Actually, this is a more substantial and interesting upgrade than the P-2000 -> P-4000 one. That step up only upgraded the hard drive from 40GB to 80GB and a slightly longer lasting battery. There were no improvements made to the software.
This time around, Epson addressed the weakest point of the P-2000/P-4000, which is software functionality. Getting movies onto the P-4000 was a royal pain due to a rather anemic codec set. Now with MPEG-1/2 and DiVX support, it should be a breeze. Looking through the Japanese Epson site, I see screenshots showing much better photo browsing and MP3 playback functionality.
The other common complaint of the P-2000/P-4000 is CF transfer speed. It takes about 7.5 minutes to transfer the contents of a 1GB CF card to my P-2000's HD. The Epson site claims the P-4500 can do it in 155 seconds, or about 3X as fast. Because of the increased transfer rate, you can now offload up to 50GB of data on a single battery charge. The best I can do on my P-2000 is 20 GB (using ten 2GB cards).
The P-4500 also appears to include a wired remote with headphone, which is a new accessory (and likely incompatible with the P-2000/P-4000).
On the downside, Epson has not made any announcements about a European or NA release of this product. :(
I use my P-2000 all the time, but man, it sure has some frustrating and annoying "features" that the P-4500 seems to have fixed. It'll be interesting comparing the usability of the P-4500 to the upcoming Jobo GigaVu Evolution.
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iomatic (#3),
Actually, this is a more substantial and interesting upgrade than the P-2000 -> P-4000 one. That step up only upgraded the hard drive from 40GB to 80GB and a slightly longer lasting battery. There were no improvements made to the software.
This time around, Epson addressed the weakest point of the P-2000/P-4000, which is software functionality. Getting movies onto the P-4000 was a royal pain due to a rather anemic codec set. Now with MPEG-1/2 and DiVX support, it should be a breeze. Looking through the Japanese Epson site, I see screenshots showing much better photo browsing and MP3 playback functionality.
The other common complaint of the P-2000/P-4000 is CF transfer speed. It takes about 7.5 minutes to transfer the contents of a 1GB CF card to my P-2000's HD. The Epson site claims the P-4500 can do it in 155 seconds, or about 3X as fast. Because of the increased transfer rate, you can now offload up to 50GB of data on a single battery charge. The best I can do on my P-2000 is 20 GB (using ten 2GB cards).
The P-4500 also appears to include a wired remote with headphone, which is a new accessory (and likely incompatible with the P-2000/P-4000).
On the downside, Epson has not made any announcements about a European or NA release of this product. :(
I use my P-2000 all the time, but man, it sure has some frustrating and annoying "features" that the P-4500 seems to have fixed. It'll be interesting comparing the usability of the P-4500 to the upcoming Jobo GigaVu Evolution.