Wolverine ESP 120 GB Portable Multimedia Storage Player

Once I figured out how to use some of its features, the wolverine was reasonable easy to use. The manual was not very helpful, so I still do not know how to do certain tasks. Overall, I was disappointed. The LCD resolution is average, but the colors do seem to be true. The switches are not as substantial as I would expect, but they do seem to perform adequately. Next time, I will investigate a little further before purchasing.

I purchased the ESP 120 after reviewing other similar products.
I am cery satisfied with the quality (appearance and workmanship)of the product and the performance.
The main purpose for me is to download photographs when on location without PC or laptop. My files are usually large (40 MB+ RAW), and the speed and space (120 GB) for downloads is amazing.
It has an FM radio as well.
Highly Recommended!
Werner Hennies

I have the ESP 100gb version of the Wolverine. This is a must have for any photographer that makes their living from their photo files. This device is always with me at every shoot and allows me to effortlessly archive my .raw files immediately after swapping cards in my Nikon D200 - the old card comes out of my camera and straight into the ESP. I never leave a job without the shoot "in the can".

The ESP also lets me review the files with the client on a larger screen than the camera (it even has a slideshow mode). Or I can plug it into a monitor using the remote recording/playback cable (which does everything the dock does, except charge the unit, for a lot less money).

One of the nicest features is the ability to save hundreds of hours of audio recorded through the on-board microphone. Though the audio files are a proprietary mono format (there is aftermarket software that will allow you to convert the files to play on other devices) the device has come in handy to record interviews with my clients and for other meetings many times with excellent results.

I agree that a playlist feature would be nice but it is a small inconvenience for having an archive vault that will fit in my pocket (I never keep the ESP in my camera bag... I keep it on my person so if anyone ever steals my bag or it is confiscated by TSA, I have all of my work safely with me.

I just finished a 70 day road trip and took 10,000 .raw files along the way (www.scottyanddeb.blogspot.com). Every file fit nicely on the ESP (close to 80gb total).

I just wanted to let people know that the operating system has a 128 GB limit due to address bits, so even if you buy a 160 GB drive for it, only 128GB will be visable. To change the disk you only need to remove 2 screws - the one under the square silver warantee void sticker (which goes back OK) and its counterpart. The drive cover then slips off, you remove the old drive, install the new one (80,100,120,160 GB but 128 max capacity) and put only those 2 screws back in (don't mess with the two deep screws) - now go to the drive which will have a red NFA on it (Not FormAteed) - menu click on it and click format drive - it takes 30 seconds or so for a 160 to be a 128, and then you have the maximum capacity. With the price of drives dropping, their cheaper model plus a 120GB drive at a discount is a 5 minute swapout, plus you can put the 80 GB into a portable USB drive case. I did this when I first bought my 80 GB with plans to upgrade it when drive prices fell far enough and got 128 instead of 80 GB on my mp3 player / camera dumper / usb2.0 disk.

I still think the Wolverine is a great overall product and beats the apple version feature wise (but not thickness wise) - being able to dump my CF cards on vacation to the MP3 player is a significant feature that the pod's dont have.

Hope that helps - the drive upgrade is simple, 5 minutes, and needs a Philips #00 screwdriver to complete.

Prior to purchasing the Wolverine EPS 120, I owned an Archos Jukebox v.2 20 gig MP3 player. The player had a small screen and was not very intuitive to navigate. (Replacing the native OS with Rockbox OS helped tremendously.)

My primary reasons for purchasing this player were to be able to backup pictures from my Fujifilm S9100, to have a backup of critical data files, and play MP3 and OGG files. So far, the Wolverine does all of these beautifully. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the device could view the RAW files from my digicam.

My only complaint is the lack of an easy-to-use playlist. Currently, you have to go through several arcane levels of menus (like loading files and then putting the jukebox into the background to be able to add more files). This may be fixed in future firmware updates.