Why You Can Trust CNET JCMatthew MyMovie review: JCMatthew MyMovie
For the money, you'll struggle to find a media player with the clarity of this display and the versatility of its media support.
Entering a world already crowded with digital photo frames, where its space in turn has been encroached on by the Apple iPad, the JCMatthew MyMovie has a tough journey earning a place in our hearts and on our already cluttered mantelpieces. Though it's not intended as a tablet PC, the MyMovie does well on a number of tasks the iPad is known for, and comes at a significantly lower price — AU$249 RRP.
JCMatthew MyMovie
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
What we like
The centrepiece of the MyMovie is an 8.9-inch 1024x600-pixel LCD display. The colour reproduction is really quite remarkable for a device in this price range, though you need to view it from directly in front to get the full impact. The built-in speakers are also pretty good, a little tinny as you might expect, but fine for blasting out some background music. If you want more intimate audio there's a 3.5mm headphone socket on the side for plugging in your favourite cans.
At its core, the MyMovie is a personal media player. It supports a range of video and audio formats including MP4, DivX, XviD, Real Media and popular ripped DVD video formats, plus MP3, AAC, WMA and WAV audio. The MyMovie can also build image slideshows out of JPEGs and bitmap image files, and can display subtitles while videos play.
Media can be stored on either the internal 8GB of memory available or on an external SD memory card. You get a mini USB cable in the box to transfer files directly from your PC — no clunky middleware needed here. Also in the box is a leather headset pouch that turns the handheld screen into a mountable car video player. You just slip the cover over the back of a headrest and slip the player inside — a very cool idea.
What we don't like
A personal media player lives and dies by the quality of its screen, and while we mostly love this screen, there are a few obvious drawbacks. The most crushing is the screen's poor vertical viewing angle. While the colours and contrast are rich and vibrant from front on, the image quickly desaturates or turns negative if you tilt the unit up or down and at very subtle angles. Even now as we write this review, the unit is sitting on our desk and the colours in the photo slideshow look considerably washed out.
The horizontal viewing angle is better, the image stays fairly solid at angles up to about 45 degrees, but JCMatthew's choice of reflective glass unfortunately sacrifices the image at these angles. This sort of reflective glass looks great on store shelves, but can make viewing the screen more difficult than a matte-finish display.
Also, the MyMovie isn't a touchscreen device, and we've debated long and hard about whether this is a positive or a negative. On the one hand, you don't end up covering the screen with greasy fingerprints, which we love. But in the place of simple touchscreen commands, JCMatthew has opted for a clunky collection of mechanical keys on the top of the unit. There are eight buttons in all and with the exception of the power button we couldn't tell you what each button does in each of the MyMovie's menus — there's no uniformity of control between the different applications. Up and down volume may scroll vertically in one menu and may adjust a setting in another. Not having touchscreen is fine, but the controls could definitely be more refined.
Overall
The MyMovie is a product that deserves a second look. Its large, colourful display is fantastic for single person usage, or for sitting on an office desk rotating through a slideshow of favourite pictures. Its file recognition is good and it comes with a range of very useful accessories. Perhaps the most compelling reason to check out the MyMovie is its AU$249 price tag. If you're in the market for a large-screen device that plays music and movies you could end up spending a lot more for similar media-playing capabilities.