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Rs 4500 | hsti.com
Media players may be plentiful and cheap with the inevitable entry of the Chinese into the market, but quality and convenience remain the key issue. That’s why we believe that a Canadian company named HSTi have pulled off something of a marvel with their latest product, the Moboplay compact home media player. Naturally, we put it through testing.
Small box, smaller player
The box was tiny, and we wondered how they could manage to fit a fully-featured media player into that little a space. Unbelievably enough, the actual player was even smaller and could be completely covered by a credit card. It’s a conveniently pocketable size that makes this a great way to take your media with you no matter where you go. It’s also useful for those times when your TV is old and doesn’t have HDMI support. Also a part of the box, a composite AV cable, a big-ish power adapter and a remote that’s actually larger than the Moboplay itself. Sadly, there’s no HDMI cable inside, which is a disappointment.
Connectivity
The Moboplay has enough connectivity options with HDMI, Composite and YPbPr (Component) for video output and Stereo, L&R and Optical for audio output. For input, there’s just USB and SD/SDHC card slots, which is actually all you really need. Essentially, what the Moboplay is doing here is keeping things simple without really eliminating anything that’s really necessary.
The works department
For such a small player, the Moboplay does a surprisingly good job. It’s capable of playing Full-HD (1080p) content and does an excellent job with that, and even makes a commendable effort with standard-definition and 720p content. Video is crisp, and well-defined, while motion is clean and solid. Colours are not exactly vibrant, but they’re accurate enough. It’s a similar situation with audio and photos. The only disappointing thing, really, was the fact that a few video formats didn’t work (MP4 and MPEG) despite being listed as supported, probably due to codec issues. All of this worked excellently while using the in-the-box Composite AV cable on an old Samsung LCD TV. What also worked for us was the fact that the UI was simple and easy to manoeuvre with the somewhat plasticky remote. Not too many options, simple enough to get your media going. It doesn’t quite compare with the Android UI on some competing products, but at this low price, we can’t really complain.
Okay, the Moboplay is a bit simple. But at this cost and size, it does more than it should. Keep your requirements basic and this is a product with all the right solutions.
