measurement
"As befits a box that weighs just 40g and stands barely 16mm tall..."
Judging by the photo, surely the correct SI unit of measurement to use would be the Cartman? At a guess, I'd say that's about 0.28Cr.
This minuscule media player from home theatre specialist Crystal Acoustics combines a go-anywhere form-factor with play-anything decoding. Indeed, if there's a file suffix the MediaMatchBox can’t manage, then it probably isn’t worth playing. Crystal Acoustics MediaMatchBox There are basic controls on the player's tum As …
Anyone remember the Hisense 1080p network media player? Dirt-cheap (by the end, comfortably under £50, IIRC) from Expansys, and reviewed in these august pages in 2009... and just a few months later, it vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
Sadly, moolah was a bit tight at that point, otherwise I would probably have leapt on it like a starving squirrel on the last peanut on Earth ((c) Scott Adams). I haven't seen a network DLNA media player as well-specced at that price point, since the Hisense - there's a hole in the market, methinks...
Not sure why you'd want this so small - by the time you've got an external hard drive, PSU and HDMI cable plugged in, you have a big block of stuff. Much easier to have a regular sized box like a DVD drive or amplifier. Then you can have all the cables out the back rather than all over the place.
Remote? Who care, there are plenty of good quality 3rd party remotes out there.
£55 though? Take a look on ebuyer, there plenty of equivalents for under £30.
"Not sure why you'd want this so small"
but suspect that's why it's so cheap. No need for it to be big (it's a chip and some ports) and if the unit is bigger the package is bigger, the bill of materials is larger, shipping costs increase.
A DLNA version of this would be very cool. In the meantime though - will that USB port power a 2.5" drive or is this powered 3.5" drives only?
It's hard to understand how this device received an 85% rating when it lacks any kind of networking - wired or wireless. What's the advantage of having a tiny decoder when it must be physically connected to much larger storage units and their power supplies and the TV all a the same time? Units like the WD Live Plus offer great codec support and ethernet and wireless networking for around the same cost. Unless your computer and TV are located next to each other this unit is severely limited in its usefulness and should have been graded down accordingly.
It received 85% because it does what its supposed to do perfectly.
If it's not your cup of tea because it doesnt have networking then its not the items fault. If you want a media player with networking, buy one but dont go berating this litte beauty because it hasnt!!!
I dont want or need network connectiviity, so long as i can chuck an SD card/HD/USB flash into this thing at my mates house and watch some HI def film ive downloaded, ripped, whatever, then it suits my purposes.....