Jørgen Sundgot grapples with iriver's all-singing, all-dancing PMP-140, finding an excellent portable media viewer in need of user interface polish.
Review summary of the iriver PMP-140:
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Full review of the iriver PMP-140:
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Having already made a foray into the portable media viewer space with its PMC-100 series, powered by Microsoft's Portable Media Center platform, iriver is now making a crack at a Linux-powered design which offers more flexibility. Supporting a slew of video and audio formats, the iriver PMP-140 is quite a different beast from the company's PMC series - and the main difference lies in the software; let's switch it on, shall we.
In hardware we trust
Attention to detail is key in the 139 x 84 x 32 mm, 299 g PMP-140 - at least when it comes to hardware. A crisp 3.5" colour display with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, 16-bit colour depth and adjustable brightness all the way up to 'glaring' acts as the centerpiece of the unit, offering excellent viewing indoors albeit - expectedly - not as good outdoors. It's a tad on the small side and we've seen better viewing angles though, yet remains highly usable.
The screen is flanked on both sides by an excellent set of buttons, joined by minimally intrusive LEDs which indicate hard drive activity and power status. A combo slider for alternating internal and external display modes as well as placing the unit in key lock mode is found on the bottom, whilst a spring latch on the left side conceals USB 2.0 device and USB 1.1 host ports, both in mini-USB format.
Superb grip and comfort is provided courtesy of a highly ergonomic shape and anti-slide rubber strips on the back. Oh-so-handily, a kickstand also emerges from the back of the unit, and replacing the battery is a breeze.
For audio purposes, an internal loudspeaker and a 3.5 mm stereo line out port both perform well, although the bass register of the internal loudspeaker could - expectedly - benefit from improvement. The inclusion of a stereo line in port is a nice trait; with it, one can easily trade tunes on the go - provided one remembers to bring the appropriate cable.
Video output is in the shape of NTSC or PAL compatible composite video, which performed with aplomb. The PMP-140 does however appear to interlace TV video output of files at resolutions larger than its native resolution (320 x 240 pixels), which is a pity given the unit's impressive ability to carry out on-the-fly resizing and playback of higher resolution video through its internal display.
Playback of non-optimized video does take its toll on battery life, however, as compared to optimized files: on average, we found the PMP-140 to be able to play back video for in excess of 4 hours at medium brightness, and music for approximately 9,5 hours; quite mediocre.
The list of supported formats is all but mediocre, however, as the PMP-140 handles virtually all commonly used formats except for Windows Media Video. Supported are WAV, MP3 and WMA (albeit not with DRM support) audio formats; BMP and JPEG pictures; and AVI, ASF, DivX 3.11/4.0/5.x and XviD video formats - all at comfortably high bitrate levels.
A USB 2.0 port which maps as a USB Mass Storage Device offers high-speed connectivity for file transfers to and from the unit, and as a nice trait also accepts USB charging, removing the charger from the luggage equation for those also carrying a laptop. Handily, there is also a USB 1.1 Host port, which enables the PMP-140 to accept files from compatible devices such as certain digital cameras.
A stereo FM receiver is also included, delivering good range and reception when utilizing the bundled set of earphones for its antenna. Sadly, users cannot record radio, but at least voice recording is a standalone option.
Keep it simple, stupid
Having displayed prowess in the hardware department, the PMP-140 goes on to stumble gravely in the software department. Despite being informative and pretty, an attempt at navigating the user interface quickly makes it evident why someting as unusual as a dedicated Help button was included. Button functionality alters depending on the task being performed, and certain vital actions are highly counterintuitive. For instance, having paused a video file with the play/pause combo button, users must again press - and hold - the same button to exit to a playlist.
Furthermore, the PMP-140 does not utilize file tag information in any way to present users with a more logical interface, instead requiring users to navigate solely by means of folder hierarchies. Needless to say, this is a nightmare for those with large music or picture collections; the only mitigating factor is support for music playlists, but these cannot be created on-device. For video, the problem is less pressing as one can only fit so much on a 40 GB hard drive.
Despite a cumbersome interface, however, the PMP-140 is good at what it does. When using codecs for which the device has been optimized, even video clips running at 30 FPS at a bitrate of 1500 Kbps and resolution of 640 x 352 pixels ran smoothly and required no resizing - an impressive feat as much as a valuable time saver for those who wish to avoid recoding video for a variety of devices. Incidentally, iriver bundles quite adequate software for doing so.
Availability
The iriver PMP-140 is at the time of writing available in larger European markets, and sells in the $725 USD range.
Price and availability
The iriver PMP-140 will start selling for TBA () in December 1969.
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