Home > Consumer Reviews > Epson P-3000 40GB Multimedia Storage Drive, Viewer, and Audio-Video Player w/ 4-Inch LCD
Epson P-3000 40GB Multimedia Storage Drive, Viewer, and Audio-Video Player w/ 4-Inch LCD
See it at Amazon.com for $369.95Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Compact and easy to use
(5 out of 5) by T. Butler on May 11, 2007 (Queens, NY)After reading about this product in some photography magazines. I decided to purchase it. In my mind any pro or semi pro photography would love this device. Download times are fast. Monitor quality is super, and the rating system is great. The draw back is the 3 hour battery life, but with the rechargeable battery this is a minor issue. In my opinion any semi pro SLR photography like myself would just love this product for its on screen viewing quality , and compact size.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
This device is fantastic!
(5 out of 5) by Yoda on Jul 18, 2008 (Hadera, Israel)This device is absolutely wonderful. Not only does it work as a digital photo viewer but it also enables the user to listen to music files, watch older quicktime videos and can serve as an external hard drive.
With respect to the digital photo viewer options, the well lit 4" screen has superb resolution and reads most RAW files. The device permits user to not only review pictures but also delete those considered undesirable (unlike machines such as Sans Digital and Digi-Photo). That way one can delete pictures while returning from the field and upload only good ones to PC for printing. With respect to uploading pictures, it can upload from all major cards (i.e., SD, compact flash, etc.) at a reasonable rate (i.e., at about same rate as most other similar devices). This device, however, has big advantage over many of its competitors in that it can also upload pictures from other hard drives (via USB), flash cards and many other memory devices. It should be noted that these devices need to be FAT32 formatted. In addition, unlike many competing products, it can also download contents of its hard disk to another stand alone hard disk. The stand alone hard disk must be formatted as a FAT 32 however. For hard disks larger than about 30 gigs this can only be down using software such as Norton Utilities. By doing this you increase your ability to download more pictures. Carry a small portable hard disk with you and download as you fill the Epson p-3000 up and you will effectively have an Epson p-3000 with a much larger hard disk.
As a music player you can listen to mp3 amd wav files. The interface is intuitive and the software that comes with the machine makes this easy. You can also watch older quicktime videos (quicktime 4 and before). Quality of music and videos is quite good.
Last but not least the machine can be used as a portable hard disk (via USB cable).
Hence with the purchase of this product you not only get an extraordinary digital photo viewer/editor but also a music and video viewer and portable hard disk. All this for about 25% more than the price of an upper-end Ipod.
With respect to the digital photo viewer options, the well lit 4" screen has superb resolution and reads most RAW files. The device permits user to not only review pictures but also delete those considered undesirable (unlike machines such as Sans Digital and Digi-Photo). That way one can delete pictures while returning from the field and upload only good ones to PC for printing. With respect to uploading pictures, it can upload from all major cards (i.e., SD, compact flash, etc.) at a reasonable rate (i.e., at about same rate as most other similar devices). This device, however, has big advantage over many of its competitors in that it can also upload pictures from other hard drives (via USB), flash cards and many other memory devices. It should be noted that these devices need to be FAT32 formatted. In addition, unlike many competing products, it can also download contents of its hard disk to another stand alone hard disk. The stand alone hard disk must be formatted as a FAT 32 however. For hard disks larger than about 30 gigs this can only be down using software such as Norton Utilities. By doing this you increase your ability to download more pictures. Carry a small portable hard disk with you and download as you fill the Epson p-3000 up and you will effectively have an Epson p-3000 with a much larger hard disk.
As a music player you can listen to mp3 amd wav files. The interface is intuitive and the software that comes with the machine makes this easy. You can also watch older quicktime videos (quicktime 4 and before). Quality of music and videos is quite good.
Last but not least the machine can be used as a portable hard disk (via USB cable).
Hence with the purchase of this product you not only get an extraordinary digital photo viewer/editor but also a music and video viewer and portable hard disk. All this for about 25% more than the price of an upper-end Ipod.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Epson P-3000 compatibility with UDMA compact flash cards
(5 out of 5) by Kyle Eskue on Apr 27, 2008I just wanted to take a minute to address a question that I had about the Epsons P-3000's ability to recognize the newer, faster UDMA compact flash cards that many of us use with new digital SLR cameras. So, I bought the Epson P-3000 prior to getting my Nikon D-300 or the 3 Lexar Professional UDMA (300x speed) compact flash cards for it. I noticed that the Epson website said nothing about the P-3000's compatibility with these newer UDMA cards. So, I decided to call Epson. I was initially disappointed to hear from Epson's "experts" in their technical service department that my new UDMA compact flash cards that were already ordered and in the mail, would not be compatible with the recently purchased Epson P-3000. Well luckily the "experts", actually the ones over Epson's Media storage devices, were wrong! I personally have had no problems with the Epson P-3000 recognizing and backing up pictures from all 3 of my Lexar Professional UDMA (300x speed) compact flash cards. It works fine!! So overall, I am extremely happy with the Epson P-3000. It has an outstanding LCD screen to view pictures and movies, plus it also acts as an mp3 player. It also gives you great information about the photos you take including histograms and overexposure areas. Really a great device!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Best photo storage & backup solution if you don't want to take a computer
(5 out of 5) by G. M. Matthews on May 30, 2009 (Camino, CA USA)I bought this for a specific purpose. We were going to Hawaii, and I for once in my life didn't have access to a laptop computer that I could use. My wife forced me to agree to not take a laptop so I couldn't do work when I was on vacation. But, I take a lot of pictures, and needed a storage solution.
