I was planning on waiting a few days to talk about this...but I just can't. On Friday, I received my Aluratek Cinepal multimedia player. After charging it and loading up a few jdorama episodes, it was ready to go for my daughter's Saturday morning swim class. I expected it to do "OK." It did a lot better than that. It blew my expectations away. For my first viewing, I used the earbuds that are included in the box. They are rather uncomfortable, but so are most packaged earbuds. The sound still came through nicely. There was no fuzziness, even when I had to turn the volume up to overcome a very loud swim instructor. Acceptable but not preferable.

The video, however, was beautiful. Absolutely no artifacting or slowness at all. It even handled the subtitles well. My one complaint here is that it auto-plays the next video if you have more than one uploaded. I had the first and second episodes of Tsuki no Koibito ready to go. Once the first episode ended, the second immediately started. I would prefer to make that selection on my own. But that really is a minor complaint that is more of a preference anyway.

Today, I used the device's speakers to listen to the second episode. They aren't anything amazing but they are adequate. No fuzziness or tinniness or anything distracting. Just don't expect to be amazed by them. However, I would suggest using the speakers over the earbuds. The speakers sound better and it will eliminate the uncomfortableness of the earbuds.

I can't believe how awesome this 8.9" media player is. It doesn't play video games, like an iPad, but it will play mp3s, be an eReader, and be a photo album. If you're looking to pick one up, I got mine at Newegg. Hopefully you will be as happy as I am.