96
I just wanted to support that this is very good if you know what your doing, and want the extra storage space for on the go
Who it's for
• Serious video encoders.
• Someone who wants to use PSP for lost of music.
• Other hardcore software devs etc.
Not for
• Novices.
• People who have regular access to their computer.
• Have no need for the portable storage.
90
For anyone considering buying this item, you should first consider how much you would use it. I travel alot, am constantly on long trips and have a TON of media. Those reasons prompted me to buy it - but for the average media savvy person, I'd say stick with a 1gb memory stick. The need for a 40gb drive such as this one, only arises if you seriously need to carry that much with you.
First off, I love this thing. The actual drive itself is very solid, something you can hold firmly, with a so-so weight. It's definitely a travel-ready type of item. I have brought it along with me on about 9 trips already, and it's been flawless throughout.
The hard drive on it is split into two partitions - which helps navigation. Navigation. A very testy subject due to the fact that the screen is a weeeee bit small. The buttons are manageable, and a little squinting is required - but after awhile, you'll get used to it and its not so bad.
The hard drive's screen means that it will truncate long file names - thus it's good to name your folders with short names - like, ROMS - ANIME, etc. Transfer rates aren't too bad - it takes me a few minutes to transfer a movie.
All in all, I'm very impressed - I absolutely adore it, but there are a lot of factors that you should consider before buying it.
97
First impressions; the unit is a bit bigger than I was expecting. Not unmanageably so, but bigger than I thought. It's about, say, 5-8% bigger than an iPod, which is not bad at all.
I was very impressed with all the goodies that came packed in. Most notable was the 14-in-1 card reader (though, I'm told this is a special promotion and don't know how long it will last). It's handy because now I can just slide a card into the card reader and load stuff that way, without having to get out the whole PSP. Also included is a 3' USB cable with a standard size male USB jack at one end and a micro USB jack at the other end. Conveniently enough, it's the same one that the PSP uses so I now have an extra cable. Also, a 5" USB cable with male micro USB jacks at each end and a 5" USB cable with a male micro at one end and a Standard sized female jack at the other. I'm assuming this last one is for use on the road with cameras that don't use a micro jack. I didn't really have a need for it so I tucked it away for later. Last but not least are an A/C power adaptor for charging, two driver disks (one for the CD311 and one for the card reader) and a nicely made carrying case for the CD311 itself (the case also incorporates storage for the two 5" USB cables. Nicely done, Apacer).
The unit comes pre-charged but I let it sit on charge for a bit to top it up. Finally started the CD311 up and played with the interface a bit. With nothing on the drive yet, there wasn't much I could do so I connected it to my PC. The drive was immediately recognized as a mass storage device (I'm using XP. The manual says you'll need to install drivers for older versions of windows). Moving files to the drive is as simple as dragging them on to the unit (though I recommend being very organized about it. More on that in a bit). Transfer time for files is marginally slower than moving them around on your internal drives. I was pretty impressed.
The next test was to connect the CD311 to the PSP. I booted up the PSP and put it into USB mode. Connected the CD311 to the PSP (the 5" cable is just the perfect size, which means you won't need to lug the full 3' cable plus 5" adaptor around with you. Another nice one, Apacer) and the PSP was immediately recognized. The interface for moving files around was a little counter-intuitive at first but I was able to figure it out. Basically you navigate to the files on the drive you want to copy, highlight them, press the menu button and select "copy", navigate to the folder on the PSP where you want to put them, press the menu button again, select "copy" again, select yes to confirm and presto, the drive starts moving the files over. It's all pretty easy and the file transfer time is about the same as it is on the PC.
My only complaint about the unit is the same one that others have had and that is that the interface on the CD311 truncates any filenames longer than 7 characters. For example, "Arrested Development" becomes "ARREST~1". It's not a huge problem, as long as you're willing to be very organized about how you put stuff on the HD. Basically, I'm just very conscientious about setting up directories to put stuff in. Not a huge complaint, I know, but it seems like such a simple thing for them to fix. I should mention that the full filename is preserved when you move it to another device; it's only truncated when displayed on the screen of the CD311.
Well, that's pretty much it. All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase and foresee getting a lot of use out of it. If you're like me and you use your PSP to play media everywhere you go, I think this unit or something comparable is pretty much a necessity. You just can't cram enough stuff on a memory stick to get you through more than a day or two. Plus, resized for viewing on the PSP, I could take pretty much my entire DVD collection with me everywhere I go. Pretty cool!
92
My first impression of opening up the box was that it is a pretty neat and organized package. The unit itself was a bit bigger than I thought, but more portable than my laptop.
• The unit itself
• AC plug
• A 14-in-1 memory card reader - SM, CD/MMC, CF, Memory Stick and more
• USB cable x 2
• USB adapter
• A nifty carrying case
• Instruction manuals
I plugged it in and connected directly via USB cable to my desktop (running XP), it immediatly recognized it as a Mass Storage Device. By default, it is formated into 2 seperate partitions, 20 gb's each. I put all my mp4's into the first partition, and the other my mp3's.
Then I connected my PSP to the female USB to mini adapter. Upon activating the USB mode on the PSP, it was immediatly recognized. Once turned on, I went to the browse button, and clicked "ok" from the Steno. I could either click hard disk, or the USB device (PSP). Browsing is pretty simple -- left on the direction pad goes back a folder, right goes into the folder, down goes down the list, and up goes up. Once I get to the file I want, I click the menu button, and 4 icons show up, (copy, delete, create, and size). I hit ok on copy and then the Steno reads "calculating... " and goes to disk01 (the PSP). Pressing right, it goes into the 'mp_root' folder. On the folder 100mnv01 (movie folder) I clicked ok, I pressed the menu button, and pressed ok on the check mark. Then it transferred the movies to the PSP. The speed is comparable to the PSP being connected to the PC. It's as simple as that!
The battery life is about 6 GB worth of transfer (which I personally think is enough for a day or two.) The only thing I dont like though, is that it does not display the full filename. For instance, I made a folder for music videos, and it shows up as "musicv~1." So it will be confusing depending on what files you have. But other than that it's great. One cool tip when using PSPVideo 9 is that you could make the settings point to the Share Steno, and have the program transfer all the movies to the hard drive automatically. As an added bonus, the 14-in-1 memory card reader can read PRO Duo cards, so you could just use that to put movies on while playing your PSP.
It works great for what it is, a portable hard drive that you can store you movies and audio on. You could also use the built-in card reader if you had other types of memory cards.
85
This is great if you travel and want to bring videos and music with you without spending a fortune on memory sticks. Connect the PSP to the Steno and copy a video to the PSP's memory stick. After watching, delete the video and copy a new one. Almost 40 GB's of video storage for the price of a 1 GB memory stick. Transfers are slow, but not painful. The interface is very tedious, but it gets the job done. This is a very useful and economical product.
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