Hi,

Top hardware news and reviews website HEXUS has just published a review for the Playon!HD and Playon!HD Mini. Both players impressed with the functionality.


“Plays almost everything you could throw at it”


“The Playon!HD is a simple-looking box with just a single, centred power button, and at 227mm x 165mm x 60mm in size, it's conveniently small too. You shouldn't have any difficulty in housing the unit in an AV rack and it looks suitably subtle with a matte-black shell and a glossy front face.

In addition to offering network playback, the side of the Playon!HD is equipped with a couple of ports that help enhance the unit's local capabilities. Through a 5-in-1 card reader and two USB 2.0 ports, users can attach external storage media for quick-and-easy playback. There's a USB Slave port, too, which enables the Playon!HD to be easily hooked up to your PC. So far so good, and it gets better when you take a look at the rear of the unit.

Providing a surprisingly comprehensive selection of connectivity options, the Playon!HD comes equipped with HDMI 1.3, component, composite and optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs. Ensuring that you're able to get up and running right out of the box, A.C. Ryan also bundles the relevant cables; composite, component and HDMI. A 1080p full-HD resolution is supported by the Realtek chipset within, as is the ability to playback high-def content at a native 24Hz. You can find files quickly by browsing through folders or filters such as genre, artist and album.

More importantly, movie playback works just as well, too. Although we admittedly didn't test each and every format supported by the receiver, it had absolutely no trouble playing back various 1080p MKV, MOV and AVI video files, as well as a DVD ISO image.

The Playon!HD works best as a jukebox for your backed up collection of CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays. With an extensive set of supported formats, users needn't worry about jumping through hoops in an effort to find a codec that'll work. The fact that DVDs - complete with fully-functioning menus - can be played back from a simple image file is a selling point, and although the interface can at times feel counterintuitive, any small frustrations quickly fade when you hit the play button”


Entire Review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25920&page=4