Product Description

Transform the way you view, store and manage digital photos and movies. The Epson P-5000 is ideal for photo enthusiasts and professionals looking for the ultimate in flexible photo support - on the move and in the studio Take a brighter, clearer look at your digital images with the Epson P-5000. This compact, portable device is built around the clear, bright, colourful 4 Photo Fine Ultra colour LCD, which features the worlds first 4-colour filter system for a portable device. It is perfect for viewing images during a shoot, even in RAW* format, before arranging and storing them safely on the 80GB hard drive. Its portability allows you to store and share images, wherever you are.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #80095 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Epson
• Model: B31B187004CZ
• Released on: 2007-10-18
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Display size: 4

Manufacturer's Description
The Epson P-5000 Multimedia Storage Viewer allows users to store and preview digital photos on the stunning quality 4.0 Photo Fine Ultra screen, view a huge range of video files or even listen music on the move.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Excellent piece of kit
I thought about getting a photo viewer/backup device for some time before finally taking the plunge on this. The expense always had me hesitating, but the final decider was in realizing how truly useful these items are, from the obvious task of storing photos when out on a shoot (something that is vital) and being able to repeatedly work with empty memory cards, to showing friends (a nice touch), to the areas I wasn't fully aware of - the screen is so clear on this machine it's a great way of showing off photos to clients, gallery owners etc. and at the same time it doubles up as a media centre to keep the kids entertained (and myself and partner!) on a long journey. Video on the machine is crisp and engaging (that screen!), good sound and the MP3 player nicely laid out with tracks slotting automatically into artist/album/genre categories, much like a well spec'd mp3 player should be.

Only odd experiences have been with the Epson Link2 software (for transferring data to and from the viewer to a host computer) which, compared to the viewer, took a bit of getting used to. It seems a little 'sparse' in operation with various click and drag operations not available where you'd expect them to be. I tried to drag one folder on the viewer into another folder but it was a no go. Trying to work with the viewer in Windows explorer seemed to upset it a bit, so I then went through a slow process of moving a folder on the viewer itself.

Link2 otherwise is OK and is by far the best way of installing files off your PC in ordinary circumstances. I'm sure Epson will update that software and make it a little more user friendly in the near future.

Overall a really nice bit of gear, useful, and entertaining.

An Excellent , Multi-Capable Machine
This is an excellent machine which, for me, serves many purposes and removes the possible need for several portable devices.

*** Note Amazon have this item listed twice - it also features separately as 'MP3-MP4-Player Epson P-5000 Storage Viewer 80GB'...

It not only plays music, video (which can be films ripped from DVD) and shows/prints photos - but can also be used as a portable photo backup device as it has a camera card reading capability and USB port or, of course, plain and simple computer files...

You should refer to the Epson website for the full specification and capability, as this unit supports a wide-range of file formats...for example, I have now got a Canon EOS digital camera which can take images in RAW format; I have just 'discovered' (as I hadn't noticed it was on the specification !) that this Epson player can display RAW images (and of course easily access them via the CF slot !).

Improving on the P-2000 and 4000 designs, this model (which includes the P-3000, differing by having a smaller hard-disk capacity of 40Gb) the screen is larger, the battery has a higher capacity (2600mAh vs 2300).

Perhaps most importantly, it now has both USB slave AND host sockets built-in; this means that various types of USB device can be attached and accessed, as opposed to just allowing printing and connect to a PC (as was the case before) using the full-size 'normal' USB socket which sits alongside the mini-USB socket

For example, I use the now defunct Smartmedia cards in my smaller digital camera, but there is no Smartmedia card slot on the Epson; so instead I can just plug in a travel USB card reader (ie one of the small portable unpowered efforts) which accepts Smartmedia cards to access the digital photos.

The power requirement of the USB device you may want to connect is an issue, so don't go thinking you can connect one of the larger USB hubs.

My Canon digital camera is already supported with the Compact Flash reader and future-proofing is there as a SD card reader is also present....

The quality of the 4-inch display is excellent and the overall build quality is superb. The functionality is logical and simple yet very powerful utilising just 4 multi-functional buttons (+/-, a 4-way 'ring' button and an 'OK' button) You can zoom photos to 400% and 'pan' around, pause and wind or skip forwards/backwards (both video and audio). Audio tracks are played consecutively (a feature apparently missing on other devices...) and displayed playlists can be scrolled up/down at great speed.

As mentioned earlier, refer to the Epson website to view the product user guide for full details...

File access times are good; a 12Mb RAW image is displayed in around a second. A fully-charged battery easily allows a 1hr45min film to be watched using the speaker for sound.

I have never got any where near to using the full capacity of the 80Gb hard-disk, even when backing-up the larger file-size Canon digital images whilst on holiday. If space did ever start to be a problem, you do of course have the option of deleting any stored ripped DVDs (which tend to have the largest file-size, of around 500Mb or so) already watched or deemed 'missable'. This is usually possible as you can always copy them back to the hard-disk once returned from holiday ready for the next trip !

I have 2 small gripes : the maximum volume possible can be a bit on the low side (I have it at the highest setting virtually all the time and I am not hard of hearing !) and the siting of the speaker a bit odd (it is on the underside), especially if you sit the unit down for use as the speaker is then blocked-off !

I have seen products from other manufacturers which are of a similar design and appear to have more capabilities. What I would observe (especially as I've read the user reviews from them) is that with the Epson you get everything required for use in the box eg decent carry-case, mains adaptor (save an external/separate battery charger - but see 'tip' 3 below...) and mine has never had a system 'crash'.

Finally, 3 tips :

1. Whilst Album/Artist/Track data for music ripped under Windows Media Player is fully supported, it took me some time to appreciate that the correct way to copy the music files was by using the included 'Epson Link2' software, otherwise the album title/track information is not transferred properly and you end up with everything being called 'Unknown' !

2. For software updates, use epson.com and not the Epson uk/europe websites. The USA website is more reliable and includes updates (eg firmware) not always listed on the Epson uk/europe websites !

3. Whilst the non-branded spare batteries available do not hold as much charge as an Epson original (partly because they have a smaller capacity, but also because of quality issues I'm sure), they are a LOT cheaper. It is also worth getting an external/remote charger (believe it or not, one isn't supplied as standard) to save having to plug the unit into the mains to recharge batteries, which also restricts portability, usage and avoids the risk of damaging the unit itself if the electrical supply is 'dodgy' (you only trash a cheaply replaceable charger unit as opposed to needing to pay for a VERY expensive repair to the P-5000 itself). I say this from experience !

Beware if using Lexar cards
I've had problems with the P-2000, and on searching the issue on the web, it appears that others are having the same problems reading Lexar cards on all of the Epson storage devices. Either they won't copy, or files appear to copy and some of them get corrupted.

Other than that, the device is OK, but if you have already invested in Lexar cards, it's a problem.

See my P-2000 review for more details.