Mini Review of the MPAVIO

Tom, one of our readers, has graciously allowed to us to reprint his comments on the MPAVIO, orginally mentioned here. The MPAVIO is a 20GB AV player with a 2.5" color LCD, but isn't widely available in the US. (Tom got his via eBay.) It supports playing a number of video formats including DivX, WMA and MPEG and can output video to a external monitor or TV.

Pros:

• Plays DivX and XVid with no problems so far. (I don't mind converting videos but some people might)
• Rechargeable battery lasts pretty long (at least enough for a regular length movie)
• Comes with remote, A/V cables, DC adapter and USB cable
• Easy transfer, just acts like an external hard drive
• Upgradeable firmware (although no upgrades exist yet)

Cons:

• Poor menu/interface. Not sure but I don't think there's any playlist support. No loop or random. Just basic play, pause, stop, FF and rewind
• Volume and brightness controls are really hard to adjust through tiny wheels on the side of the player
• An on screen volume control that can only be changed using the remote
• Player gets pretty warm while playing videos, using it with the TV only makes it slightly warm
• Chunky and heavy
• No screen protection. It does come with a fabric sack to keep it in though

Despite all the cons, its still great. It's much cheaper than most of the other PVPs on the market. It's more compatible with DivX and XVid (from what I hear, the other players arent too good). The lack of features doesnt bother me too much since I'm probably only going to use it to play single videos.

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