Home > Consumer Reviews > Epson P-3000 40GB Multimedia Storage Drive, Viewer, and Audio-Video Player w/ 4-Inch LCD

This product is invaluable for anyone who is serious about the security of their digital photos. The bonus is that the Epson 3000 does so much more! What a great surprise to find out I can download my music onto it. I guess I am one of the few that hasn't bought an ipod yet... the other incredible bonus is that it will show your photos as a slideshow & you can use your own songs as a background! WOW!!! I created a file of an unbelievable sunset I shot on my Canon 5D from beginning to end. I shot for about 45 minutes & took about 40 shots. The slideshow was about 20 minutes & is great on the viewer. I found out I could buy a camcorder AV plug & plug it into my television. OMG!!! I stood in my living room & cried. I could not believe how awesome it was to see my photos with my music on my TV!!! My camera is still blowing my mind & now I have a great way to share the photos without having to learn new software on the computer.
The Epson P-3000 isn't as complicated as I thought it would be. The viewer is a good size & is hard to see outside in sunlight, but that hasn't been a problem. It's also a great little viewer to show people your pics. I'm happy!! Just have to figure out how to get the slideshows on a cd or dvd. I took the advice of Scott Kelby The Digital Photography Book on some of his recommended items. I bought the P-3000 right before going on vacation as a means to backup my photos while away from computers. I never had to worry about filling up my card. I occasionally shoot weddings & this is a great way to ensure that you don't lose any shots because your card went bad.
I am very pleased.

The P-3000 delivers on all fronts. Crisp, clear, vibrant colors, both for pictures and movies. It's easy to use. The menus are straightforward. Moving your pictures from your memory card to the P-3000 cannot be easier. With the 40GB disk drive included, I have plenty of storage when I'm on vacation, eventhough I sometimes take up to 200 pictures in a day (each RAW pic 6Mb). The P-3000 reads and quickly renders the Nikon RAW format on the screen. It's a real pleasure to review the pictures at the end of the day. It's also very convenient to show travel pictures to family and friends. Everyone to whom I've shown my pics on the P-3000, without exception, was really impressed with the screen quality. Just to show off a bit, I loaded up and showed the movie "Finding Nemo". It really looks good on the P-3000 screen. One feature not tried yet is the music playback.

At 500U$, it's a bit pricy but it's worth every penny in my book.

I'm an underwater photographer and was looking for something that would store my photos as well as let me view them which would allow me to lighten up my packing. This little jewel is going to do that for me! With it I no longer have to carry a laptop just to view my photos. Plus I can carry it to show photos to my friends instead of bulky photo albums. The 4" screen is bright, sharp and big enough to see the detail in your photos. Videos look very nice on it, too. Zooming in is fast and easy. It's a nice size, it's big enough that my husband is comfortable with it in his large hands yet even with the 4" screen it's small enough to keep in a small purse or pocket. It is very user friendly, which is a good thing because the manual doesn't go into a lot of detail but with a little trial and error I had photos loaded, seperated into folders and graded.

The only two things I was disappointed in is it does not show Olympus ORF RAW format. I had read that it would but apparently it will read only RAW files from a very select few DSLR's. However, it will show the ORF RAW thumbnails, just not the full photo. So at least I can cull totaly bad shots. The other disappointment is it will not accept XD cards, only SD and CF. I bought an XD to CF adapter thinking that would fix that but it will not work. There are reports of others having this same problem with several brands of adapters but that the Epson adapter is the only one that works. It really isn't that big a deal to me, I just download from the camera to the viewer via the USB cord. It's just as easy to carry the cord as the adapter.

With the exception of those 2 points, it fits my needs perfectly. I'm very glad to have it.

This product did not work well for me. I wanted an easy and lightweight backup for photographs to take on trips. This unit is relatively heavy. Transfer is slow.

More important to me: The interface is clumsy and non-intuitive. For example, it took a lot of trial
and error to create a folder of a few pictures to show to a dinner group.

But the killer was that this unit froze twice during the trip, i.e., responded neither to the touch interface nor to any manipulation of the on/off switch. Leaving the unit unplugged until the battery ran down and then
restarting it did work. I don't believe any pictures were lost, but I've lost my confidence in trusting the unit for important backups.

The unit has a huge amount of space. It may just suit the needs of other users. My unit may be defective.
So don't write this off if it meets your needs.

I owned the p-2000 and have been impressed at the huge improvement the p-3000 brings. The processor is much faster and it loads and cranks through the photos much more quickly. The addition of a full USB port allows input from any USB device including flash memory. The display is slightly larger and the colors are spectacular. I did experience a few little software glitches (screen freezing, etc) but updates seemed to resolve the problem. I was able to transfer my 5000+ photos from the p-2000 to the 3000 in about 20 minutes -- albums intact. They only needed to be renamed once they were over. I love this thing -- take it everywhere and all my photos are instantly available for viewing. Haven't printed a THING in years!