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The Vugo multimedia player is a $100 personal media player for kids and teens that records from any AV source to 128MB of internal memory, has an SD card for expansion, and downloadable content from Vugo.com that ranges in price from 99 cents to $1.99 per show. So how well does this kid-centric PMP stand up?

Packaging

Packaging for the VuGo was what I expected - easy to get into the box, and a plastic casing around the player and cables to protect the goodies.

What's in the Box?

The AC Adaptor, the AV cables, the VuGo Software CD, and the VuGo Player.

What's Good About It?

The VuGo unit comes with 128MB of memory built-in, which is a decent amount to get started. You can always expand your memory up to 2GB. Recording from television is easy and simple - just connect the AV cables to the VuGo and to your source, select record and away you go. The VuGo software requires that you register your unit online if you want to purchase content from VuGo.com, in this case we chose not to register.

What Could Be Improved?

Please keep in mind that this review was written by an adult, so even though I am routinely called "a child" and "young at heart" I'm not going to have the exact same perspective on this personal media player that a kid will. The first thing that really bothered me about the VuGo was the quality of the screen. The VuGo isn't cheap - I purchased this unit for review myself for $100 at a local retailer. Considering that many portable DVD players with screens are within the $100-$150 price range, I found the "quality of screen versus cost ratio" to be way out of scale. Just in case there is any confusion on how the video playback looks, I took a few photos so you could judge for yourself:

Screen DPI & Framerate Are Very Low

I'm guessing that the framerate on the VuGo is around 10-15 frames per second, which results in a choppy image that is hard to watch. Additionally, the VuGo records in .TVV format which can only be viewed on the VuGo player that recorded it. The downloadable content from VuGo.com is also DRM restricted so that it can only be viewed on the unit that it was downloaded for. Why restrict recordings to one player? One big selling point for kids could have been the ability to trade recorded content (not downloaded content) however this is not an option. On top of all this I could not play the .TVV files in any media player on the Mac or PC, and I tried more than a few. It's feasible that someone will hack the .TVV format, however I dare to guess that even when hacked the video would be unwatchable on the PC due to the low quality and small video size.

Gadget Says: "What rhymes with Yugo?"

The VuGo could have been something great for kids and teens. However the cost, the restrictions, and the low-quality screen are going to be a deal breaker for most.

VuGo Multimedia Player :: Amazon.com

VuGo Multimedia System :: Target.com