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|  | |  | | | Aluratek Cinepal APMP100F Personal Media Player | | | | | | | |
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APMP100F | | Availability:
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| | Features | 8.9 inch High Definition LCD Display: 1024 x 600 resolutionSupport 720p and 1080i full HD video-decodingSupport 720p video out to your HD TVSupport HD video in AVI, VOB, DAT, MPG, MPEG, DivX, H.264, MKV, and RM / RMVBBuilt-in 4GB memory to store your favorite video, music or pictures
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| | Description | Hi-Definition 720p, Ultra portable ALL-IN-ONE Solution for all your videos, photos, music and ebooks (txt only). | |
| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 10.75 inches | | Product Width: | 7.5 inches | | Product Height: | 3.25 inches | | Product Weight: | 1.5 pounds | | Package Length: | 10.6 inches | | Package Width: | 7.4 inches | | Package Height: | 3.1 inches | | Package Weight: | 2.25 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 37 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 37 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 found the following review helpful:
Good with Videos Mar 30, 2010
By Jim H.
I have just purchased this unit and find that it works real good with videos. So far I have tried it on .MP4 files (downloaded using Firefox DownloadHelper) and it plays these files perfectly. I have also tried it on .AVI files downloaded with Torrent, and it plays those fine too. It will not play .FLV files at all. It also plays .MOV and .AVI files from my digital cameras.
It does remember the last position in the file and if you turn of the unit and return later, it asks you if you want to start at the last location it stopped.
It does not offer the ability to speed up the playing of the video.
As for MP3, it plays the files just fine. But it fails to do a couple of things I would like to see:
1) I would like it to remember the last location and start the file from that location. Instead, it always starts MP3 files from the beginning. This is not useful for Podcasts.
2) It does not offer ability to speed up play back with MP3 files. This would be real useful for Podcasts also.
3) It does offer the ability to fast forward through a file, but control is coarse and difficult to find a particular spot in the file.
I have looked at some .JPG pictures, and they look real good. It does display a thumbnail page of pictures so you can pick the one to look at.
I have tried this player with both a 8GByte SDHC card, and with a 8GByte USB Flash Drive, and it works perfectly. I also tried connecting to a 1TBype USB drive with lots of video files. It took a long time to display any files and I never did get it to play. I suspect it was overwhelmed by the size of the drive.
I have not yet tried it with any eBooks.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 Great picture but a few BIG flaws Nov 11, 2010
By BradG
I don't do a lot of these consumer reviews, but I feel I've gotta chime in here as there's a few big flaws in this player that I haven't seen anyone mention.
Nearly all of my movie files are .MP4 files. This player HATES MP4 files! If you stop playback, or even just pause it, when you re-start the lip-sync is WAAAAYYYY off. I mean way off, by up to several seconds in some cases.
I've experimented with a few different formats and found that .MOV files and also .MKV files seem to hold sync, but this is a pretty huge problem as .MP4 files a so common.
Also: you must make your rips pretty small, like 600-800kps, or they WILL NOT play back properly. Again, my movie files were compressed down to around 1.2 gigs each, which was around 2000kps, I think. These WOULD NOT PLAYBACK without stalling or skipping.
These are both fairly large issues and Aluratek should, at the very least, inform you of the best formats to use so that you don't take off for a week's vacation (like we did) with 8-gigs of movies for your kids that end up not playing back!
One last thing, which has been mentioned, but I feel is really lame is the "proprietary" output jacks for audio and video. By "proprietary", I mean that hardly any off-the-shelf cable will work with the audio and video outputs because they are sunk into a very, very thin surround in the player's body. Yes, they do include cables with the unit (and props for that) but that does you NO GOOD for your headphones (unless you're using a pair of Apple iPod or iPhone earbuds), and if you lose the included cables, or forget them, you're going to have a very hard time finding ones that will fit.
Oh yeah, and my remote just completely STOPPED WORKING after about a couple weeks. (Yes, the battery is still good.) This is a pain since the controls are pretty hard to navigate.
If you sort this stuff out then, yes, this is a pretty nifty player.
PROS: Gorgeous screen, very light, great playback with proper formats, easily expandable (SD card) memory, easy to load media from your computer to both the native memory and SD card, good selection of included cables.
