AC Ryan PlayonHD! mini unboxing

[Rob Williams]

There are a lot of websites out there that regularly do "unboxings", which are more or less the act of unboxing a product and showing the products in all their glory. Well, I don't think such a thing deserves to take the place of an actual piece of content, or even be found in our news section, but I do think they have a purpose. It helps you to see what we have en route content-wise, and piqued interest is always good ;-)

I've taken a look at ASUS O!Play Air and WD TV Live Plus so far, but I just can't get enough of these media players, and luckily, there's no shortage in site. I received AC Ryan's Playon!HD mini and non-mini models earlier this week, and I expect to have a review for the mini early next week, with a review of the non-mini sometime next month.

It's been a LONG time since we've taken a look at an AC Ryan product, and I won't even bother linking to the last review since it was so amatuer and poor (posted one month after the site began). Back in those days, the company focused a lot on modding accessories, but today, it finds itself with media on the mind, and it has multiple products to reflect that.

Like the other media players out there, this one aims to give you as much media support as you could possibly want, including of full support for the ever popular h.264 MKV. There's no wireless model available per se, but the company does sell a USB device that enables it. The unit includes two USB ports in case you want to dedicate one of them to the wireless purpose.

One thing I can say I like a lot about this is that it's very, very sturdy, and though it's a bit larger than the WD TV Live, it's not by much. And as you can see in the pictures below, there are native component connectors available, which is quite nice. Oh, and not to mention... all of the PlayonHD!'s include an HDMI cable. Now that's nice.

More next week!