Review: Becker Vision Pro portable media player

A large and versatile media player to use at home or on the move

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Price: £379

Manufacturer: Becker

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Verdict

Pros: Excellent media support; built-in DVD drive; large display; A/V-out connections
Cons: Expensive; no built-in hard drive; poor internal speakers
Overall: The Vision Pro is expensive but still quite appealing as a complete digital media entertainment device

Paul Lester, Personal Computer World 01 Oct 2007

If you're looking to keep yourself entertained on the move you'll find dozens of products around to manage and store digital media.

Becker's Vision Pro is another entry into the PMP market, but differs from rival products from companies such as Archos mainly due to its size.

Weighing just over a 1kg and sporting a 7in touchscreen display, you won't be tucking this into your pocket, but you will benefit from a larger viewable area on which to enjoy video and photos.

Of course you can play back audio as well and, in general, the range of file types and formats supported is extremely impressive - DivX, XVID and AVI, along with MP3, WMA and WAV are included.

In addition to this you'll find a DVD player on the side and an attachment for an optional TV tuner to add digital broadcasting to the Vision Pro's arsenal. Four built-in 1.5W Harman Kardon speakers provide the audio, which despite the high-profile name aren't that impressive and distort noticeably at higher volumes. There's no hard drive built in, so you'll need to attach a memory stick or slot in an SD card full of content to enjoy hand-picked media on the move.

There's a reasonable degree of control over playback and thankfully the display performs a bit better than the speakers. You can also output everything to a TV via the AV socket. A rechargeable battery offers between four and six hours of video playback and, although there's a mains adaptor included, you don't get a car cigarette lighter charger.

Overall we were impressed with Vision Pro but disappointed by its performance and lack of an internal hard drive. It's also expensive when you bear in mind the additional wireless functionality we're starting to see in rival PMPs at a lower price.

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