Good looks, good sound, but the software is really bad

Author's Rating:

Pros: Looks, robustness, Sound, external HD and good FM reception.

Cons: the Manual, their Internet Site, lack of Firmware updates, absence of support, upgrade utility

The Bottom Line: 
MPIO has developped a good piece of hardware, but supplies a really bad piece of software with it. That turns the device into an hard-to-handle monster.

Author's Review
I bought a HD300 a week ago.

It seemed to have everything i wanted:
FM radio
20 GB drive (working on USB as an external HD)
clear menu structure
and so on.

I went home after buying it and decided to read
the manual completely. Just to be sure i knew what
my new toy was capable of.

The manual was just a few pages, only the basics were explained. So i went on the www.mpio.nl site to see if i could find more info. Nothing there.

After searching some forums i found out that a firmware upgrade was available and after hours of searching in forums i found out how to upgrade. On the site they say you have to use their upgrade tool but that is not working.

I send 4 mails to different countries to MPIO support. None of the mails were read or replied on. (they were polite mails, kindly asking for info)

My directory structure (artist-album-songs) is working good, however the shuffle (random repeat as the Koreans call it) is only shuffling one directory. So i thought to be smart: made a playlist with all songs and tried to put that on shuffle. Now it only shuffled the artists starting with 'a'.

The device doesn't do 'read ahead' meaning i will take some time to start the harddisk, load a menu or the next song and continue. That is probably its main flaw.

So i am quite disappointed in this product which did cost me 309 euro (approx $405 !!! dollar) in Europe, where i live. Getting no support for that price STINKS!

I am strongly thinking about returning the device and buying an IPod. I don't think MPIO is learning from its mistakes...