Tiny PVP not ready for prime time
Written: Jan 12 '04
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Pros: Small, clean video, widely-available battery power, uses common SD cards, two headphone jacks
Cons: Plays only it's own videos, slow JPEG decoding, sparse documentation, cheap construction
The Bottom Line: Don't pay full price for this, or wait for some of the more competent devices out there to fall in price.
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| owenw's Full Review: Zvue ZV002 Digital Media Player |
After a significant amount of hassle getting my ZVue in time for the holiday season, it finally arrived. While the initial delay might have been due to the holiday/release rush, the phone support (on two separate calls to their cross-country office) was not as confident as I would like.
But the ZVue did arrive. It's small. It is about the size of a pack of playing cards. The plastic of the case is pretty solid, although the rubber plug covers are the flimsiest I've ever seen. I expect them to be ripped off accidentally within the next month through basic use.
The ZVue came with one video on a SD card. It's "Naggin'" by the Ying Yang Twins. I'm not a fan of rap, but even so, this doesn't seem like good rap. As with most of ZVue's video library, it seems like pretty poor content.
On the other hand, video playback is solid. There are very few noticeable artifacts in the sample video, and it plays smoothly with suitable stereo audio. The video is comparable in quality to Kinoma video on Palm OS4.
A surprise in the unit was the set of dual headphone jacks. Two people can watch the video with headphones.
Other jacks on the body allow for USB connection (the cable and drivers aren't supplied) and for a power supply (also not provided), which would likely replace the use of 4 AA batteries. There is another jack labelled ACC on the bottom of the unit that looks like another USB port.
Directions for using the player fit on one sheet of paper. That is to say, that's all you get. Even so, using the controls is easy enough if you've used a remote control before. Although the navigation of files on homemade SD cards is a bit strange, it only takes a few minutes to master.
The reported JPEG playback (like from my digital camera) is really slow to decode. It takes several seconds before a picture appears on-screen. A progress meter crawls across the screen during the decode.
I did not test the MP3 playback capabilities of the unit, but it supposedly does that, too.
The ZVue will not play back homemade video. HandHeld has announced support for an MPEG-4 upgrade that will allow this. This should be released this month. In my opinion, the ZVue is mostly worthless without this upgrade, since the available content from HandHeld is not something I would want to watch and the JPEG playback feature is so slow.
Other devices on the market provide better video, more storage space, built-in support for more formats, faster performance, higher quality construction, and better interfaces. After paying for the MPEG-4 upgrade, one might easily reach the price of some of these better choices.
In spite of all of that, the ZVue is one of the coolest little gadgets I've played with in a while.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 99
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies
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Epinions.com ID:
owenw
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Member: Owen Winkler
Location: Downingtown, PA
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 1 member
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