Uebo M400 Review

There are a whole slew of new media players that hit the market recently. You have Apple TV, Roku, Boxee Box and even a player from Western Digital called the WD TV Live. It’s to the point where it’s hard to decide which one to get. In comes the Uebo(you-bo) M400. Like it’s M200 cousin it boasts several i/o options, an internal hard drive bay and newly added USB 3.0, gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n WiFi with antenna.

The M400 is beautiful. It’s look is that of a set top stereo component as it has a solid black cover and brushed metal base. It’s beautiful and fits right into your entertainment center. The LED is even that cool looking electric blue color that stands out in the dark and makes it easier to read.

The built in software allows you to tap right into your Windows Media Center PC or Server. You can access music, video and photos. It supports all major formats including the all popular MT2 and M2TS formats you find on consumer HD cameras. It also supports Dolby Digital and DTS streams and 1080p video.

Application wise it comes with Youtube, Pandora, Flickr, a web browser, bit-torrent client and Play On. I don’t like the idea of using Play On to access Netflix and Hulu+. Play On has a fee on top of what you pay for your other subscriptions. This is where the Uebo fails in my opinion. They have the ability to update the M400′s firmware and it would be a nicer offering to have native Netflix and Hulu+ apps on the device. The Youtube app worked great, however I couldn’t figure out how to switch to full screen. Also, at some point while playing our test Youtube video, I lost control and couldn’t stop the video or go back to the main menu and had to restart the player. Since the included remote control doesn’t have a qwerty keyboard, I didn’t even bother trying to surf the net using the web browser.

Tapping into my network was easy. Just like on Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, I was able to see all of my folders and was even prompted to enter a password for my secure folders. All of my media came up just fine and I was able to stream directly to a 46″ Samsung TV through HDMI. The video quality was great, unless of course you had a poorly encoded file. I also tapped into my iTunes library and was able to play my music just fine. It also displays the title of your track on the LED. In using the device I found that the remote was sometimes unresponsive and required several clicks or pointing it directly at the Uebo to get a response.

The Uebo M400 is a beast of a media player. On the outside it’s a much more robust player than the Roku as it has i/o ports for every possible situation. It looks better than most media players, has an external antenna, which can be replaced or upgraded, and supports 1080p resolutions. The software could use some tweaking. I’d like to see a removal of Play On and native Netflix and Hulu+ apps added to future iterations of the Uebo M series. Even Boxee didn’t have Netflix to begin with, but later added a downloadable native application. I didn’t have an extra hard drive to install into the player but I had several terabytes on my network to play with. The device retails for $149 and is a steal if you are looking to expand your network media to your big screen tv’s.

M400 – Highlights

• USB 3.0 support for lightning fast file transfers.
• Supports up to the latest 3 TB HDD.
• Gigabit Ethernet Network for smooth HD playback.
• Built-in 802.11n WiFi.
• Supports all media file formats.
• True 1080p resolution plus HD surround sound.
• PC-Less Torrent Download, NAS, FTP, DLNA support.

M400 – Features

• Play-back All Audio, Video, Photo Files Format On Your HDTV or Standard TV
• Watch or Listen to Internet Content Like YouTube, Flickr, Internet Radio
• Use It As Internet Browser To Check Your Latest News, Sports, Social, etc.
• Watch Internet TV Channels Such As ESPN, NetFlix, CNN, TED w/PlayOn TV
• Use It As Secondary Data Storage Device When Connected To Computer
• Data Backup Server To Backup Data From Your External Storage Devices
• Playback Content From Your uPnP/DLNA Server Like DirecTV, Windows 7, etc.
• uPnP/DLNA Server To Stream Digital Media Content To PCs On Your Network
• Digital Signage Server To Playback Your Digital Signage or Video
• Unattended Torrent Download Station
• Windows/Mac File Sharing Server