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85%
PROS
Only $200, great photo, video, audio player, web browsing capability, easy to make playlists.
LOWS
Really need Ethernet for the Media Player to work; 802.11b was too slow. Chat function barely worked.
OVERALL
If you don't have the money for a TiVo and it's home media option, this is definitely the way to go.
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The other two main functions of the PRISMIQ Media Player is to provide Web Access to your TV and be able to utilize the AIM service to chat on your TV with friends. To be able to actually surf the web and to chat, you are going to need to purchase the Media Player wireless keyboard. If you are interested in the chat and web features, it's going to cost you $50. Surfing the net is just about as good as it could be. This means not too great. The TV is not really optimized to view web pages, but the PRISMIQ browser tries hard to make it work out. When loading pages, you can “play” a page, which means the browser will slowly scroll down the page for you. You can then stop if you'd like, but I never really liked this option that much. The PRISMIQ does come with a few online features, like checking the news, weather, sports pages, local listings, etc. Surfing the web is at its best on the Media Player, but it's really not ideal for literally browsing hundreds of pages. Instead, the browser proves effective when navigating to one site, and looking up one thing.
Chat was the worst part about the PRISMIQ. For three quarters of the reviewing period, the Chat feature didn't even work. I would get a network error that AIM couldn't connect to an AOL server, even though my PRISMIQ unit was happily playing my files through my network and was able to browse the web. When the chat feature did work, it would take forever to load a long buddy list. Then the PRISMIQ would become extremely sluggish and I would take forever to load a buddy name that I click on. Once the IM box popped up, I would type in my message (which the PRISMIQ loaded incredibly slow); however, it would take forever to send and to receive messages. All of these reasons combined made the chat feature pretty useless.
One of the coolest functions of the PRISMIQ interface is the search feature. On either the audio, image, or video menus, you can search for a specific file with any given file name. When you have a lot of files streaming to your PRISMIQ, it's good to be able to easily search through them.
The PRISMIQ remote is the main method of input of the Media Player, if you don't have the wireless keyboard. The remote is well designed, and has every button you could possibly need in the right place. The principal method of input is the directional pad, a big circular pad located in the top half of the remote. To the left of the pad is the select button and to the right is the full screen button. Below this set are music controls, and below that are photo controls. The only weird thing I noticed about the remote was that when you pushed the volume control towards the “+” part, it made the volume lower, while pushing it to the “-“ side made it louder. Don't know what's going on there…
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I was surprised at how easy it was to update the firmware of the PRISMIQ Media Player. After clicking on “update firmware” the file will automatically be downloaded, installed, and set up. All the PRISMIQ needs to do is restart itself, and you are all set. You can check for updates whenever you would like, another aspect I liked about the updating process.
Overall, the PRISMIQ Media Player is a great little device that provides a lot for a little. For $200, you will get a great video player, picture viewer, and music player. You can also browse the web, if you can deal with the flaky interface. Chat didn't work out so well, so don't really count that as a feature. The desktop software is easy to use and install and it's quite simple to make great slideshows and playlists. As long as you have Ethernet, get ready for a good time.
