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| Epson P-6000 80GB Multimedia Storage Drive, Photo Viewer and Audio-Video Player w/ 4-Inch LCD | 
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| Brand: Epson
Category: Photography
List Price: $599.99
Buy New: $589.41
You Save: $10.58 (2%)
New (21) Used (1)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 1.3 x 3.5
MPN: P6000
Model: P6000
UPC: 010343866812
EAN: 0010343866812
ASIN: B001DK72ZC
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
NObody has reviewed this wondrous gizmo?? October 28, 2008
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
OK, I'll grant you it's pretty expensive, and the use of it isn't immediately obvious to anyone who doesn't already own one. But let me explain: I'm a semi-pro photographer, and given today's travel restrictions and airline weight limits it isn't always practical to carry a laptop computer with a bulky charger in order to back up and view photos I take on the fly. The Epson P-6000 isn't much larger than maybe 4 decks of cards stacked together, and it weighs only about two pounds. (The charger, a standard 9 volt with a transformer, weighs a couple of ounces.)
BE AWARE, though, this unit ONLY ACCEPTS COMPACT FLASH (CF) AND SD CARDS. NOT MINI-SDs; NOT xDs; NOT SONY MEMORY STICKS. This makes it perfect for Nikon users and the many point-and-shoot camera units utilizing SD cards.
This item will store pretty much all the photos I can throw at it over the course of a two-week visit virtually anywhere. It files items where I can find them easily (it helps to back up photo cards as you use them, since the backups organize by date). It also hooks up to any television and to my desktop computer with ease for instant slideshows for friends and family, and - nearly best of all - it'll play the MP4 movies I download to the same memory cards I use to store photos. This is a real lifesaver for the 10+ hour plane trip, such as the one I recently took on a third-world airline with no in-flight entertainment.
You can buy replacement batteries for around $65, and they're also not huge and bulky, maybe the size of two AA batteries end to end and slightly thicker. Each battery lasts from two to three hours, depending on how heavily you're accessing the memory. Although the P-6000 is lightweight, the image quality of the screen is nothing short of really fabulous. It's sharp and not pixellated. At the same time the metal casing of the unit is pretty sturdy - I wouldn't drop it on a cement floor just for fun, but you get the sense it could take a fair amount of jostling and abuse without coming apart.
The unit doesn't overheat and I've had zero problems getting it to connect to my Macintosh G4 computer for transfer of photos for longterm storage. (It shows up in Finder as simply another external drive, allowing me to transfer files to and from with ease.) This is lucky, because the computer interface program that comes with the Epson is not very well designed. Among other issues, it'll try to make you download movies straight to the Epson using a very, very time-consuming conversion process - when you can simply convert the movies from DVD to MP4 using a faster program like Handbrake, and then plop them in and out of the Epson using either a CF or SD memory card.
Another mild issue - the manual for the Epson isn't great. I didn't realize until some lengthy trial-and-error that movies I tried to watch wouldn't play because the maximum MP4 image size the Epson will read is 640 x 480.
More positive issues: The backups run pretty quickly - I can move 4 gigs of photos off a CF card in about four minutes; the Epson doesn't take forever to generate thumbnails so you can view your photos; and the user interface on the device itself is very intuitive. I'm told older versions of the Epson photo viewer made it difficult to batch delete photos; not so with the P-6000. It's also easy to lock photos, to prevent yourself from deleting them accidentally.
Also, the Epson can be plugged into either 110 or 220 volt outlets, enabling you to carry it around the world without toting a bulky step-down transformer. (You *will* need an adapter to make the U.S. two-prong plug fit the, say, two round pin outlets found in places like Europe and Africa, though.)
If it weren't so expensive and did it not have a few problems with the software interface and instruction manual I'd rate this a full five stars. Should anything happen to mine, heaven forbid, I'd replace it like a shot. Along with my IPod and Garmin GPS unit, I am never without this item on a trip I take anywhere.
Oh, and the unit I purchased from an Amazon vendor worked great. The one I bought straight from Epson needed to be returned due to a faulty power supply. Just another data point.
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