FlashTrax Digital Multimedia Storage and Player

Review:
The FlashTrax is a 30G-byte hard drive with additional features like an MP3 player, video player and photo player. The device includes a flip-up screen that reveals a 3.5-inch LCD screen, perfect for watching your movies (AVI files) and viewing your photos. The device includes a five-way navigation button that lets you easily decide whether you want to play music or watch a video, and transferring files to the device is as easy as plugging the USB 2.0 cable into your PC. You can also play files off of a Compact Flash card or other media cards with the purchase of an optional 4-in-1 media adapter (plays Smart Media, Memory Stick, Secure Digital and MultiMedia Card media).

There's a small delay in pressing the buttons and watching the interface react to the button push, which may get bothersome after a while. Clicking around the interface to get the music player to play random songs also took a few extra steps than we'd like, but that's nitpicky.

The device has external speakers for listening to the music or watching a video, but there's also a headphone jack that lets you listen in private. We were concerned about the amount of heat that the device generated - it got very warm to the touch when we were using the device. It wasn't enough heat to generate flames, but we tend to like our music players cool to the touch. The player comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery, but we kept it on AC power for the most part. It's a bit bigger than standard hard drive / music players, the extra size being used for the LCD TV screen.

Overall we were impressed with the device, the addition of the TV screen and photo viewing features were a nice touch, and we could see using this to display our favorite photos or video presentations.

Reviewed by Keith Shaw