Patriot PBO Alpine Full HD All-In-One Media Player with HDMI, Android 2.2 PCMPBOA HDMI Interface

Pros: Sleek look

Cons: Most expensive paper weight I have ever purchased.

It connects to my media center and then locks up. Unplug the unit and try again = maybe a little further, maybe not but same result; it locks up attaching to the MC. No problems accessing the MC from my 4y.o. WD Theater+.

Factory reset the unit and actually played a movie. One. Then back to the same lock-ups. Tried another reset but this time no good.

But on a positive note - my papers don't fly around when I sit it on top...

Other Thoughts: Would not recommend this product to anyone, anywhere.

Pros: Plays many formats

Cons: This could be a good player but it is not properly supported by Patriot.
Their last media player PBO core is a great player do not confuse this one with that. The firmware is junk and not being developed. My unit will not even keep the date or time right, and will not remember networked media libraries . Patriot doesn't seem to care.

Other Thoughts: I was very disappointed with this player. After having a core player for a few years it was a big let down. Read patriots forums before you buy.
Ive built a Raspberry Pi for a lot less that does more.
This is the lowest rating I have ever given.

Pros: None

Cons: Does not work right out of the box. Remote switches the unit off (RED) and on (green) and that's it that works nothing on the screen. I owned patriot PMB media player before and i know about andriod but this is such a waste of money and time.

Pros: First thing to mention. There is an update on the website for patriot to update to 3.0 firmware. Which solves a good portion of the bugs with the unit. I purchased the unit and received two remotes the small one in the images and a larger more user friendly one.

Cons: The only con I can think of is when watching a video there is an option for subtitles on the larger remote but it does nothing and the media players info such as volume or pause/play icons do not always disappear on there own.

Other Thoughts: I have a feeling that this item is a work in progress and as the updates keep coming more options will become available. Not a bad starter since there are so few devices that will let you play, view and listen from your own collection and yet still have the options to use Internet and YouTube.

Pros: - Small and portable
- Comes with two remotes -- a full size and a "credit card" remote
- Includes a decent HDMI cable
- Android 2.2
- Web browsing
- Two USB ports and an SD card slot
- Integrated ethernet
- Plays pretty much anything
- Can install your own apps
- Good price

Cons: - No wireless support
- Takes some time to boot up
- Won't save date & time properly
- No documentation on features or the buttons of the remote

Other Thoughts: I actually ordered this before I read everyone's reviews, or I would have been a little more hesitant to do so. My purchase came during the black Friday sale, so what I got is probably a lot different than those who ordered older units.

My PBO came with two different remotes, was not defective, and there were no rattling noises from inside.

While not including wireless support is definitely a disadvantage since I do not want to run a 100 ft ethernet cable from my office into my living room, I am certainly not going to complain with the awesome price I got it for.

Instead, I booted it up (yes, it's Android, it "boots up", doesn't just "turn on") and after a minute or two, I popped in my SD card with various movies in MKV and MP4 format. It played them all perfectly.

I like being able to press the audio language button on the remote to quickly change language with MKV files. On my computer it takes a few mouse clicks and several menus to do this. Handling subtitles is just as easy.

Prior to buying this, I only had a Wii for playing movies (using mplayer), and it could only handle xvid avi's smoothly. I had to plug my laptop into the TV to watch anything else. So for me, this was a *huge* improvement. The only con that's really a big deal is lack of wireless, but being able to plug in an external USB hard drive or flash drive, an SD card, or run a 100ft ethernet cable down the hallway into the office is more than fine.

Afterall, with the price Newegg is selling this for, you really cannot beat it. Especially with being able to install your own Android apps!

Pros: Nothing worth mentioning

Cons: Downright horrible device to use.

Other Thoughts: I replaced my Asus O!Play with this, and what a mistake that was. My family constantly complained about how slow and difficult to use it was - and of course I was thinking the same.

After 6 months of waiting for a firmware update, I finally gave up and purchased a WDTV Live, which is a pleasure to use (fast, full featured, regular firmware updates...). I would not recommend this unit to anyone, unless the feel they have to have an "Android" device, and even then their are better options out there.

Pros: The case looks good...

