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Microsoft's iPod-Killer: Portable Media Center?
securitas writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop reports on what's billed as an iPod-killer: the Microsoft Portable Media Center line of digital media players that 'will store and play back video, music and photos.' The devices are expected to be demonstrated at CES this week. Hardware manufacturers Samsung, ViewSonic, iRiver, and Creative are apparently developing versions of the devices that 'will run a specialized version of Windows CE.' Analysts say that the PMCs will come with 40 GB hard drives and retail for $400 to $700. I got a look at an early version of the RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox mentioned unfavorably in the article due to its size. The size is a function of needing a reasonably-sized screen to watch video. The article has an image of a Portable Media Center prototype. The devices are slated to ship in the second half of 2004."
No way you're going to get the 128kbps internet radio that most are used to... you could make a case for 56K audio designed to be streamed from a modem, but realistically, from a cell phone you'll more likely to be getting the low end of 20-60 kbps, that ain't gonna happen either...
Highly unlikely, with the technologies that are around right now, and really, internet radio this way would be far too costly and lousy sounding.
It's really no surprise that everyone here is quick to point at the PMC and declare that it is useless. What is surprising is that a group of such 'gifted' people can't bring themselves to recognize any reality besides their own.
Millions of people around the world commute by train or bus every day. A PMC is designed almost specifically for these people.
But that's not really where the PMC is headed, if you read between the lines. MS wants to be "the king of all media" and if you could download your TiVo'd shows onto your PMC, you could then watch your shows at your leisure wherever you were. Likewise, as these things grow a video out port, you will be able to playback any saved video on any display device.
The PMC is not an iPod killer. They aren't even competitors.
I have been pwned because my
Windows CE is not that bad. It's also not called "Windows CE" anymore. But anyway: there are several reasons this is not an iPod killer per se. Mostly because it does not beat the iPod in any of the areas in which the iPod excels: being a very small, very light, fairly durable, tightly enclosed music device with good battery life and a nice interface. MS's stuff is going to be necessarily larger, necesarily heavier, necesarily more precarious unless they ruggedize the HELL out of those LCDs and reinforce the plastic grating over the speaker. Battery life will probably be about the same as a portable DVD player, and if the interface is anything like Pocket Media Player, it's got NOTHING on the iPod.
In short: this looks like it has exactly the same features and price point as the device I traded in for my iPod, a Toshiba PocketPC. And just like the PocketPC, it'll have limited appeal which becomes even MORE limited when Joe Q. Fancydevice realizes how hard it is to get first run movies onto it...i mean, how fast can the processor be in these things and still keep battery life?
Still, competition is good for the industry. The market pressure will force Apple to make iTunes even better (and there's room for that). But I don't think they have too much to worry about...a bigass laptop wannabe is NOT in the same league as a tiny little music device.
Hey freaks: now you're ju