Wolverine's ESP rocks 250GB for your PMP needs

Have you been looking for a high-capacity media player? Like, really, really high-capacity? Well finally someone has heard your prayers -- and answered -- in the form of the Wolverine ESP, a 250GB (yes, 250GB) media player that can handle pretty much anything you throw at it, including MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, WMV9, and Xvid. The player, which features a 3.6-inch color screen, also reads JPEG, BMP, TIFF, Text and RAW images (for a variety of digital cameras), does FM radio playback and recording, and can be connected to a TV or audio system via an included AV cable. The ESP has a slew of card slots, like CF, SD, SDHC, Memory Stick / Memory Stick Pro and XD built-in, plus an adapter for MS-Duo, Mini-SD, and RS-MMC. The player also boasts audio recording through a line-in jack or built-in microphone, and playback from an onboard speaker. Sounds good, right? There's just one problem: it looks like it's from 1998. Available right now for the low, low price of $649.99.

[melloncollie @ Aug 27th 2007 11:28AM]

Jesus, that's ugly.

[sarpulas @ Aug 27th 2007 11:30AM]

I can live with the ugly looks, but what good is 250gb storage with 4 hour battery life for playing videos? Also notice the lack of widescreen and the price...

[joe23521 @ Aug 27th 2007 11:32AM]

I don't know about the 3.6 inch 320x240 screen...

[ScOObyDoo @ Aug 27th 2007 11:36AM]

And here I was thinking the Archos UI was bad...

[anonymouspimp @ Aug 27th 2007 11:43AM]

ummm... its not "that" ugly... but I also don't buy things cuz they look cool (well, there are some exceptions)... I buy things because of their functionality. It's pricey, but you get so much.

Also, if I recall, the Wolverine started out as a gadget for photographers... which IMO is still probably a big target market for this device, with the 7-in-1 card reader.

I agree with the statements above tho... 4 hours is a little skimpy for a video player... and they should have put a better (bigger) screen on it.

[JohnTitor @ Aug 27th 2007 11:44AM]

The Archos 605 would beat this, it only goes upto 160GB, doesn't have all those formats (but it has others), and no radio. But just the look and price kills the Wolerine's appeal

[Xzavier @ Aug 27th 2007 11:48AM]

*YUCK* The only way I'm buying that thing is unless it TRANSFORMS!

[Aki Mimoto @ Aug 27th 2007 12:01PM]

Looks a whole lot like the Vosonic VP8390 series. I have one and the shape is eerily similar and the menu is identical. Only major differences is that mine also included a remote (the little dot to the upper left of the control pad is the IR receiver's window) and the offical specs only say it goes up to 160Gigs. It's a lot prettier too. I've been using mine as a photo image tank, for which it's quite excellent, being able to see histograms, exif and zooming in and out. The hard drive also is a standard ata100 2.5" so it was possible to buy the enclosure from vosonic and stuff a better price drive in myself.

http://www.vosonic.com/index.php?PA=product&id=124&kind_id=12

If it's the same hardware, you'll have to reencode your movies for playback. Full sized movies frameskip quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's my hardware but I don't use the playback feature so it doesn't affect me much. The same movie files played on my archos pma430 run beautifully.

Of course, I'm assuming much. Perhaps someone can say something definitive?

[JohnTitor @ Aug 27th 2007 12:13PM]

Rebranding FTW
by the way about the movie problem, it might be that the bit rate is quite high. Archos generally has quite fast processors that can play DVD quality videos. I guess this because I've had a slower PDA that can't play videos nearly as smooth as my current one.

[coolant8 @ Aug 27th 2007 12:17PM]

The transfer rate using this kind of PMP is very slow as well, This is not a Video player, most movies are better for wide screen, isn't really a music player, it's basically just a external drive box with a few extras.160GB in was top end for a while now, guess 250gb had to come, though it will probably be shortlived as 300/320drives are out though not to mass market yet. I just got a 160 Gb iMax T2900 last month, It's kind of similar to this accept more difficult to break and offers superior features...

Check this:

http://www.imax.com.cn/flash/s1.avi

[goaboy @ Oct 26th 2007 6:40AM]

Bought a T2900 imax myself recently but can't seem to get avi's to play on it. tried encoding them with blaze video magic but i keep getting not alid file.. HELp!!

[coolant8 @ Oct 26th 2007 9:49AM]

Sorry man, can't help you here; T2900 only plays converted file, it's annoying as it can't even play normal xvid avi videos, you are currently stuck with the converter that they given you in the package. If you lost it find it on their BBS.

[coolant8 @ Oct 26th 2007 9:53AM]

post something on their forum for help, or take it back to their factory and say that does not sync with sound when playing video, and they will offer you a firmware upgrade which may help. Blazing video magic works for me

[SuperSlumpChump @ Aug 27th 2007 12:21PM]

hmm.. it can do alot but can it play doom?

[coolant8 @ Aug 27th 2007 12:25PM]

Come on, asking if it plays Doom isn't even funny or original anymore.

[JohnTitor @ Aug 27th 2007 12:46PM]

It probably can, heck you can even see the game menu icon, not to mention that every PMP has enough power, even some flash MP3 players (example Sansa e280 with RockBox)

[coolant8 @ Oct 26th 2007 9:50AM]

it can't, end of this.

[bee @ Aug 27th 2007 12:22PM]

JohnTitor, Archos generally ships hardware that can decode many format more than rivals, though the annoying bit is that you have to pay like $80 extra for the few KB of plug ins to allow it to play Vob, Mp4, etc. 605 needs DVR station for av-out/in isn't that good...

[JohnTitor @ Aug 27th 2007 12:45PM]

yes I know, and actually its less than $80. But what I meant is the Archos can't play OGG or RAW images etc. But I do prefer the H.264 and VOB features anyway. The 605 is gonna be killer. Right now I'm planning on getting the $200 model with SD port and mainly watching my videos through the embeded Flash Player in its Opera Web Browser

[tekdroid @ Aug 28th 2007 6:03AM]

Archos still don't know what FLAC or Ogg Vorbis are. This one doesn't know what FLAC is. Such a shame.

[Wwhat @ Aug 27th 2007 2:40PM]

Stamp the word 'zune' on it and everybody will say it's nice looking, alternatively you can make it more ugly and stamp G15 on it, same effect.

As for plays anything, what about the lossless formats like APE and FLAC, and what about musepack?
Anything indeed..

[SuperSlumpChump @ Aug 27th 2007 2:42PM]

i have an archos 605 and with their latest firmware upgrade they have :

'Add Digital Camera RAW format support (embedded JPEG only)'

[JohnTitor @ Aug 27th 2007 8:05PM]

where did you get the 605?

[Generic @ Aug 27th 2007 4:10PM]

It's not great but still a good thing to see both WMA and AAC supported.

[Sirocco @ Aug 27th 2007 9:25PM]

Gee, that came from left field. And here I am waiting for the 8gig iAudio D2! I always knew all those companies were holding back on us. But the price of the Wolverine is kinda steep, and it does seem just a bit TOO big to fit into any of my pockets.

[scotty @ Aug 28th 2007 5:53AM]

i like it

[liquidcola @ Aug 28th 2007 10:04AM]

would be good if it supported FLAC or APE... sooner or later the only real benefits of a high capacity device like this are going to be the ability to play higher quality media. Who really needs billions of songs in their pocket (esp. if they all sound like crap).

[SuperSlumpChump @ Aug 28th 2007 10:18AM]

i got my 605 from amazon uk about a month ago