14 DAY TRIAL // Some things are way better if done after some research and intense development. It's enough to check out Packard Bell's last creation. Apparently, the giant company kept a low profile lately, while some say it has largely disappeared from the North American market. Still PB is still very active in Europe.
In fact, they choose the European market to introduce two new media players. Coming straight from the company's intense toil, the Eclipse media player seems to be the company's first player that handles both music and video.
When it comes to its capabilities, the player is said to be able to deal with a lot of common file formats on the market, such as MP3, WAV and WMA audio. Regardless, there are also a bunch of other rather up-to-date features such as support for MP4, WMV and XviD movie clips. As expected, the design line is also a refreshed one, compared to the one used on previous electronic devices. The media content is played on a 2.2-inch screen with 65,000 colors.
Like most players out there, Eclipse gets juiced up via a lithium-ion battery, which the makers claim it should last through 22 hours of audio, but no video figures are available. As for its internal storage capacity, the Eclipse comes in 2, 4 and 8GB size. It sports other poor extra abilities such as voice recording and FM radio.
And hey, another good news is that PB targets masses this time, as Eclipse wants to be one of the cheapest player options possible. So you can get your own if traveling to Europe soon.
The other new comer in the company's portfolio was not so cleverly dubbed "the Fresh", because it kinda omits video or any sizable display, not to mention they did some immoral shrinking of the memory down to 1 or 2GB. The Fresh's battery life was likewise scaled down to 12 hours, accomplished using a single AAA battery.
Capabilities are even lower than expected, since there is neither WAV support nor FM radio whatsoever. But hey, the latter is a real option if looking for 1GB player and you're not into too much gadgetry. The Fresh retails for about ?30 ($44) and ?40 ($59), while prices for the Eclipse are unknown.
And yet, who said cheapness is not a sense?