JJ Lighting & Electrical - Home Electrical Centre

Panasonic MW-10 Multimedia player

PRICE DROP

was £269.99

now only

£174.99

whilst stocks last!!!

The other week my Panasonic Rep showed me a new product.  It was a digital photo frame.   It had a 9″ screen and was all black.  Can’t say I was too impressed,  I’ve had 7″ Sony frames in stock for the last 2 years.

But he had a glint in his eye.  There was more to it than just a photo frame.

“its got 4gb of storage” he said.

Now THATS impressive.  Thats about 1000 images,  which is more than I would ever need.

“and it’s got an SD card slot“  he said.

Hmmm,  that’s potentially another 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, wow,  32 gb of additional space in case you ever needed it.

“and its a CD player” he said.

Pardon?  Where?  what?  how?

“Yep,  Plays music CD’s and Photo CD’s”

Aaaaah,  so that explains the mesh on the front,  it’s a speaker.  So,  “How does it sound”  I ask him.

so he presses play…. on a remote control!  Nice touch.  And it starts to play.

The sound was suprising for such a small device.  The clarity was extremely impressive,  but still managed to convey deep bass without distortion.  He turned it right up,  and whilst it wasn’t the loudest thing I’ve heard,  it didn’t break up,  and in a sitting room or office environment,  would be more than adequate.

Problem was the music he was playing.  Can’t say I’m a James Blunt fan myself,  so I asked if he had any other CD’s

“I’m not playing a CD” he said

Whoa,  hold on a sec….  You said it was a CD player?  He presses a button on the unit,  and indeed,  the screen falls forward and exposes a CD mechanism.

“it IS a CD player” he grinned…” but I’m using the ipod Dock.”

That’s when I saw the iPod Touch Docked at the back of the photo frame.

Quick as a flash he navigated the onscreen menu’s into his music collection and stopped the song that was playing.

“What else do you want to hear” he asked… but before I could respond,  he says

“have you seen Transformers?”

and all of a sudden the screen comes to life.  The picture of a generic sunset replaced by fighting Robots.

“It’s not a DVD player before you ask” he says “but it will play video off of your iPod”

At this point I need to take stock.

“so its a

• 9″ Digital Photo frame with 4gb of storage
• Cd Player for Audio and PhotoCD
• SD card reader
• iPod dock with video AND music playback
• and its got a Remote control,

That’s incredible!”

All of a sudden, Scott Mills from Radio One fills the room…

“oh,  and it’s an FM radio” says the rep.

At this point I decide to order the stock,  before even asking the price,  and I’m glad I did.

When it arrived at the shop,  I was keen to have a play with it,  to see if all those features were too good to be true.  And I wasn’t disappointed.

It seems to do each job admirably.  All controls are available via the remote,  and the simple things like Radio and Cd are no more complicated to operate than any modern Midi system.  Where it excels is picture playback.  Firstly,  if you put in an SD or Photo CD,  you can copy pictures directly to the frame in a matter of minutes.  I transfered over 200 photo’s in less than 5 minutes,  which meant I could use the SD card for something else.  Once in the frame (you don’t have to copy them btw,  you can leave the original media in place) you can rotate images,  and zoom via the remote.  Playback comes in the form of a slideshow (which you can skip or pause)  and pictures can fade or slide in,  or be viewed in a panning, scanning motion setting which is very effective.  Once you’ve set the slideshow (the length of time a picture is on screen can be adjusted from 5 seconds to over an hour)  you just need to choose your music.

In this case I chose the ipod dock as my source,  and put my iPhone in.  Navigating via the remote is as simple as using iTunes or the actual phone menu’s.  First I chose the artist,  then the album,  the the song.  Again a shuffle mode can be used.

Once playing back,  I chose a graphic equaliser setting that suited my music,  from the usual “jazz, speech, Rock, flat” style settings.  I could also adjust bass and treble seperatley if i’d chosen too.

Happy with my choice,  I cranked up the volume.  Again,  not the loudest machine,  but the quality was impeccable.  So much so,  one person asked where the music was coming from,  so suprising for the size.

I think the only thing holding this back is the price.  Whilst it could be argued there are cheaper photo frames,  and iPod docks out there,  the way in which this performs each task shows quality and a depth of design which cheaper products lack.  It’s worth every penny of the £269.99 price tag,  but unless you come and see it,  and have a play,  it might be hard to convey to you why you wouldn’t buy a cheaper alternative.

so,  the verdict,  come see me and I’ll prove to you why you need one of these in your life!!  I’m trying to justify to myself that I need one!!

Mook