CONS: Several popular movie formats DON'T playback properly, you will probably need a hard-to-find adapter to use your headphones, navigation controls are a little difficult to use, my remote broke almost immediately
SUMMARY: There's not a lot of options at this price-point, so it still might be a pretty good buy. If Aluratek had just included normal output jacks AND made it clear what sort of video files you needed for playback, then I could probably have given it four stars.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Good but with a warning to audiophiles Apr 12, 2010
By Brent Hillyer
"Gemini70"
Pros:
Very Nice Picture, Expandable Storage, Lots of formats supported, and very compact.
Cons:
Picky on it's "Supported" formats, does not support un-drm'd m4v files, Movies I encoded with divx are a toss-up, Prop-rod in back does not work very well, very narrow viewing angle, no HDMI, photos get messed up when you rotate (better to do it before you load them) and Incredibly Small Headphone-Jack
Other Thoughts:
Nearly half of the movies I played on my Archos 500 in divx format would not play on this re-encoded them in "generic" divx file and normal Mp4 in both CDM and HB and they now work. The worst part of this player is the small-small headphone jack. It will only accept a regular cheapo set of headphones. I tried my Shures, my Bose, and a couple of extenders. I had to take a dremel and a file to a Shure extender to shave it down enough to work. Didn't want to try modifying the player it's self yet.
Hope this helps. Otherwise much nicer to watch shows on it's 8.9 inch screen.
UPDATE 04-16-10
I had a family video I shot with a Hi-Def Camera. It came in at 4.38GB so I couldn't load it on the Cinepal, my flash drive, or a 16Gb card as they were all FAT32 formatted. I formatted another 16Gb card as NTFS and it read it just fine! Yeah!!!! HD-not a problem
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Okay player, but keep expectations real (for the price) Jan 24, 2011
By MW
There are two versions (as of this writing) of this device from Aluratek: this model, the APMP100F, which is no longer manufactured, and a newer version, the APMP101F.
The differences in the two, from what I can find, are that the newer model's screen is about an inch less in diameter, but it has a higher resolution of 1280 X 678 as compared to this one at 1024 X 600. This model boasts 6 hours of video playback time and has a 5000mah battery. The newer model has a 2800mah battery and claims 4 hours of video playback.
The only HD video that this model does not list that the newer one does list is Xvid, but some reviewers for this model have stated that it will play that format (I have not tried it).
Lastly, this model comes with a remote control, but the newer model does not. Since you will probably most always have the player at arm's length, I am not sure if this is important, but some people who have reviewed the APMP101F have listed this as a drawback.
You'll also note complaints about the recessed headphone jacks in this model; the newer model does not have this design problem. To get around this design flaw, one great little add-on item I found is this device:Belkin Rockstar Multi Headphone Splitter I was able to purchase it for around $7 with shipping included from a very well-known online auction site. It not only includes a patch cable that fits nicely into the jack, but it will also allow several people to plug in their headphones at the same time, thus allowing multiple viewers.
I bought the Aluratek because I also own a WD HD Media Player and I have converted a number of my Blu-ray movies to mkv format for viewing off of a portable hard drive. I should mention that I ONLY bought it for this; I didn't place any importance on it as an MP3 player, an ebook reader, or a photo viewer.
I thought that this would be a great way to take my movies with me when traveling on business trips, and when taking the kids on vacation. Has it worked? Well, sort of yes and sort of no.
In a nutshell, from my experience, it will play my mkv video files perfectly unless they are over 6GB, or thereabouts. Once they are over that size, the video tends to stutter around every 30-45 seconds. It will only stutter for a split second, but it is noticeable and annoying nevertheless. Files at 6GB or less play beautifully. I have subtitles embedded in the files, and they also play with no problem. I also have larger files in the mpg format, and they seem to play better. This includes family footage taken in HD.
I have put the same files on a USB flash drive and on a SDHC card, and the files play the same on each. Interestingly, I have also managed to attach a 500 GB portable hard drive (meaning powered through the USB connection), and if the Aluratek is plugged in, it will recognize the hard drive and list the files to play, in this case over 18 mkv and mpg files. Sometimes I have to turn it on a couple of times, but with persistence it will recognize the drive and will display the movie files, ready to play. If the Aluratek is not plugged in, forget it. It will choke and then refuse to power up. If it is already powered on (via its battery) it will shut down. It simply doesn't have enough battery power to run the portable drive, which is really no surprise. Note that the same, larger movie files stutter on all three storage devices, which tells me it's the Aluratek unit that has the issue, not the attachment.
