By Jasmine Osada

Media players are common and aplenty nowadays, but I have found few of them as easy to use as their packagings claim. Western Digital's smallest media player, the TV Mini media player, was one of those few that had me happily watching videos and flipping through photos without tearing my hair out reading the user's manual.

Able to display video, audio and still images, the TV Mini player is pretty much plug and play. All you had to do is to transfer the media files you want to display onto a USB drive and plug it into the media player.

I also liked the fact that the TV Mini is able to support a pretty wide range of file formats, from the usual suspects like MPEG, MP3 and JPEG, to lesser-known variants like RMVB, or Real Media video files. For those who enjoy watching subtitled videos, the media player also supports four different subtitling file formats in 19 languages.

Measuring less than 10 cm on each side and at 2.1 cm thick, I found the TV Mini very easy to bring around.

The player however, does not support HD or high definition pictures. At DVD quality, I found the player's composite cable option a little unnecessary, but still good to have as a plus should one need to give the display that little extra oomph for higher definition videos.

A basic set, the TV Mini doesn't come with Internet connectivity like the higher priced models in the series. For those who prefer to watch their videos direct from the Intenet, getting one of those higher end models might be good if one can compromise on size.

The Verdict

This smart little media player is easy to set up and use, and displays good video quality for home viewing and entertainment. Able to read a wide range of media files, it's small size is also a plus when one needs a media player on the go.