New Toy: Epson P-5000 Multimedia Storage Viewer

Sorry for the sparsity of posts lately. I've been trying to get an article finished which is overdue.

I didn't think I'd ever use this blog to do product reviews, but I like this one so much I can't help it. I recently purchased a new solution to the problem of not being able to take my laptop along with me in addition to my camera on long trips anymore. (I was forced to check my camera bag on a flight from London to Milan because of Heathrow's extremely narrow interpretation of the "one carry-on bag" rule; even a woman's small purse counts as a carry-on bag in their eyes; it was either check my camera or check my laptop; some choice!) Anyway, now I have this cool Epson P-5000 Multimedia Storage Viewer. The image quality is great, the 4-inch display is large enough to really see the photos, and the user interface is intuitive and easily accessible. It accepts CF or SD cards, copies the contents onto its internal hard disk (which stores 80 GB), and can connect via USB to a computer (where it will appear as an external hard disk). It also plays back MP3s and video using its little built-in speaker (zoom buttons control volume). A nifty little device. Much better than the SmartDisk FlashTrax XT that I'd been using before. The latter is excruciatingly slow, has a crappy UI, very poor image quality, and intermittently doesn't work at all.

That photo I'm displaying on my Epson P-5000, by the way, is one I took recently out on Galiano Island, the view from Hunterston Farm out over Retreat Cove, with the celtic cross on Loren & Mary Ruth Wilkinson's lawn in the foreground.