Here are its best features, from my perspective:
1. As other have noted, beautiful, large screen. I would really like to compare this one side-by-side to the newer, higher resolution model to see if there is a noticeable difference.
2. Hard to complain about the price for what you get.
3. It plays HD video files! (and in a number of formats, including mkv) I have not had any issues with sound or with the sound being in sync with the video.
4. It feels fairly durable to me.
5. It has a remote included, which even when it is sitting right in front of you, comes in surprisingly handy.
6. It comes with all needed cables and a nice sleeve for storage, albeit without much padding.
7. It plays embedded subtitles. Note that to change their color, size, etc you need to activate the options menu while a video is playing; you can only do this while it is playing. It took me a while to figure that out.
Here are the not so good aspects:
1. The instructions are abysmal; I'm not sure why they even bothered. Most of the functionality you will have to learn by trial and error. By the way, don't touch the TV out button...everything goes black until you re-power.
2. No firmware updates (I checked the site), although there is a menu item for that. This makes me question if there will be any ongoing product support.
3. Many larger files stutter and do not play smoothly, as noted above.
4. It will NOT play AVCHD files straight off my HD camcorder (mts/m2ts format). It plays one file for about a second, then the screen flickers and it freezes.
5. No HDMI connectivity, but I don't really care about that so much. It does have component out, with the required cable, which is all I really need, if that.
6. Poor quality control; see below.
With the first unit I ordered, the small battery charge icon on the home screen would never fill up; it would only get to around ¾ full. Worrying that the battery might not be fully charging, I returned it for a replacement, and the second unit did not have this issue.
However, with the second one, there was a hard grain of something (sand-sized, tiny rock, I guess) under the screen protector, stuck to the plastic screen. When I removed it, a small, pin-sized hole was in the screen. It did not really affect the picture, but it bothered me nonetheless.
Because of these quality issues, and because of the limited playback of the video files I tried, I ended up returning the second one for a refund. I've decided to save my money for an HD-quality netbook instead of this device; although they cost 3-4 times more, I prefer to go that direction just to get a more solid unit with more features.
Sorry for the long-winded review, but I tried to answer every question I had when I was considering buying it, plus share my own experience...I hope it helped!
10 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 King of the PMPs Sep 04, 2010
By John David Carter
I'll keep this short and sweet.
I have had at least half a dozen PMPs, all chosen after carefully comparing the price/performance with the current competition. My previous two were the Cowon Q5W ( with a 5" display ) and the Machspeed Trio V7000 ( with a 7" display ) - both of which I purchased on Amazon. If you see a pattern, yes my eyes are aging faster than the rest of me ( Although one of my favorites is still the Insignia NS-8V24 with its dinky 2.4" screen - say bluetooth headphone support, something that I wished the Cinepal had ).
The Aluratek Cinepal APMP100F Aluratek Cinepal APMP100F Personal Media Player with its 8.9" screen really fits the bill, and the visual quality is as good as or better than every other PMP that I have owned. The audio doesn't get loud enough for my tastes without headphones, but either way the quality of the sound is quite good. Now for the best part, the Cinepal played everything that I put on it except .wmv files. That includes video files with extensions of .m2ts, .mp4, .mov, .avi, and .mkv, that were encoded using video codecs such as mpeg4, h264, divx, and xvid, and audio codecs including mp3, ac3, and acc. It even plays dvd vob files and rm/rmvb files. Last but not least, I have played videos ranging in all resolutions up to and including 1080p, and it plays subtitles ( I have tried both .srt and .ssa formats ) in four selectable colors although they would look much better if the three non-black ones had black outlines.
Better yet, it does usb OTG, which in layman's terms means that with the *included* ( all cables *are* included ) mini usb to usb female adapter you can plug in and play files from usb thumb drives and self-powered external hard drives. Although too many files may overwhelm it, I have put several thousand picture type files ( manga scanlations ) on the internal flash, along with some of my favorite .mp3s, saving my 32gb SDHC card for videos...
See all 37 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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