Asus O!Play HD2 Review

Asus O!Play HD2: Testing

When we came to test the hardware unfortunately it seems the O!Play HD2 hasn't got quite enough grunt for all the 1080p HD media we tried. Our most intensive video would only play corrupted and stuttering, while some 1080p Quicktime trailers gave a very noticeable chequered pattern in the black areas.

Apart from these two blips the O!Play HD2 has a stellar record, playing everything else we threw at it. It's even got a nice feature that can change the position, size and colour of subtitles if they are embedded into mkvs or external subs files.

Conclusion

First and foremost a media player has to be able to playback every type of media we throw at it - and unfortunately the Asus O!Play HD2 couldn't. It was nine tenths the way there and could run most video types flawlessly, however some very high-bit rate 1080p h.264 and some Quicktime files would generate playback errors.

For every good point we can make there's also a significant negative: for example, it's kitted with the a pretty diverse set of features such as component output as well as HDMI, and eSATA etc, but we're sure the USB 3 direct PC link is just a tick box considering we're lumbered with 10/100 Ethernet not Gigabit. It looks good and the box feels solid, but the plastic scratches very easily and finger prints and dust are a sod to keep off it, plus the internal hard drive mounting is an exercise in frustration too. And to round that all off, when the tiny fan kicks up it's very audible and irritating.

The online media service has greatly been improved since the last firmware update, but at best it's still a token gesture. What it offers is not really diverse enough and you cannot add your own streams. The other services: NAS, bit-torrent, FTP and iTunes, all suffer a similar let down - they work, but as only one can be used at once and the O!Play HD2 doesn't have a sleep mode where they can be left running either.

Admittedly, none of these are catastrophic limitations: if you don't care about dust or scratches and you aren't going to use a hard drive or online services, then none of these matter too much. But then, why would you buy the O!Play HD2?

Yes, at £100 it's a lot cheaper than a media PC, but if you're on that tight a budget then the WDTV or PlayON HD mini are a much better choice.

Ultimately we come away with one conclusion from the O!Play HD2: limiting. We'd opt for something else.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

Score Guide