detail information

The package is rather small and compact which has everything to do with the limited space the player itself requires. The oval shape is attractive and a stand is included, but the stand can be removed to use the player lying down on its back resting on 2 rails. Both of these components are cast from Aluminum though and this brings us to our first point of note. Both the stand and the rails are in hard materials and, over time could leave scratches on furniture when moving it around during cleaning and dusting.

The stand slides into the rails from one side, or works using a “press to widen” clip to attach it to the player. Once done however, the player is easily shifted backwards and forwards - which could lead to accidents if cats or kids play with your cables as the player disconnects from the stand easily. The front is dark and holds a single LED which is green when powered and red when not. There is an indication for network when connected or on activity, which can be disabled. Good, as I like it without flashing.

The rear of the player harbors a tiny green power toggle button, S-Video and YPbPr output (special cable in the box), Composite (CVBS) with the usual Left/Right stereo outputs, S-PDIF/ Coaxial, a single USB 2 host and the Ethernet Gigabit network interface. Missing from the picture is Optical, which is mostly preferred over coaxial these days. I speak for most, when I say the normal “component” connections would have been preferred as well.

The Grab „n‟ Go Full HD Media Player Gigabit, further referred to as the “Grab 'n' Go”, is made of an aluminum body holding an internal metal cage in which the main board is placed. The unit runs on a SMP8635 media processor from Sigma, holding 256MB memory and uses no cooling whatsoever. A heat sink would have been wise as the chips tend to get hot if put to work properly. Despite this model being listed under the “Storage Media Players” product line, it is not a storage product as it is a pure streamer and cannot hold a hard drive internally. (See picture on next page.)

Package contents include a manual, remote + batteries, product CD-Rom, power cord (adapter), SCART to composite adapter, Composite Cable, Component cable (S-Video type plug for component), coaxial audio cable, network cable and last but not least, a decent HDMI gold plated cable.

So far we've found it a decent player. It has good contents and has an appealing style in the end. Surprisingly, it can be used flat or standing up (I like flat better then high towers). However, keep in mind that it is not a storage device, streaming only, and has no optical output for sound. In addition the component option is not the usual connector we see (space saver), and the Gigabit network should be taken with a pinch of salt, even though it's claimed to perform around 11MB vs. it only achieved 6 on average use in streaming.

Introduction

The remote