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Epson has offered a range of "Multimedia Storage Viewer" portable storage devices for several years now. The screens have always been a highlight, with excellent color rendition that exceeded anything else on the market. The latest generation of these devices takes an already good product and adds some nice enhancements. Epson have introduced two new models, the 80GB P-6000 ($599.99), and the product I reviewed, the 160GB P-7000 ($799.99). While the basic units are the same with the exception of storage capacity, the P-7000 also includes a Travel Pack, which, after using, I'd consider an essential item to have.
The P-7000 has a 4-inch LCD screen with what Epson calls their Photo Fine Premia technology. The new screen is capable of displaying 94% of the Adobe RGB color space, which is pretty remarkable when you consider that a desktop display that can do this is going to cost $1500 - $3000. In order to cover this wider gamut, Epson employs a four-color filter system. Rather than the standard Red, Green, Blue, you have Red, Blue, Emerald Green, and Yellow Green. The pixel density is 212 ppi making for a very capable display while still being easy to read for menu items.
The transfer speed has also been improved with a claim of up to 35% faster than the previous models. A new jog dial makes it easier and faster to scroll through images, and the new battery lasts up to 3 hours. Both the P-7000 and P-6000 viewers support Compact Flash (including UDMA) and SD/SDHC/MMC cards directly out of the box, and adapters can be used to support other formats like xD and Memory Stick.
Along with JPG file support, the Epson P-7000 has enhanced support for several RAW file formats, including Canon, Epson, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, and Sony. You can also view DNG files if there is an embedded JPG preview. Although the list on Epson's website doesn't include any of the Canon 1D series cameras, files from my 1Ds Mark III display properly. I have no reason to believe other cameras like the Nikon D700 would not work as well.
In addition to photos, the Epson P-7000 supports MPEG4 and Motion JPEG video files and MP3 and MPEG4/AAC audio formats. Video playback is smooth, and audio quality is adequate from the internal speakers, but for best results you'll want to use headphones. It's not likely that anyone will be buying one of these strictly for video or audio use though, as an iPod or similar media player would do as well for much less. But, the P-7000 lets you combine the music with your images for slideshows in the field, on the P-7000 screen or through the AV out connectors onto a television.