Freecom MediaPlayer 450 well-performing media streamer with HDMI
We were pretty impressed by Freecom’s Mediaplayer 350 when it was released last year. It offered outstanding streaming performance and was easy to use, so we were keen to try out the new model, the MediaPlayer 450, to see what’s been improved.
At a glance there doesn’t appear to be much. It’s the same size and adopts the same design, though the casing now houses SATA hard drives instead of the previous IDE format. As before, you can choose to buy the product either drive-free or with a pre-installed hard drive at a range of capacities, though it appears to be a fair bit cheaper to buy and fit a drive yourself.
The most notable addition to the 450 is the presence of an HDMI port, which makes it far easier to view HD content on a modern TV, and is able to stream high definitions formats at up to 1080p resolutions.
As before, you have a choice of either wired or wireless connections, there’s a USB port to connect external storage for quick access and, of course, if you install a hard drive or opt for one of the pre-installed models you’ll have the benefit of storing all of your movies, music and photos on the device itself. (more…)
Tagged Under : Freecom, Freecom MediaPlayer, Freecom MediaPlayer 450, Media Players, MediaPlayer
NDrive G800 photo mapping satnav with full colour satellite views of the UK
When we heard that NDrive was releasing a satnav device with full colour photography instead of your typical drab coloured maps, we were itching to get our hands on one and take it for a spin.
The G800 is the more expensive of two new devices in the range that includes this feature, and it also sports a healthy collection of extras such as Bluetooth, an FM transmitter and media playback functionality for your music, video and photos.
There are other treats in store as well, such as the 8GB of internal storage provided by default and a handful of games to play. On paper the G800 looks pretty capable then, so we took it on the road to see how the photo mapping looks and how it fared on the whole.
The first thing we noticed is that the NDrive doesn’t use photo mapping by default: the device actually uses TeleAtlas‘ maps for general operation, with the photo views kicking in when you drive through an area that is supported. That’s the other issue: you won’t get photo maps for the entire UK here. There’s currently coverage for 29 cities and, although this number is set to increase, it’s disappointing that this headline feature isn’t a little more comprehensive. (more…)