Apacer HD Media Player AL670

Mark O.

Prior to the recently concluded holiday vacation, I was tasked to bring in a no-nonsense media box. After making my rounds and encountering the highly popular WDTV Live, the powerful xStreamer, and the all new Seagate GoFlex TV, I decided to get this one.

The AL670 by Apacer is a very straightforward device. Out of the box you get the shiny player console, a remote (batteries included), a short LAN cable, an HDMI cable about a meter or so long, an AV cable, a component video cable, a CD, a manual, and a 12V power adaptor. Notice in the photo below that there is a WiFi plugin encased in a red sleeve (when I bought the device it was bundled to it,) dont know if they have any plans of putting up additional cost for it eventually (like how some xStreamer retailers package theirs).

What sold this package to me was the completeness of the set right out of the box. Current market prices of good HDMI cables go north of 500 and that is no small addition to the cost of the device, not to mention the wireless interface which is unique to each player. Apart from that, it also professes to support the most number of audio and video containers in circulation (compared to the ones mentioned earlier) and all of the videos I fed into it really did play without so much as a hiccup.

The home interface, as shown above, sports a carousel-like navigation that transitions instantly without any fading effects and whatnot; the six options are (clockwise from center): All (Media), Network, Setup, Music, Photos, and Videos. Within the Network submenu is the ability to run torrents effectively making it a DL rig especially if within appropriate LAN distance. The next image is an example of the internal navigation of whichever device is plugged into its USB slots.

It is a two column system with the left presenting the folder structure and all playable / supported files within the directory and the right showing media details such as filename, size, duration, and a preview.

At a retail price of 5,500Php it is somewhere in the middle to upper range for devices with such functionality; and while you might think that being able to do Facebook and games on the TV using an HD device is a good thing, navigating and data input is such a tedious process you probably will just skip it altogether. Besides, there are plenty of hand held devices for that.

Regards,
Mark

Tagsal670 apacer hd media player

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Mark O.

Mark is an architect and artist who endeavors to design most anything that requires a little bit of thought into it.

Although writing is not considered a primary focus, a little too much time can yield many thoughts that are just begging to be written down.

Armed with a trusty array of content creation devices and surrounded with a continuous flux of technology and life, herein lies those that are fortunate enough to have been given presence through a little bit of movement and a whole lot of iterations.