There are tons of hard drive-based media players available now in the market right from the high-end devices with in-built hard drives to small and sleek pocketable versions. Out of this crowd, we have been recommending the Western Digital TV Live media player as it offers the best of features which provide excellent value for money. However, with the Seagate GoFlex TV, the Western Digital faces competition and would have to share the top space with this new device.
The GoFlex TV is much sleeker than the Seagate Freeagent Theatre. It has a slot loading drive bay at the front to plug-in GoFlex hard-drives with an indication light on the top right corner. The back side houses the HDMI port, Ethernet, USB, optical out, YPbPr (Composite) and AV out ports. There are enough vents on the side and bottom to keep the device and the hard drive plugged in from overheating. The bundle comprises of a remote control, YPbPr (Composite) and AV cables along with the adapter. It would have been great if Seagate had bundled an HDMI cable in the package. The player also can be connected via Wi-Fi; the wireless adapter however is sold separately.
The player boots up in less than 5 seconds to a simple and neat interface with quick access to movies, music, drive contents as well as internet feeds. We were totally surprised on the 2 seconds playback time that the player gave us for any video - standard or high definition. We tested out a variety of formats and the GoFlex TV played them all. Moreover, the playback quality of HD content was fantastic, though we did see a few stutters here and there in highly compressed m2Ts format full HD videos. The player's upscaling capabilities were good. We played a couple of SD videos on a 42-inch LCD through the player and the video upscaling along with audio output was top notch.
One part that we did not like was that the portable drive sticks out of the bay when plugged in. The biggest con of the player would be that other than the Seagate GoFlex drives, any other drive cannot be plugged into the bay. We tried installing a standard 2.5-inch hard drive, but were unable to do so after multiple attempts. Also, the device tends to heat up a bit on continuous usage. Other than that, the Seagate GoFlex media player is a top notch product that now shares top position with the Western Digital TV Live when it comes to hard drive-based media players in India.
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