Viewsonic officially launches VPD400 MovieBook media player
By Donald Melanson 
posted Nov 10th 2009 5:59PM
posted Nov 10th 2009 5:59PM
Viewsonic was showing this one off way back in July alongside a slew of other gear, but it's just now gotten fully official with its VPD400 MovieBook media player, which is apparently available right away for $129.99. That will get you a 4.3-inch 800 x 480 display, 8GB of internal memory, a micro SD card slot for more, an AV out port for some bigger screen viewing (not HDMI, it seems), and a promised 12 hours of battery life for audio and six for video -- not to mention your choice of black, pink or white color options. Not too shabby, just don't go expecting anything fancy like WiFI or a touchscreen.
i'm happy they didnt try to stick a gps and a phone into it.
How could it NOT have a touchscreen...?
I don't see many buttons.
On the side. (right specifically).
Like a lot of Chinese PMP's the buttons are all on the top.
@Steve
Good eye, I missed those buttons...
Why does everyone assume that if it doesn't have a touch screen it's not worth buying?
For media players that aren't big, buttons are much more preferable in my opinion. I can control my mp3 player from my pocket, i couldn't do that if it had a touch screen and pocket control is a must purely because most players don't have an inline headphone remote that doesn't force you to buy lousy headphones.
It's a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, as the saying goes. If all you're doing is watching films, the only buttons i want are play/pause, skip chapter and fast forward/rewind (along with stop and menu buttons). A touch screen would be a bit unwieldy and would likely drive up the cost.
People are mentioning WiFi too. Why? Again, there is an obsession with "all in one" devices. I'd rather have three separate gizmos that do certain functions very well than a jack of all trades, master of none combo. By now it should be clear that generally web browsers on these kind of sizes aren't worth using (i say generally!). It would be better to get a full featured internet tablet that can support things like Flash and full AJAX (some browsers do javascript, but not to the extent where you can do things like google maps). As for the screen size, the only thing i'd be using WiFi for is web browsing (don't care about POP, i check on websites and then download all my mail on my desktop/laptop using thunderbird) and it'd need to be a bit larger to make that work for me.
$129 or about 80 quid here sounds like a very good deal for 12 hours of video playback - never mind audio. 4.3 inches is respectable, i would be happy to buy one if the UI is good. Which raises one final point. If they put a touch panel in, and WiFi and hell, why not GPS too while they're at it, i would bet fair amount that the user interface would be rubbish and cumbersome and it'd get slated for trying to do too much.
*sorry, meant 6 hours video - still good enough for me
I'm anxiously awaiting seeing a friend's Gemei 8800 which just came in today. It's about the same price and does 1080p output via HDMI and has the same 800x480 screen, etc. etc.
So far all I've got from him is that it has to be seen to be believed, which is encouraging.
*snore*
**In b4 apple knockoff**
Add Wifi and a touchscreen and I'd buy one right away.
MKV?
you wish.
Whats the point? MKV is just an ineffective file container that holds the video/audio streams.
............
Because a lot of anime are wrap in mkv. And the whole point of a video player is to play video.
Oh Sheesh Y'all, Twas a dream
Double the screen size and I'd be more interested. Not much bigger then the screen on my phone.
I think you have pmp and MID confuse. It's like saying in order to be a phone these day, you need a qwerty keyboard.
if this has a rockchip, dont even bother.
what's the problem with rockchip?
this pmp looks pretty appealing to me, though a thorough review of display/playback quality is what makes or breaks the deal. i suppose the rockchip is related to exactly that?
800x400 resolution, 8gb of internal memory with sd card slot, 6 hours of video battery life, for $130, yet no touchscreen or wifi? is it really that hard to remember something as basic as multi-touch and wifi? seriously...
micro-sd makes me swoon.
I don't understand why people would want a Touchscreen on a VIDEO device? It's stupid, all you'd be doing is getting fingerprints all over the screen that you want to watch a movie on.
No touchscreen or Wifi?! What?! That's SOOOOOO 2008.
In all seriousness, it's not a bad deal for the price. 8GB is a lil' small....but if you directly compare it to some of the other no wifi, 8GB units on the market...not bad at all.
damn when i saw this i thought it was a new sweeter portable dvd player, but no its just a lame mobile device... GIVE IT A GOSHDARN dvd drive and ill buy it
oh well.. it will never happen, frickin goshdarn digital media
This looks like a rebadged Ainol player. HD6000A. Even the specs sound the same. More details (in Chinese) here http://www.ainol.com/product/2009/0128/content_710.htm
yeah, looks exactly the same. so, it's rebranded device, doesn't make it bad, just more accessible ...
It is bad, because they charge $129.99 for an older model.
The Ainol V6000HDA costs $78.90. And that's the 16GB version.
http://www.allpmp.com/goods.php?u=4492&id=596
You can get the newer V8000 models with a larger screen, more memory and HDMI output for less than what ViewSonic wants for their device.
murfo, you're comparing the list price of one device to the discount price of another. that's bad.
though, viewsonic will probably add a few bucks to the price, but not as much as you make it look.
Here's some specs:
http://www.viewsonic.com/products/vpd400.htm
No MKV, but FLV support impresses me. I don't see too many PMPs that do that. Also, I think that it meant to say VOB. It says VOD, but I doubt this had Video On Demand capabilities. ;)
Sorry to be a bit of a noob here, but can I hook my external HD up to this and access my media files from it?
No. You can only play files from the internal 8GB or an SD card inserted into the slot.
Can you watch broadcast TV on it? Are there any portable TVs out there anymore???