Pro Ebiz
You only need one quick glance at the $50 Pro Ebiz to see what it’s meant to look like: an iPod Touch. It’s unashamedly similar, so much so that if you take just that quick glance you might be fooled for a second into thinking that it’s the Apple product you have in front of you.
This confusion however, won’t last beyond the first time you try to actually use the Pro Ebiz. Yes, it’s superficially similar in the looks department, and yes it’s a touchscreen device. But the similarity to Apple’s refined masterpiece ends there.
How so? Well first of all, the Pro Ebiz has a screen that’s only 2.8 inches. That puts it ahead of the 5th generation iPod Nano’s 2.2 inches, but still well behind the iPod Touch’s 3.5 inches. With dimensions of 4 x 2.3 x 0.3 inches it’s not like the Pro Ebiz doesn’t have room for a bigger screen, but of course large touchscreens are expensive, and this is a budget portable music player. Be that as it may, the 2.8 inch screen and miniscule 4GB storage capacity make the Pro Ebiz a slightly questionable option as far as movies are concerned.
The next part of the Pro Ebiz’s not-iPod-ness is revealed when you use the interface. It’s nowhere near as well-implemented or pretty as the one on the iPod, and the sensitivity of the screen is also temperamental, sometimes requiring you to use the included stylus (for which, unfortunately, there is no slot for when you aren’t using it).
On to some good news. The music playing part of the Pro Ebiz works fine, and produces good quality sound during both MP3 playback and when listening to the included FM radio tuner. Movies and video clips also play without issues providing those that need it have been converted using the supplied software. Music files can be added to the Pro Ebiz using simple drag-and-drop, but in order to organize them properly it’s necessary to create A-Z folders manually and then put the music in them in alphabetical order yourself.
If you really can’t abide by just 4GB of storage there is some more good news, as the Pro Ebiz has a slot for Mini SD cards. The maximum it can accept is 2GB cards, but of course there’s nothing to stop you (other than sheer annoyance) from carrying more than one.
So let’s recap. This is a very cheap, limited capacity portable music player with a medium size touchscreen. It doesn’t have anywhere near the navigational niceties or quality of components of more expensive touchscreen devices, but on the other hand it’s much cheaper than something like an iPod Touch.
Some will definitely prefer to save for an iPod Touch or Zune HD, or alternatively forget about movies and touchscreens and opt for a cheap-and-cheerful music-only player like the SanDisk Sansa Clip+. But for the thrifty and perhaps slightly less discerning buyer who likes the idea of a large touchscreen, the Pro Ebiz could just be the bargain of the century.
