The A.C. Ryan PlayOn!HD2 brings the Playon!HD line right up to date. The player continues the legacy of the famous PlayOn!HD series with a faster Realtek processor and several other improvements. Listing the positives, we found the player to be more complete than the previous series offering a wider compatibility for both Video/Audio formats and Internet services. The version we tested included an 1TB HDD Samsung HDD, which is generally silent and cool. Of course you can buy the PlayOn!HD2 without any HDD and install your own. The EZ Drive slot mechanism will make the installation a breeze.

The player's design has not changed much compared to the company's previous line but still, it will look great in your living room/ playroom.

The player supports almost all the video formats including the CPU-demanding x264 1080p encoded files with DTS sound. Moreover, if you have a collection of Blu-Ray ISOs, now you can enjoy also use and enjoy their menus. You can listen Dolby Digital+ 7.1 & Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio tracks, either from the HDMI cable or through the two other output connectors of the PlayOn!HD2 player. Subtitles are also clear and easy to read and the new gorgeous-looking GUI 2.0 offers many settings and easy navigation through windows.

In case you also have USB 3.0 devices, the PlayOn!HD2 will support it offering fast copying to internal disk drive. The YAMJ option offers high quality covers and enjoyable movie/series as well as a good amount of information.

Listing some negatives too, we found the player a little noisy when were watching movies at low volume. The GUI 2.0 could be more responsive and copying speeds over network/USB2.0 ports were not what we expected in terms of transfer rate speeds. The Internet services could be also improved in order to offer an experience similar to what you have get used to with PC systems. We also experienced problems getting the player wirelessly connected to our network, which should be improved. Possibly A.C. Ryan could solve the issues by offering a chassis-integrated WiFi as standard.

To sum up, compared to the company's previous series of players, the PlayOn!HD2 player comes with USB 3.0 connectivity, Gigabit LAN, easy-access hard-drive mounting and a newer and a fresher interface with social media apps. It offers stable video playback operation and tons of features. AC Ryan has an active forum to seek for information related to the player and offers frequent firmware upgrades that improve the player's performance and add new features.

If you can afford around €250 Euro, the PlayOnHD2! with 1TB HDD onboard could become your best friend in your living room next to your TV.

Positive

- Full retail package - HDMI v1.3 cable included
- Can playback almost anything from mpeg 1, 2, 4 ASP & AVC formats
- Can playback almost all audio formats (mp3, AAC, Flac, Ogg, WMA, RA)
- Supports 1080p and DTS soundtracks
- Includes 1TB 3.5" HDD (with support for up to 2TB)
- Includes 2x USB2.0 and USB3.0
- Supports both Wifi and wired lan connection
- Stable playback for all video/audio formats
- Supports playback of DVD-Video and Blu-Ray ISOs with menu support
- Support for UPnP streaming
- Supports 1Gbit video streaming
- Remote control layout looks improved
- Very good subtitle support for a variety of languages
- Can be used as an FTP server
- YAMJ works very good, provided that you use proper naming for your files
- Many Internet Widgets (Facebook, msn, twitter, etc..) and support for external USB keyboard/mouse

Negative

- Local LAN copying speeds are slow
- USB/SD Card copying speeds are rather low
- Internet services are slow and you can't really use the USB mouse (no cursor)
- Device a little noisy when you play low-volume movies
- Wifi module costs extra bucks to buy and may cause wireless connectivity issues