Epson Photo Fine P-4500 adds brighter display
Digital photographers have long made Epson's Photo Fine devices their PMPs of choice, which is no surprise given the excellent 3.8-inch display, ample storage, RAW viewer, EXIF manipulation tools and CF/SD slots available on the units. Unfortunately, the latest version, the P-4500, seems to have few upgrades over the fact that its screen is said to be 1.5x brighter than that of its predecessor, the P-4000, which was announced just a few months ago. Other than that, specs look the same, including the same 80GB drive, MP3 and video playback and video out. We hope the "upgrade" doesn't mean a hit on the wallet -- or on battery life, which is often the case when you pump up the brightness.
Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Video, Storage
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jamie @ Mar 15th 2006 10:32AM
I have the P-2000, it is awesome for downloading CF cards after a wedding. But I can't find a DVD ripper for Mac that works once I download the file to the P-2000.
Anyone know of a good one?
iomatic @ Mar 15th 2006 11:40AM
So it's just a screen upgrade?
Hmm.
I spy with my little eye, a trend.
The "upgrade" from the Nikon D70 to the D70s was an LCD monitor (mostly); this month, the Canon 20D's successor the 30D has similar minor improvements, and get this: a bigger LCD screen. This counts for innovation these days? Not a better CCD or CMOS sensor, overall speed, megapixels, full-frame viewing, nor price reductions? It appears the best innovation in digital photography is: bigger screens? Huh.
Looks like that Japanese birth-rate problem affecting their brain-trust was in effect a while ago. Not that anything out of Detroit is worth mentioning. Heck, even Silicon Valley can only come up with "Web 2.0" drag-and-drop interfaces. Ah, we're going to Hell in a handbasket!
Mike @ Mar 15th 2006 12:31PM
Unfortunately, Epson cancelled this one for the U.S., so it'll be Japan only...
Polly Esther @ Mar 15th 2006 5:48PM
I have a P-2000 and it's good. However, the upgrade that Epson _NEEDS_ to provide is speeding up the card offload, as this is painfully slow.
This looks promising, though: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-7892-8176
Hans @ Mar 16th 2006 9:22PM
the screen is the same. they changed the processor to play divX and stuff.
Traycer @ Mar 21st 2006 9:43AM
iomatic (#3),
Actually, this is a more substantial and interesting upgrade than the P-2000 -> P-4000 one. That step up only upgraded the hard drive from 40GB to 80GB and a slightly longer lasting battery. There were no improvements made to the software.
This time around, Epson addressed the weakest point of the P-2000/P-4000, which is software functionality. Getting movies onto the P-4000 was a royal pain due to a rather anemic codec set. Now with MPEG-1/2 and DiVX support, it should be a breeze. Looking through the Japanese Epson site, I see screenshots showing much better photo browsing and MP3 playback functionality.
The other common complaint of the P-2000/P-4000 is CF transfer speed. It takes about 7.5 minutes to transfer the contents of a 1GB CF card to my P-2000's HD. The Epson site claims the P-4500 can do it in 155 seconds, or about 3X as fast. Because of the increased transfer rate, you can now offload up to 50GB of data on a single battery charge. The best I can do on my P-2000 is 20 GB (using ten 2GB cards).
The P-4500 also appears to include a wired remote with headphone, which is a new accessory (and likely incompatible with the P-2000/P-4000).
On the downside, Epson has not made any announcements about a European or NA release of this product. :(
I use my P-2000 all the time, but man, it sure has some frustrating and annoying "features" that the P-4500 seems to have fixed. It'll be interesting comparing the usability of the P-4500 to the upcoming Jobo GigaVu Evolution.