Customer Reviews

Epson P-4000 80GB Multimedia Storage Drive, Viewer & Audio/Video Player (3.8-Inch LCD Screen)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Recently I bought P-4000 from Scandinavianphoto.se (Stockholm branch) and I paid 995 USD (including 25% VAT) and as of now, I am very satisfied with it. This is my first ever multimedia storage viewer.
I wanted to buy iPOD 60 GB, but after considering the clumsiness of transferring photos from digital camera to iPOD, time and power consumption during the transfer process, I changed my mind and then found P-4000 in the market. I read reviews in Amazon (for P-2000) and elsewhere on the net and decided to go for it.

When I first opened the box and took it, it was cool. I charged the battery (included), which took about 3 hrs and then started the device. The picture quality of the LCD is excellent. Copying images from the CF card to this device was easy and quick. Photos look great in the LCD. Nikon NEF files look a bit pixelleted than JPEG photos. The coolest thing here is you can store images, see them better and re-shoot on the same CF card, while out photographying.

It was quite a bit of trial and error before we found the correct software to convert movie clips into MP4, which was finally playable by P-4000. Transferring 720 MB MP4 data took less than 90 secs. 451 MB of image data (Nikon NEF files) took 30 seconds to copy and 984 MB of data took 65 seconds to copy (from computer to P-4000). Copying pictures from CF card to P-4000 was equally quick. The P-4000 could not play our mp3 files and we had to convert the files into MP4a, before they could be played.

To fast forward the playing video, it takes about 5 seconds to do so and skips 15 - 20 seconds of clips. It takes a hefty 50 seconds to check and display the free space on the hard disk (which is slow for me!).

The battery life seems to be quite good, though I haven't checked exactly how long it survives. This is more or less I can tell about P-4000 now. It would have been nice if a pair of earphones and a transparent carrying case were included.

In conclusion, its an amazing piece of device.
Strengths:
Available disk space 73.8 GB (rest is taken by the system itself)
Excellent audio, video and picture viewing performance.
Fast copying capacity.
CF card and SD card slot.
Weakness:
Expensive.
You have to do little research before you can actually play audio and video files in P-4000.

I use a Canon 5D and shoot RAW. The files are 12-15 megs each, so they eat up the 8GB of flash fairly quicky. I got this viewer for a trip so I could in effect have 10 8-gig flash cards of backup. On the very first transfer I realized I can't live with it -- it took this device 2.5 hours (!) to import the photos. Once the data was in, the battery was nearly dead.

When viewing files, it takes maybe 15 seconds to populate one screen (about 12 thumbnails) with data. Until that happens the thumbnail slots are blank, so you can't quickly find what you need. Even once cached, it takes several seconds to draw a screenful of thumbnails. For a dedicated device the size of my camera, I expect it to be at least as fast! Instead, it's lethargic. To import 22 RAW files, it took more than 5 minutes -- 14 seconds per photograph, or less than 1MB/sec. What is it doing with all that time?

When viewing RAW files, it only shows the JPEG ewmbedded in the RAW file, so you get no zoom at all. For that, you have to select Jpeg+Raw in the camera, which is a feature I avoid, because it results in twice as many files on my computer, and nearly half the space on the card. I tried that mode, and of course the Epson now takes twice as long to build the thumbnails, and since you now see two identical thumbnails instead of one, you lose half the screen. One thumbnail is zoomable, the other isn't. What Epson should have done is detect that there are two files with the same name, but different extensions -- .cr2 and .jpg, and by default displayed only the .jpg. What photographer would want it any other way?

All in all, this device is just not usable for the high volume of photographs it was designed for.

I wanted this device as backup storage for my photos after my computer crashed and I lost most of my pictures once already. So far, this device is exactly what I needed. The LCD screen is large and beautiful. Copying and deleting large files is slow, but the P-4000 holds 80 GB so there is plenty of storage space. The biggest problem for me is that high resolution videos will not play. However, they are still stored, and therefore saved if my computer crashes, and smaller video files will play. Also, with high resolution pictures, viewing is slow. It can store as much as my computer and it yet is so small and portable. It is very simple to use with memory cards or a PC. The screens and menues are also user friendly. I love this device and I would recommend it to anyone. The only drawback is slow viewing and inability to view large video files.