The Epson P3000 solved the problem. I also carried a USB2 160 GB 2.5 inch hard drive, and was able to make a second backup copy of all images on that, so I was never without 2 copies of every image.
I take D200/D300 RAW images, so they are large. And on longer trips (such as that trip to Kauai), I will take 5000 or 10000 images. In reality, the P3000 is too small for me, and on that first trip I took 48 GB of images, and the device could only hold 40GB of them. I had 4 8GB CF cards, so I was not at risk at that point, but for me, larger would have been better. But this was much cheaper than the P5000 available at the time, and I decided to save the bucks. That's really the only limitation that I wish could be changed, that you can't change out the hard drive. But Epson, like Apple, makes drive size part of their business model and marketing, and that's not going to change.
The screen is small (if you're used to a notebook screen), but larger than most portable viewers. And the quality of the rendered images is very good. Color rendition is accurate, vibrant, and the images are contrasty and plenty bright. It's much better to view images on the P3000 than on the D200 LCD. But the D300 3" LCD gives the P3000 a run for it's money (D300 is not better, but it's very close). For RAW files, it will render the embedded JPEG, which is fine as long as you understand what this implies. The human interface to the device is easy to navigate and use, and in the end has all of the functions I needed it to have.
The User's Guide isn't always clear about how to use it, or about what it can do. For instance it was not clear from Epson's description whether I could actually backup to an external USB2 hard drive. In the end, lots of forum posts confirmed that I could. However, it would not drive the external device power, and so I needed a drive that would support a separate power source. So, for instance, you cannot use it with a WD Passport drive unless you get a USB split cable to supply power from another source.
Speed is reasonable, remembering that I'm dealing with large images. Copying a full 8GB CF card didn't take much longer than with most USB CF readers on a notebook computer. Making the backups to the USB drive were not fast, but it was start it and let it run, so I didn't care. You can browse the external USB drive to verify the copy of the images there is good, although doing that is really slow so you would only do it to spot check some images, not to browse a different set of images.
I didn't use any of the media features (like music or video) of the device, so can't comment there. But I know the features are there.
I have had two other similar storage solutions in the past, neither of which had a display. And that makes them useless. You never know if you have saved your images or not if you can't actually see them. With the P3000, you can see them, and even zoom in on them, and do a great slideshow of them, and even do some culling if you are into that because the display quality is very good given the size.
In short, if you want to go without a computer, this device plus an external USB2 2.5 inch drive gives you a very compact storage solution that gives you viewing and backup capability.
The Epson P3000 solved the problem. I also carried a USB2 160 GB 2.5 inch hard drive, and was able to make a second backup copy of all images on that, so I was never without 2 copies of every image.
I take D200/D300 RAW images, so they are large. And on longer trips (such as that trip to Kauai), I will take 5000 or 10000 images. In reality, the P3000 is too small for me, and on that first trip I took 48 GB of images, and the device could only hold 40GB of them. I had 4 8GB CF cards, so I was not at risk at that point, but for me, larger would have been better. But this was much cheaper than the P5000 available at the time, and I decided to save the bucks. That's really the only limitation that I wish could be changed, that you can't change out the hard drive. But Epson, like Apple, makes drive size part of their business model and marketing, and that's not going to change.
The screen is small (if you're used to a notebook screen), but larger than most portable viewers. And the quality of the rendered images is very good. Color rendition is accurate, vibrant, and the images are contrasty and plenty bright. It's much better to view images on the P3000 than on the D200 LCD. But the D300 3" LCD gives the P3000 a run for it's money (D300 is not better, but it's very close). For RAW files, it will render the embedded JPEG, which is fine as long as you understand what this implies. The human interface to the device is easy to navigate and use, and in the end has all of the functions I needed it to have.
The User's Guide isn't always clear about how to use it, or about what it can do. For instance it was not clear from Epson's description whether I could actually backup to an external USB2 hard drive. In the end, lots of forum posts confirmed that I could. However, it would not drive the external device power, and so I needed a drive that would support a separate power source. So, for instance, you cannot use it with a WD Passport drive unless you get a USB split cable to supply power from another source.
Speed is reasonable, remembering that I'm dealing with large images. Copying a full 8GB CF card didn't take much longer than with most USB CF readers on a notebook computer. Making the backups to the USB drive were not fast, but it was start it and let it run, so I didn't care. You can browse the external USB drive to verify the copy of the images there is good, although doing that is really slow so you would only do it to spot check some images, not to browse a different set of images.
I didn't use any of the media features (like music or video) of the device, so can't comment there. But I know the features are there.
I have had two other similar storage solutions in the past, neither of which had a display. And that makes them useless. You never know if you have saved your images or not if you can't actually see them. With the P3000, you can see them, and even zoom in on them, and do a great slideshow of them, and even do some culling if you are into that because the display quality is very good given the size.
In short, if you want to go without a computer, this device plus an external USB2 2.5 inch drive gives you a very compact storage solution that gives you viewing and backup capability.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
deciding factor
(5 out of 5) by C. Hare on May 1, 2008I bought the Epson P-3000 for my husband. We both like to travel and are into photography. I researched similar products and wavered for a few hours before reading a blog that explained how the product could be backed up to a portable hard-drive, flash drive, etc. I looked up the owners manual and discovered it to be true. I knew this product to have a reputation for being reliable and the best screen around, but the cost vs. memory was what was causing me to consider other brands. Once I discovered that it could exchange data with a portable hard-drive the lower amount of memory became a non-issue. Although I haven't actually tested out this capability yet, I feel this really is a selling point they should advertise. I bought the P-3000 on sale during a time that a couple of rebates were offered on it. I got a good deal and my husband loves his birthday gift.