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A few years ago there was a big craze for home media players these devices were intended to make the watching of digital media on a TV much easier. Unfortunately the trend did not catch on all that well due to the heavy integration of many Media Player features into HD TVs. There was also a problem with the unfortunate fact that most media players used the same SoC, Media Playback CODEC and OS. It meant that in many cases there was little to differentiate products other than the brand name. Now things have changed a little as many of the original players have dropped from the market. Now the remaining companies are looking into different processors and also operating systems. Today we are taking a look at one from Patriot, the PBO Alpine. This is an extension of the original Patriot Box Office media player and offers a few improvements to the line. One of the more interesting ones is the use of Android 2.2 as the OS. So let’s check out the PBO Alpine to see what it brings to the table and if it is worth your time and money.
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The Box and Goodies -
The box the PBO alpine comes in is pretty small when we first saw it we were a little surprised as most other media players we have tinkered with had much larger boxes. Still reducing the packaging can help shave off some money when you deal with thousands of units.
The front shows off a render of the actual media player and lists a few highlighted features (like YouTube, dts, and HDMI support. In the upper corner is something that might attract a few people that were not happy with the older media players, this is the powered by Android 2.2 label. It could make things interesting although we wonder why Patriot did not chose Android 3.0 which has better support for larger resolutions.
The back of the box gives you more detail and also shows you how the PBO Alpine fits into your home network.
Inside the box you find everything you need to get the PBO Alpine working. You have the PBO Alpine, a power supply, an IR remote, and an HDMI cable.
There really is not much more to it than that.
