Cube H100 ‘HD’ Player Review - MKV and 1080I TV Out

Cube H100 ‘HD’ Player Review - MKV and 1080I TV Out

We have heard a lot about Cube, till now we have only been able to read about their products, but last week we got our first shipment of Cube’s H100 media player. It too claims to be part of the new generation ‘HD’ media players, however unlike most of the pack, the H100 uses a totally different media processor, one that claims to be more powerful than the CC1600 and the RK2806 processors. Only the Ainol V6000HDV currently uses a similar media processor, but this particular processors seems to go by different names, Ainol call their chip the SoChip, Cube calls this same chip ‘AHD 1080′, most likely the company that really makes this chip, allows for their buyers to rename it in their own specific brand.

Although by name the Ainol V6000HDV and the Cube H100 may seem to have different processors, they are in fact the same, not only that, but the two are almost the same player, but differ in body design and the layout of the navigation buttons.

The Cube H100 is an attractive player, it has that enlarged chocolate bar feel to it, well weighted and doesn’t feel cheap. It has buttons on either side of it and also a joystick of sorts (which we assumed earlier to be a click wheel of sorts). It does have two dual speakers at the back, but they are not that loud. The curvaceous metallic body gives a good feel to the player, a better design than that of it V6000HDV counterpart.

The player has a high resolution, 800 x 480 5.0″ LTPS screen, although when viewed directly the screen is amazing, it does not have the best viewing angles, this seems to be a growing trend in players these days, not just a specific issue with the H100, our reasoning is that manufacturers are using cheaper high resolution screens and these viewing angles are tell tale signs of lower cost screens. Well i guess if they are going to cut corners anywhere, let it be only in the viewing angles as the player is still quite functional otherwise.

Along with the screen comes a standard 3.5mm audio port and a dedicated video out port for the higher quality TV out. The player does boast to have the best TV out quality of all current ‘HD’ players, capable of 1080I video out! We have not been able to verify this, but from what other China based reviewers have shown, this claim maybe quite true, either way, we do not doubt that we wouldn’t be impressed with the TV out. The biggest downside to this player is its MiniSD expansion slot, not conforming to the now almost industry standard of MicroSD, Cube has chosen to go with the more archaic form of memory card.

The UI has a very PSP layout to it, although at times it seems to be quite complex, loaded with options, from energy saving options, to subtitle support to varied video zooming, it does seem to lack some basic stuff also. This is mostly noticable in the audio player, there isn’t even an option to listen to all your music, you can sort by artist, album or genre, but there isn’t the simple option to see all your audio files and play directly from that list - so if you just want to shuffle your way through all your music, this isn’t an option. Then again we do have to state we have not updated to the latest version of the firmware, this may have changed already.

The small joystick on the player does make navigating through the firmware much easier than the classical push button navigation that we have on the V6000HDV, but sometimes, as you do need to use the push buttons with the joystick, the navigation can seem a little odd, its certainly something that won’t take long getting used to, but it could also have been thought out better.

The chip does support very high resolution videos, but the biggest deal is that it can support h264 MKV files, we have not put this player through the paces for MKV format, but sure enough it did playvery high resolution RMVB files with no issue. However, what we suspect is due to the old firmware, we were unable to get the same high resolution AVI files that worked on CC1600 players to work on this.

Audio quality on the player is very good, however the lack of personal EQ option and the rather lack luster preset EQs, audio quality does feel a bit flat, its pretty clear that the makers were really putting all their eggs on the video playback performance of this player.

The player also has all the other standard functions we would expect, from ebook reader, image viewer to even a radio. The player also comes with a wireless remote and carrying case.

Overall the player itself is very nice, it does have a good TV out ability, very good video playback, but the firmware still needs work, but luckly there are already firmware updates rolling for this player, i do expect whatever this chipset really is to deliver some impressive video playback. It does have have a better feel than other similar players and for what it can do along with its selling price, it will make for a good deal, especially those looking for a player with MKV ability.

The Cube H100 8GB will start retailing on MP4 Nation at $124.50.

(Via MP4 Nation Blog.)