ASUS O! Play HD2 is just one of the many HD-capable media players out there now, varying in price and features. This makes the competition for your cash that much harder as the question is not just 'does it work and will it play my all my media', but also 'why buy the O! Play HD2 over other, similar products?
We looked at the original O! Play Air last year - a simpler device that we found lacking in some key areas unfortunately, especially compared to the awesome WDTV. However, the O! Play HD2 is not only a much larger machine than its older brother, because it can now accommodate a 3. A problem noticed with some media players is that the sharpness tends to be sacrificed during the upscale process.
However, the HD2 managed this quite well. The same can be said for the playback of HD movies as well. Even the black color looked very clean, devoid of noise and gradation. Movie load time floats between 2 seconds and 3. The only little niggle which I had with the device was a very slight stutter in some fast moving scenes, momentarily, when either the camera panned quickly or there was a swift movement of an object across the screen.
For a movie buff, this may be a tad unacceptable. Play Air. This one feels more comfortable to use, and the button placements are easier to remember- something very important if you need to use the remote while watching a movie in a dark room.
A backlit remote is something which will be very welcome in the future, though this would be a battery hog. Getting media to the HD2 is not a problem at all. The FTP server capability and the ability to configure and download Torrents will depend on whether an internal hard drive is installed or not. These two features are disabled if the internal drive is not present. The device is ready for a wired LAN connection out of the box, but for wireless, you will need to purchase a separate USB adapter.
The web based services do add a lot of fun to the entire experience. Some radio services do not work due to geographical restrictions, but the rest do offer access to a huge library of music, with a single click. Play HD2 offers an excellent HD video experience, the ability to hold a 3.
Perfect match of performance, features, versatility and is also future ready to boot. Play Air HDP-R3 , was already stuffed to the brim with bells and whistles, what can its successor offer over and above the older model?
USB 3. The main difference is in size, as rather than requiring external storage, the O! Play HD2 now has room for an internal 3. Unfortunately, Asus has failed to trim the fat, and at x x Ryan Playon! Despite this, it still uses an external power supply, though this is relatively small. The O! Play Air was at worst unobtrusive, but only its designer could love the odd angles and cheap glossy finish of this new player. Connectivity has undergone a more welcome transformation.
At the O! There are also two USB 2. As long as your PC supports the new standard, this should make transferring your multimedia collection between it and the player very quick indeed. Audio is competently catered for with stereo phono and both optical and co-axial digital outputs, and of course is also carried through the HDMI 1. The only absentee which we might have liked to see is a 3. Play Air is inbuilt Wi-Fi — though with USB ports to spare, using a wireless dongle is a more viable option than on many less well-endowed media players.
Though the top section of the remote is mostly glossy, its base is matt, which combines with an ergonomic shape to make for a comfortable experience.
Installing a hard drive in the O! Play HD2 is straightforward, if nowhere near as simple as it could be. First you need to secure a 3. Then you need to remove another screw to open the media player, attach the supplied SATA power and date cable, and attach the drive cage using another four screws.
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