The Vosonic VP8860 is a multimedia storage viewer that provide professional features of a photo viewer, media recorder and player. The 4.3" TFT LCD screen delivers 800x480 pixels and runs in 2.5" SATA HDD supporting up to 320GB.

I bought mine off a seller who recently got it at the PC Show. His reason to off-load is to fund a Macbook.At $500, it's almost 20% off the retail price. At only 2 weeks old, it's a no-brainer not to get it. Even if I decided not to keep it, I would probably be able to fetch a good resale price.

But as I use it over 48 hours, I find myself attracted to this device. Here's what it works for me:

Excellent LCD screen. This is what this device is all about. The screen makes all the viewing pleasurable. Somehow, the interpolation algorithm delivers images with clarity and sharpness without visible resize artifacts.

Backup memory cards. VP8860 supports all standard memory card formats: CF, SD, XD, MS, and all it's mini-variants with adaptors. Backup speed for Sandisk Extreme IV 4GB takes just 9 minutes.

It reads camera RAW files - and fast! Viewing camera files is speedy even when viewing 12mp Nikon D300 files. You can even enable the EXIF information and histogram.

Built-in microphone and line-in. You can record conversations or streaming music.

AV-input jack with scheduling. You can record any AV signal like TV, cable box, even the D300 Live View. You can also schedule recording: just set the time, switch off the device, and it will wake up instantly to record at the preset time. Or, you can simply watch live video feeds, thus converting VP8860 into a mini-TV. I do that when I want to catch the Cable news in brief by plugging in the AV jack, without having to switch on the TV.

Media player. Plays video, music, photo, radio, live audio-video inputs.

Relatively speedy start-up. About 10 seconds is all it takes to start the device and read the HDD and any attached memory cards.

Ease of removing HDD. It's just 2 screws away.

Override Auto Shutdown. The device initiates a countdown sequence when the auto shutdown time is reached. You can easily stop the shutdown countdown by pressing any button. This is useful when you want to continue using the device. If only Windows have this feature.

But every device would have its weak areas. For VP8860, the major weakness is the firmware features. While we understand that each device would have its hardware limitations, software limitations are something that is unforgivable and only shows the lack of user understanding while creating the firmware.

Typically, the Options menu allow you to customise the device or set default values. To illustrate the "dumbness" of the software developer, here's a list of what VP8860 cannot do:
- Cannot adjust colour tones and contrast, only can adjust screen brightness
- Cannot set default video recording filesize. Everytime you exit the video recording mode and return, it will revert to the default value.
- Cannot set default video viewing mode. You can set the screen size to fit the screen or 100%, for instance. But after you select the next video, it will revert to the default view.
- Cannot set default photo viewing mode. Everytime you return to the photo viewer, it will revert to the default mode.
- Maximum bitrate for line-in recording is 32KHz. That means no CD-quality recording.

Other than the Options menu, the firmware is also bogged by some usability inconveniences:

- Cannot go back to previous sub-menu. Once you press the 'back' button, you exit from the menu completely and have to restart.
- Cannot create playlist on the device. The manual recommends that you copy your playlist music files into a folder. Haha.
- Cannot set recurring schedule.
- No video resume. If you were watching a full-length movie and had to stop the show, you can't resume or bookmark. Saving grace: the fast-forward is rather speedy.
- Limited browser view options. It's either list view or thumbnail view. There should also be an option to display list in a few columns rather than just one column. The files should also be sortable by other methods, like date/time, filesize, just like Windows Explorer. It's quite a chore to scroll if you have hundreds of files in the folder.
- No battery remaining countdown indicator. While VP8860 has a battery bar indicator, it cannot show me how much more I have left. A percentage indicator is appreciated.

At the end of the day, the saving grace has got to be the clear LCD screen and its interpolation algorithm that makes every image sharp and crisp. The VP8860 is a useful device for people who loves photography, loves showing people the latest photo collection he has, and an occasional multimedia usage on video and music recording and playback features.