Epson makes the claim that, "it's easy to share your favorite photos, videos and music" on this device. This device is wonderful for viewing photos but don't make the mistake of thinking you're going to watch videos on it like you can on an ipod video. They make the claim you can "show your friends your video"-well-you can but not with sound synchronized. I created multiple video files and followed all the instructions that came in their manual, i.e., file extensions, video codec, audio codec, etc. The videos look beautiful but the sound refuses to synchronize and always lags by a few seconds. The first time I called customer service (not a free number) I waited a long time and was transferred multiple times and finally ended up talking to a woman with a very thick East Indian accent (almost incomprehensible) who didn't have a clue what she was talking about. It was obvious she hadn't been trained. The second time I called, I got a guy who told me that yes, Epson has a problem, that it really wasn't made for video and all he could do was apologize. I have loved Espson printers and always trusted Epson in the past, but they really snookered me on this one.

In general, I have always been impressed with the Epson P-4000. Solid performer and great screen. Long battery life.
There are a couple of issues which force me to look elsewhere to replace my current unit.
The card reading is extremely slow. This has not been a major issue because I use it for backup only so I rarely need to look at the files transferred from the card quickly.
The absolute over riding negative issue for me is that the unit will only read up to 2 GB SD cards. This was fine when we only had cards with up to 2 GB. I bought a couple of 4 GB cards for my Nikon D 90 and the P-4000 will not read the cards.
I checked with Epson and they indicate that there is no plan for Epson to provide fixes for this problem.
As a result, I would really encourage folks who are looking at this or other Epson Storage Drives that the unit will be able to read the cards they use currently and anticipate using in the near future.
In my case, I have only been able to use the P-4000 for two years and now it is of no use to me. This was an expensive mistake and will not buy other Epson units because they take this limited upgrade policy.
If you just need field backup of SD Cards there are far better alternatives available at far better pricing.

Has a major shortcoming for me.I telephoned Epson to ask abput the compatability with my Canon EOS Ds1.I was told that it was fully compatible. However I find that it only stores the JPEG images and not the Raw images.On the Canon EOS Ds Mark 11 it is fully compatible.
Otherwise it performed perfectly on a recent trip to the Norweegian Fjords,where I took over 1000 images,backing them up quickly even though it was only the JPEG images..it was still an insurance to have the second backup to my Laptop.

This is a nice portable viewer but do not buy it to use to copy photos from your memory cards in the field, it is not reliable enough for that. I stored over 13 gigs of photos on it during a recent trip and two folders of over 300 photos "disappeared". I could not view or download the photos. I thought they were lost or corrupted, but I was able to recover them using the $200 OnTrack Easy Recovery Program. Although it was the only way I would have recovered my photos, Epson later told me not to use it. I also had problems with the battery not charging within the first week and even problems running the unit on AC power. All this happened in the first month I had the unit, but Epson would not refund or replace the unit. I sent it to them for warranty service and it came back quickly with no explanation of what they did. I have no confidence I can save photos to this unit as backup, which is the reason I bought it. If you are willing to spend this much on a portable viewer, it is excellent, but if you want a reliable tool to backup photos on the go, DON'T BUY THIS EPSON P-2000 or P-4000, stick with a laptop.

Not only does its large drive provide space for everything, its capability for storing AND viewing AND listening make this the very resource any photographer in the field will want to have. The new firmware gives increased flexibilty for larger media sources than its older, smaller brother. That really helps with the larger resolution cameras we either carrying or craving.

Love the Epson P4000. It's perfect for me. I have been afraid of a computer crash for sometime now. So I have been backing up my photos on CD's. Talk about taking a long, long time! I arranged in folders (just the way I wanted them) and loaded into the P4000 about 4000 pictures in about 4 hours. Everything worked just perfect, which is a very good thing for me as I am not a computer geek. I have not used it for video clips or audio and do not plan on doing so. Therefore I can not comment on the use of the P4000 for those applications. I can't wait for my next trip as I can now pull this little gizmo out and show people I talk with my pics of Africa or Russia or China or even my little dog !!!

Easy to use and pretty darn fast. Highly recommended for vacation trips where downloading photos each evening is a must.

Only downside is realtively short battery life. Assume you should plug in to do lots of downloading.