Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Escort MediaFlair
8 January 2014
The $99.95 MediaFlair from Escort is the company's first product other than radar detectors. It proved a well-designed and thought-out product.
The attractive 3.3x2.3-inch, two-ounce rectangular unit has a soft covering and three LEDs to indicate Power, WiFi status and SD card activity. In addition to the power switch, there's a reset button to either restart the unit or restore factory settings.
We really like the power switch, incidentally. It's a lot easier to use than a button. With a secure click between states, you always know when you've turned it on or off.
Despite the soft cover, it doesn't grip a smooth table surface firmly but spins around. It doesn't exactly slide, but it doesn't grip firmly either.
It provides no internal storage itself but does include an SD card for use in its memory slot. Any FAT 32 card is supported.
Escort claims the MediaFlair is compatible with iOS devices from the iPhone 3GS up, the iPod touch (third through fifth generations) and the iPad running iOS 4.3 or later. Android devices running v2.3.3 or later are also supported.
Kit Contents. An 8-GB card was included.
IN THE BOX | Back to Contents
Included in the box are:
- MediaFlair device
- An SD card in a plastic case
- 12-volt power adapter
- Micro USB to Standard USB cable
- Printed manual
- One year limited warranty
Documentation is available at no charge online, too.
FEATURES | Back to Contents
The included 12-volt power adapter (with the USB cable) allows you to charge or power the unit from your car's battery. This is a bit more useful than the USB charger included with other units (which you may already have for your other devices) because using the unit on a long drive to occupy little minds is not a bad idea.
Escort MediaFlair. Card slot visible at top.
The internal 1300 mAh lithium-ion battery supports up to four hours of playback.
Our review unit included an 8-GB SD card. The unit supports SDHC and SDXC memory cards, Class 6 and above. Escort recommends Class 10 cards when multiple users are viewing videos.
Escort says the unit supports streaming up to five devices simultaneously but it really depends on what you're doing. Escort Media Director Ron Gividen told us they had over a dozen users connected at one time.
Escort claims the WiFi is b/g/n but it appeared to connect only to our Wireless B network, not the Wireless N network. So think of it as a B device compatible with G and N routers, too.
You can power the unit with the USB connection while access it using WiFi.
ACCESSING MEDIAFLAIR | Back to Contents
First turn on the MediaFlair. The WiFi LED will flash blue when wireless connectivity is active.
Mobile Setup. Connect to MediaFlair.
MediaFlair Setup. Bridge Mode.
Like all of these wireless storage devices, you must then go to your wireless device's Setup menu and switch from your normal WiFi router to the storage device.
Once you've connected to the storage device, you can run its app.
After launching the MediaFlair app, you enable Bridge mode, selecting your WiFi router from that menu to be able to access the Web and your email. But again, you are accessing at the Wireless B speeds of the MediaFlair.
MediaFlair's setup screen gives a good report of what's going on if you have any trouble.
MEDIAFLAIR APP | Back to Contents
The app on your mobile device isn't much use until you connect to the MdiaFlair using your mobile device's Setup option for WiFi. But once you do that, you can browse and view or playback the MediaFlair's content.
PDF. MediaFlair App displaying an PDF.
Video. MediaFlair App playing a video.
The 14-MB app is pretty straightforward. A title bar tells you what page you're on and icons along the bottom row present your options.
So what can you do?
You can 1) browse the contents of the mounted SD card, 2) copy files between your mobile device to the MediaFlair, 3) listen to music or view movies and documents on the MediaFlair, and 4) email documents on the MediaFlair from your mobile device's email client.
JPEG. MediaFlair App displaying a JPEG image.
Images. MediaFlair App showing images.
You can enter a password to protect the MediaFlair network in app's setup menu, too.
Performance was very good. We really couldn't tell the files we were viewing were not stored on our tablet. We read PDFs and text files, which were properly rendered by the app. We watched George Jardine videos without a blip. We looked at images we had copied to the SD card.
Everything behaved as expected but the app was a little more polished than we expected. Well done.
EVALUATION | Back to Contents
We have no qualms recommending the MediaFlair as a wireless storage solution. Even the decision to rely on SD cards rather than internal storage has not turned out to be a liability, allowing us to change what's available with just a card swap.
(Editor's Note: This is the second of a five-part series on wireless storage. Links to the other stories are in the main table of contents at the top right of each story.)