AVF AVANZADO AH081: Black Beauty

Introduction and Design

More Than Meets The Eye

As the world of media entertainment moves into the digital format, we see the shift from optical storage options to HDDs and SSDs. From converting DVD's into virtual ISO formats to ripping Blu-ray quality full 1080p HD movies and storing them on a personal computer, media options are becoming more and more easy to handle as time passes by. So, it comes as no surprise that media players are starting to catch on in the consumer market because who wants a home entertainment system with many different players when you can have one box that does it all for you.

Unboxing the AVF AVANZADO AH081 media player, we were impressed by the sheer simplicity of the device. AVF has managed to master the 'less is more' technique when it comes to design because the unit looks incredibly elegant even with a minimal number of aesthetics features.

The glossy plastic surface of the front is a nice touch with only an LED ring off to the side which glows red when the unit is on standby and changes to a vibrant blue when switched on making sure it fits in inconspicuously with any modern home theater setting. Cold to the touch, the brushed aluminum surface gives the unit a pretty nice texture. It did feel slightly lighter than it should but mostly due to the fact that our test unit did not come with an internal HDD which we will elaborate more on later.

As usual, on the back of the unit there are all your I/O connectivity options. Apart from the standard HDMI, USB, mini-USB, composite output and DC-in slots, there are also a component output which supports up to 1080i and a coaxial plus optical slot for digital audio. To top it all off, there is a fan vent for keeping the device cool when things start to get hot in the living room.

The bundled remote on the other hand feels sufficiently sturdy. The layout is pretty standard with numerical buttons on the top, a directional pad in the middle and function buttons on the bottom which in our opinion is a little too cramped for comfort.