The Zvue Just May Not Be For You
Written: May 26 '04
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Pros: 2 headphone jacks, great idea, cheap
Cons: There is no built in memory, low quality video, you get what you pay for
The Bottom Line: This is not really a product you should waste your money on unless you like the Zcards already available from Zvue.
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| boughtall's Full Review: Zvue ZV002 Digital Media Player |
I really like the idea of this product. Handheld Entertainment had a great idea of making a portable mp3 and video player, but there were a few big problems with this device. There is no point in buying the video unit without having any built in memory. I made that mistake after I had been looking at the Archos AV320 and decided the price was to high. Looking back on my decision I should have waited a month and bought that off of Ebay for about $350. I thought this product would be great, but they need to have internal memory and better quality video.
Features
2.5 inch LCD screen
hinged plastic cover
standard controls for video (play, stop, forward)
brightness and volume controls
usb port (1.1 only)
32MB card
earbud headphones
program to convert files to Zvue format
Video
The video quality on this device will leave you fairly disappointed. The screen has a maximum resolution of only 160x230. This leaves the quality very grainy. Most people will not be able to tolerate this grainy resolution. There is not that great of videos available by ZVUE either. There are only a couple extreme sports videos, music videos, and other things like that. This product is definitely aimed more toward teens, but they probably won't like it. The only good thing is that this device is able to play Mpeg-4 video fairly well. I say fairly well because of the low resolution and screen quality.
Audio
The audio is better then I would have thought with such a cheap price tag. You will easily be able to listen to your videos. It does have some background noise, but it is manageable. Playing MP3's is not as easy though due to the poor organizing system and lack of options for playing music. You cannot make a playlist and the songs can only be organized in alphabetical order. If you don't mind this then the audio portion of this product will not disappoint you.
Memory
The Zvue would be so much better if they included an internal memory and a hard drive. This would allow much greater capabilities even though the price would drastically increase. There is a package which includes a 32MB card, but that is not enough for me. They do sell up to 256MB memory cards, but they cost $100. Now the $150 for the player and the 32MB card plus the $100 for the 256MB card brings me to $250. For less than $150 more you could buy an Archos AV320 with 20GB of memory. That device also has better sound and video quality.
Conclusion
I really do not recommend buying this device for anyone. It may seem like a great deal at $100 for just the base unit, but you can't do anything with just the base unit. You need to spend about $15 per video card or $100 for a memory card. If you want portable device that can play movies I recommend looking around for devices like the Archos AV320 or the RCA Lyra because they have built in hard drives and great video quality.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 150
Recommended for: Beginners - Easy Enough for Tech Newbies
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Epinions.com ID:
boughtall
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 0 members
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