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PoGo! Products Flipster

Small handheld multimedia player lets you watch video, listen to music, view photos, and record your voice. See it in action, Thursday 5/16 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on 'Tech Live.'

By Robert Heron
May 8, 2002


Modern compression technologies allow portable players to do more than hold hours of our favorite songs. TechTV Labs has been experimenting with video compression using the DivX codec and its ability to generate MPEG-4 (MP4) compatible files. When a new personal media player arrived claiming to support MP4, "Fresh Gear" had to take a closer look.

The Flipster from PoGo! Products is a portable multimedia device for those who need a little bit of everything. Besides supporting a variety of digital audio formats, the Flipster is among the first of a new generation of portable media players that can decode and display MPEG-4 video. However, the Flipster's support of MPEG-4 is limited to Windows Media formats and not actual MP4 files. If you have been encoding your videos into MP4 in the hope of displaying them on a portable device, the wait continues.




What Can't Flipster Do?

With a clamshell design that could easily be mistaken for a cellphone, the Flipster is a Windows CE device with a color display and a 17-button navigation pad.


Equipped with 64MB of Flash memory and a MultiMediaCard (MMC) and Secure Digital (SD) card slot for additional storage, the Flipster comes preloaded with a simple personal information manager and a "Tetris"-style game. Despite being a Windows CE device, the Flipster uses an optimized version of the operating system and is unable to run standard third-party CE applications. At the time of writing this article, no additional applications or software updates were available on the PoGo! Products website.


Audio, video, and photos


For your music needs, the Flipster offers native support for MP3, AAC (advanced audio codec), and WMA digital audio formats. On the video side of things, the $399 Flipster's 2.5-inch backlit TFT display will not win any awards for image quality. PoGo! suggests encoding video clips at the Flipster's 160x234 native resolution at 10 fps. The recommended video bitrate of 156 Kbps seemed a good match for its 206-MHz Intel StrongArm processor, but encoding any clip with a frame rate higher than 10 fps resulted in choppy playback. The Flipster also doubles as a digital photo album with support for GIF, JPG, and BMP image formats.

PoGo! Products claims the Flipster -- which is powered by a rechargeable Lithium polymer battery -- will run for about 3.5 hours when displaying video clips and about eight hours when playing digital audio.


Voice recording


The Flipster links to a PC through a USB cradle. The included Motion-I software provides an Explorer-like interface for uploading files to the device. In addition, the Flipster includes an integrated microphone for WAV voice recording and a built-in speaker for previewing multimedia files when headphones are not available.

Pros, Cons, and Specs

The Flipster is the smallest personal video player we have seen. However, we were disappointed that a $400 device that claims MP4 support would not play our MP4 or DivX video files. It wouldn't surprise us to see competing products offering similar functionality on the market soon.


Summary: The Flipster is a portable multimedia device that supports common digital audio formats as well as Windows Media video files.


Pros: Supports common digital audio formats; will play Windows Media videos.


Cons: No MP4 file support; poor-quality display; lack of applications.


Company: PoGo! Products
Phone: [phone]
Price: $399
Available: Now
Category: Personal multimedia player
Platform: Windows CE
Specs: 64MB Flash memory; 206-MHz Intel StrongArm CPU; 2.5-inch TFT display; resolution: 160x234; MMC/SD media card compatible; supported digital audio formats: MP3, WMA, AAC; supported digital video formats: ASF, WMV; supported still image formats: BMP, JPG, GIF.