between the 5000 and 3000 are hard drive space, 40Gb vs. 80gb; Color, balck vs. silver, and there may be a differnce in how close you can zoom in on pics. Not sure but the 3000 zoomed in plenty close.

Uses: While I agree with Chris that Hard Core Photographers all do or should have some type of backup device, I think that if I was just shooting a single day event I would lean more towards the less expensive basic backup drive types. No real need to look at the photos on the spot, just mass storage/backup to look through later that night on the PC/MAC

Now where I really found this unit usefull was on the long trip. We were gone for 10 days total, couple in Miami and then on a Carnival cruise for 7. I didnt load any music (got a nano for that) or any video (girlfriend has this thing about me paying attention to her on the trip :wink: ) I took the P-3000 and a CF card adapter with and the power cord.

After a day in Miami we found 5 of us around the bar passing cameras around looking at all the different pictures. One wife just had a basic HP P&amp;S digital with a small memory card and hadnt thought ahead. After about 5 minutes I went to the room and grabed the Epson. About 10 minutes later I had taken everyones memory card from 5 different cameras and loaded them all onto the viewer. The longest load was from my CF card out of my Canon 30D due to the size of the photos, but it was still pretty quick. We then all looked through the pics.

Let me say the screen on this thing is fantastic. Being able to zoom in to check focus is also great. I may have been doing something wrong, but one of the only drawbacks I found was it didnt zoom in far with RAW photos. JPEG was fine. So after that I was shooting RAW/Jpeg combo on my camera.

The batter life I found excellent for my usage. I didnt plug it in to charge until Thursday (8 days from home) on the boat. And that was because that was the first time the battery bar dropped from full.

To make the story short, (a little late for that sorry) I charged it once, Ended up with 14GB of pictures. (roughly 3000+) between 5 cameras.

The really nice thing for me is now I have all the shots. One upload to my Google Web album and everyone has eveyshot. No waiting for Michelle in WI to put it in small formats to her Yahoo account, or waiting a week for MEL in MI to get it on a CD, load it to the computer, and then try to email. ( Hey my friends are fun, like to drink, and a good time, but techno savy they are not.)

Once back home I just USB it into the MAC and import to Aperture. No issues. I didnt load any of the Epson softwrare to check that.

I am not sure if it was worth the full $$ (480 when I bought it.) It will be if I continue to use it alot, but I already have 2 2GB cards for my camera and very rarely use that in a day family event. Now being able to grab other peoples pictures before they leave an event... that will be worth something.

so just my 2-5 cents worth.

[aroma]

While obviously a more expesive solution, my UMPC fits this bill VERY nicely. I didn't purchase the UMPC for this purpose alone, but it fills the role of backup / viewer for my travels very well.