Epson P-5000 Personal Media Player

Epson releases new models for its PMP lineup. One of these is the impressive P-5000 model which is to replace the old P-4000 and P-2000 predecessors. P-5000 comes equipped with an 80 GB micro HDD and it adds H.264 playback support. It also supports the WMV video format, USB Hosting, and an all new 4" Super-Fine VGA display which knows 24 bit color depths. This outstanding display is aimed at professional photographers, as it has Adobe RGB compliance and it is one of the first screens to incorporate 4 separate color filters in order to provide the most accurate color reproduction possible on a PMP. It seems that this sweet display is going to stress out the poor battery quite quickly.

Transfer speeds have been fairly improved, too. A 1 GB card can be downloaded in about two and a half minutes. The new battery can withstand up to 60 such transfers. The device also supports all those major RAW formats and it features pre-installed photo manipulation software that can zoom, analyze and post-process pictures. Audio formats are supported as well and the internal battery can last for 3 hours of video playback or 6 hours of audio playback.

P-5000 still feels like a brick, as it measures 150 X 88 X 33 mm and weighs almost half a kilo (433 g). As a professional tool, P-5000 costs $424, which is a little bit high for the PMP market. P-5000 is only available in Japan for now.