Review: Epson P-5000 media viewer

The P-series of multimedia storage and viewing devices from Epson has been around since early 2004, offering serious photographers portable file storage and the means to review images on a large screen.

The key words there are ‘serious photographers’ - while the latest model, the P-5000, is capacious and features the largest display yet seen on a P-viewer, you could buy a pretty tasty digital camera, or even a budget laptop, for its suggested sale price. Clearly, this is a product aimed at professionals, who’ll not only appreciate the 80GB hard drive, but will love the enhanced 4in LCD.

The entire contents of a full, 2GB Lexar Professional 80x Compact Flash card copy across in around 6min 45sec, which is nowhere near as quick as upload via a 32bit Cardbus adaptor, but compares well with a USB2 card reader. Type I and II Compact Flash cards are accommodated, as are Secure Digital, but an optional adaptor is needed for other form factors.

The device features Raw viewing support for numerous camera types, plus the usual Jpeg and Tiff, and you can zoom on individual shots to check for sharpness, while Exif data and a histogram can be viewed with a few dabs on the Display button.

It’s when reviewing photos that the P-5000 really impresses. Epson has incorporated two extra shades of green (emerald and yellow/green) into the Fine Ultra 640x480-pixel display’s filters, increasing the colour space to super-wide Adobe RGB - the company states it’s the world’s first portable product to offer this.

The result is stunning. Images that looked good on the camera’s LCD look eye-stalkingly amazing on the Epson. Even the fussiest of photographers will be gobsmacked.

Although the P-5000 has support for various compressed audio and video file types, it is no mere personal media player. The bullet-proof build, high-capacity drive and superb display, along with the price, make it very much a high-end photographer’s tool.

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