On a quest to find a portable media player for my kids that I could use in my vehicle, I finally stumbled across this outstanding product. After purchasing 2 other portable media players, and both being defective, and having to be returned, I discovered the Pumpkin, 10.1 inch digital media screen. The first thing that stood out was the brilliantly designed adapter bracket used to attach the media player to the headrest. Unlike the cheap straps that the other media players used, this design, included an adapter bracket, that easily snapped onto the headrest posts and did not obstruct the actual headrest for the front seat passenger or driver. The screen then easily attached to the adapter bracket, providing a clean look. I also liked how easily it could be removed and reattached to the bracket in event the screen needed to be taken out for any reason. It also allowed the ability to vertically tilt the screen for optimal viewing.
When I turned the media player on the first thing that stood out was the screen quality. Not only was the screen slightly larger (10.1 inches vs 9 inches or 7 inches) and flatter than most other portable players, the resolution and visual quality was outstanding. I liked how quickly a dvd disc booted up as well. There was no long waiting for it to read the disc, nor did it have any trouble reading a disc. Also another great aspect to this player was despite visible vibrations when attached to my seat and driving down the road, the disc never skipped once.
Though I have not been able to experiment with all the features of this player, what stood out was the number of available options. After thorough research, I could not find a portable media player that included all the features that this one did. I won’t list them all, but the features that this player included that stood out most to me, were the HDMI input, media card reader, the resume playback feature, and the remote control. Most players priced in this range exclude most of these features that I listed. Though not applicable to me at this time, this player included other great features like FM sound modulation, IR headphone support, AV ins and outs, and even included a video game disc with the remote doubling up as a controller!
In conclusion, I would rate the Pumpkin 10.1 inch portable headrest monitor media player five out of five stars. You simply will not find a better quality product, with more features, and in this price range. My only criticism of this product is that the unit’s built in loudspeakers are not loud enough, even when the volume is maxed out. I only mention this because my child is too young to want to use headphones and rather than play the audio through my vehicles speakers, I like to listen to native audio sources in the front of my vehicle while my child is watching a movie in the back. Between my native audio signal and road and wind noise, the speakers on this player were not quite loud enough. That is a minor gripe that will change when my child is older and will prefer to use headphones. Finally, this product is such an outstanding value, that I will be purchasing a second unit for my youngest child, once they are old enough to utilize it, in about a year.
–by Bradford
