Review of the Jobo Spectator

Price: £199
Jobo may be traditionally known for darkroom equipment, but recent years have seen its fortunes resurrected thanks to image storage. Joining portable image viewers / hard drives such as the GigaVu, the Jobo Spectator is the latest addition to the range. This tough-looking device is rather more pedestrian in design than the curvy Giga Vu, with a small 2in LCD screen and card slots for CompactFlash, SD and Sony’s Memory Stick media.

It’s a back-to-basics approach, with no support for multimedia files such as video and music, commonly found on other models such as the Epson series, or some of the Vosonic drives, so if you like music while you travel, don’t forget your iPod.

It also lacks Raw support, which considering its likely audience of DSLR users is somewhat restricting. This is compounded by the realisation that it’s Raw files that take up lots of media card memory, so the need to download Raw files on the move – say during a holiday – is the primary reason for buying a gadget such as this.

Finally, the quality of the screen is okay, but it’s smaller than those found on most current DSLRs, so the Spectator doesn’t offer any particular viewing advantages.

Our Verdict:
In all, this isn’t a groundbreaking or particularly great viewer, and doesn’t offer anything new or even cost-effective when compared with its competitors.

What We Like:
It works

What We Don't Like:
Small screen, lack of Raw support, no multimedia, average build

Score: 70%