January 17, 2012

Playing back Video + music files on the Kobo Vox Color eReader


The Kobo Vox color eReader Tablet is a good color eReader Tablet for watching video, and listening to music. The bright  7 inch capacitive screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 makes it easy for the user to see the bright and colorful colors on the screen, and the capacitive screen makes opening video files, and changing music tracks pretty responsive by only using my finger to control the multimedia player. The 7 inch size of the screen is similar in size as most portable DVD players, so you would not have to hold the Vox very close to your eyes to see the full screen video, or on screen controls.

The Screen is also optimized for outdoor viewing with its FFS+ LCD which is the same type of screen which fighter jets used to see its instruments outdoors. Even on lowest brightness on the Kobo Vox screen, I can still see the screen very well when sitting by a sunny window, and the color is still very nice on the screen.

The Speaker on the Vox is a mono speaker on the right corner of the Vox, it is moderately loud, but not very loud, so in loud places, you can use 3.5 mm headphones, or portable speakers to plug into the Vox when in louder places like a park, or restaurant.

The Kobo Vox is pretty good at playing back YouTube and online video sites' video in full screen. The video plays fast and does not slow down, and the speaker is loud enough to hear in a moderately loud room. It is also easy to turn up or turn down the volume by pressing the volume up and volume down volume buttons.




Some popular video sites like YouTube and Dailymotion works on the Kobo Vox default Android web browser, Dolphin HD, and Maxthon Mobile Web browser work without the need to install Adobe Flash Player, but you can still install Adobe Flash Player by downloading and installing the APK file for it by searching Google for "Adobe Flasp Player APK file"

The Kobo Vox uses the default touchscreen keyboard for Google Android Gingerbread which is okay for typing on to search for online videos and music to watch and listen to.

The Wi-Fi adapter on the Vox is also 802.11N which is the fastest type of Wireless adapter, so if youyr internet is fast, the Vox should be fast enough to stream video in High Quality settings since it also has a 800MHz CPU, and 512 MB of RAM, so videos should play quickly.

Holding the Vox with one hand is also pretty easy since it is very light, and thin. The back of the Vox is a quilted rubber back which makes the Vox easier to hold with one hand for extended periods of time in the horizontal position while watching a movie.There are also some cases for the Vox which let you set up the case like a stand to watch the Vox's screen on a stand without the need for you to hold it while watching.

The Vox also comes with the Rdio App which is an online music streaming service which lets you stream audio from the internet via Wi-Fi.You can also install Adobe Flash Player, and visit a website like Purevolume, LastFM, Myspace, etc to stream the website from their flash music player. In the future, more music players on websites will use HTML5 which is built-in to most newer Web browsers like Dolphin HD mobile web browser, so you would not need to install Adobe Flash player to listen to music or watch video on a streaming media website. I usually just use the mobile version of YouTube's homepage at m.youtube.com to search for videos to watch, or music videos to listen to when I am connected to the internet via Wi-Fi.

The MicroSD card slot on the Vox supports a card up to 32GB in size, so you can have many hours of High Quality Videos in MP4, 3GP, and WEBM video file format, and MP3, AAC, .3GP, MP4, M4A, FLAC; OGG, WAV,  andMID audio file formats. The MicroSD card slot is one advantage which the Kobo Vox has over the Amazon Kindle Fire Color eReader Tablet which does not have a MicroSD memory slot.

The 8GB of internal memory is enough for 1-2 HD movies, or many hours of MP3 files encoded in 128 KBPS stereo.

In the GetJar APP marketplace which comes bundled with the Kobo Vox, you could find a lot of multimedia Google Android Apps like Electric Piano and instrument Simulators, Video and music players, sports Apps like ESPN, Golf, and scores, news, and weather apps.

You can also sideload apps you downloaded from your Google Android cell phone with the Google Android Marketplace via a MicroSD memory card, and load them to your Kobo Vox which does not have the Google Android Market.

If you live in the US, you can also use the Amazon Android Apps store to download and install Android Apps from Amazon with your US Amazon Account with a US address and credit card associated with it.

The Kobo Vox is the best 199.99 Color eReader for playing back video and music which you can easily get in Canada and Non-US countries where the Amazon Kindle Fire is not available for purchase. Plus, you can get it for 179.99 if BestBuy or Futureshop is having a sale on it, so you save 19.99 during a sale.

I think the Kobo Vox color eReader is more worth it then most Portable Media Players since the Kobo Vox can play games, browse the web, read ebooks, install Google Android Apps, and has an expandable MicroSD Memory card capabilities while being a pretty good multimedia playback device for videos and music.

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