Has anyone had any experience with either/both of these recently?
I am planning to get the Epson P-5000 before my next dive trip in Q2 2007... unless anyone has good reason why I should buy the Jobo instead.
I intend to download pics to this and to a laptop at the end of each dive day, and thus have a backup if one of the devices should pack up before I get home after a 2 week trip.
Will be pleased to get some advice.
Mark
I have an epson 2000. The operating system is on the hard drive. My hard drive failed after the warrante ran out. Epson charges over 300$ to replace the HD. So I bought a Jobo. A much better unit than the 2000. The new epson 5000 has most of the features of the Jobo and is cheaper. I would have gotten one except for the problem of the operating system being on the hard drive.
I recently got a Jobo Giga Vu Pro Evolution and have used it on one trip to Cocos (Keeling) Islands. I specifically went for the Jobo over the Epson P2000 (5000 wasn't available at the time) because:
The Jobo has much more extensive RAW support (I have to do both my Canon 20D and my wife's Oly 5050)
I didn't want to travel with a laptop but still wanted to be able to back up my data from the viewer. The Jobo has a USB host port that allows me to back it up to a 3.5" USB portable hard drive
The Jobo has an inbuilt function to detect and highlight dust on the sensor by analysing a suitable JPEG image (ie blue sky).
It did everything I wanted without any problems and I'm very happy with it.
If the screen is not that important to you you can't beat this baby!
As I've mentioned elsewhere (click here) I've kinda reached the conclusion that buying more CF may be a reasonable alternative, depending on your goals.
All the best,
Chris
I've had a P2000 for about 18 months and have found it excellent. It will download about 4GB of pics between charges; and I have no problem viewing RAW files with it.
...and I have no problem viewing RAW files with it.
... as long as you don't want to zoom in on them at all to see if they're sharp. That's one of the big wins on the Jobo. The Epson just creates a screen-sized preview jpg of the RAW file, which is a shame since it uses the full res embedded jpg to do it. Otherwise the Epson is fine and good value for money. I flogged mine to a mate, and largely just use a tiny Vaio now.
I may get a Jobo when they become more easily available, for use in less laptop friendly environments. I always like to have more than one copy of my pictures, so just buying more CF fails on this point.
Martyn
For similar performance at a lower price, Vosonic offer a solid alternative. I've been using one for a couple of months and am really happy with it...
