Product Reviews

PQI's mPack P800 is a smart-looking device that stores and displays audio, video and image files, records from an AV source and has an FM radio.

Rather than go down the Microsoft Portable Media Center route, PQI has opted for a Linux-based operating system. However, while the menus are colourful and fairly simple to master, the control buttons change function depending on which screen you're on, which can be confusing.

Getting media content on the device is as simple as plugging it into your PC with the supplied USB cable and dragging files on to the device in Windows. The mPack supports lots of formats: we had no problem with MP3, AAC, WMA, Wav and OGG audio, and MPEG2 and DivX video files played flawlessly. But while it claims to support WMV files, we could not get WMV video to play on the device.

The mPack offers native support for DVD VOB files. To play a DVD on the device, decrypt a film to your hard disk and copy the corresponding video files to the player.

Video and audio playback are impressive. DVD files look superb on the high-contrast screen, with a smooth frame rate and no visible compression artefacts. DivX files look great too. Standard MPEG2 videos are disappointing, though: resolution and compression options need to be chosen carefully to avoid stretched heads and visible artefacts.

Audio playback through the supplied headphones is average and with a pair of decent headphones the sound is on a par with any music player. Sadly, the mPack doesn't support ID3 tags, so organising music must be done manually.

The mPack can be connected to a television with the supplied AV cable. We found DVD video and audio playback was clear, if not quite on a par with standalone DVD players. The player also has a remote control and an optical output to connect to an AV amplifier for surround sound.

The device can also record video directly from a composite video and audio source. Just connect the AV cable and press play on the source unit. The encoding capabilities are questionable, though; recorded video and audio can be jerky and choppy.

This is a fine portable media centre with a high-contrast screen, great video and audio playback and unmatched format support. But the high asking price and confusing user interface count against it.