Cons: Useless small remote
Takes forever to power up
Very slow User Interface
No support (Patriot Forums)

Other Thoughts: Generally a terrible product. But here are my biggest complaints:

1. The small remote is useless.
2. Unit is very unresponsive. Very slow to navigate the menu system.
3. Movie listing only shows the first number of characters of file names, often making it impossible to know which file to select.
4. Old version of android (2.2) making access to useful utilities very limited (i.e. NetFlix).
5. Lithium battery in the remote is short lived (< 4 months for me)
6. Very slow to power up - minutes.
7. Doesn't remember network share mapping. You're forced to go through several screens to remap a network drive each time. Since the interface and remote are very unresponsive, this makes the whole experience excruciating!!!

There are more complaints (many more), but these are the big ones for me. My hope has been form new firmware, which Patriot has been promising for over 6 months now. At this point I doubt that this firmware is ever actually going to be released.

Hopefully this review is enough information to direct people to better products (WDTV Life Gen3 for example) -- although they say misery likes company, I would hate for anyone else to be stuck with this dud of a product.

Pros: The PBO Alpine is a player I was waiting to get my hands on from the first pre-release reviews. The player itself is very small and light (tends to tip back from weight of HDMI cord). The interface is OK and the Alpine does play just about any media you throw at it.

Cons: The negative issues include complete lack of support for this device. The firmware to fix a bunch of annoying issues was promised about 6 months ago and forum members are still waiting. There has been no update from Patriot staff and in fact they deleted whole post topics on the Patriot Alpine Forum, when users were complaining about issues and lack of updates and company support. I was a regular poster there and have seen lost of peoples posts disappear recently.

Patriot staff do not respond to inquiries about matrix firmware that was promised ages ago, and if you complain your post will mysteriously disappear. This player has promise but will never be what it should until someone outside patriot writes a decent ROM for it.

Other Thoughts: Biggest issue will be seen by anyone who has a lot of video files. The videos are all randomly ordered, you can't search them, and without a fix one of the forum admins posted, you can't even read the whole file name, only the first word or two. This means that any episodes of a series are displayed where you can't tell which one you are looking at. Do you have any directories with a few hundred files? I do. Get ready to scroll through them one by one until you find the one you are looking for. You can't jump pages, you'll have to scroll at a snails pace through hundreds of videos until you get fed up and use another player.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear lopaka,

Rest assured that we completely stand by all of our products; The Alpine Media Player, and especially our customers. I'm sorry that you feel you experienced a lack of support at our support forums. We do not censor/edit anything on our forums outside of forum rules (ie; profanity, spam, discussion of competitor products). Our Engineers have been working around the clock to get a firmware released. We realize there has been a lengthy delay in the firmware. On that note, please understand that firmware development can take time to develop and test for.

We thank you for your patience in the matter and apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincere Regards,

Max
Patriot Memory Customer Care
Support@Patriotmem.com

External Link(s):

Patriot Forum Rules|

Pros: How would I know, just got it and it sounds like it's full of scrap medal.

Cons: Just like the reviewer on 5/14/2012 - "As soon as I removed the media player from the box I noticed a lot of rattling sounds as if there were several broken pieces inside of the player loosely banging around inside the box."

Other Thoughts: So I get stuck paying $10 for the return of a clearly defective item? Very worried that the replacement will not be any better. Hope they just don't reseal the one I'm returning and pass it off to one of you, wonder if that's what happen to the one returned by the reviewer on 5/14/2012?

Manufacturer Response:

Dear John M,

I'm sorry to hear that you had an issues with the unit. We'll be glad to replace the unit for you. Please send me an e-mail and we'll be glad to get a replacement sent out to you.

Thank you for choosing Patriot Memory!

Best Regards,
Michael
Patriot Memory Customer Support
support@patriotmem.com

Pros: Play everything no problems in 1080p ful size remote

Cons: need to buy a seperate patriot wireless usb adapter, Logitech harmony doesn't recognize the unit in their online data base

Other Thoughts: I must have got lucky, I bought 2 of these several months ago. I recieved a full size remote with both and have had no problems. I generally play mkv file in 1080p. The HDMI makes hooking it up a breeze. Using it with a 60" tv and the quailty is great provided you start with a good quality file