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What A Portable Media Center Might Look Like

Posted by timothy on from the joy-of-buzzwords dept.

An anonymous reader writes "From the Redmond's answer to iPOD dept... While wandering the exhibitor aisles at Embedded DevCon, we were drawn to this slick looking reference design board in the Freescale (formerly Motorola Semiconductor) booth. The Portable Media Player Reference Design, a.k.a. "Jazz", is based on a Freescale i.MX21 embedded processor, runs Windows CE, and is compliant with Microsoft's Portable Media Center (PMC) standard. PMCs, Microsoft's answer to the iPOD, will initially support digital music and videos, digitally recorded television shows, and digital photos."

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not an iPod killer by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I dont think this is designed to complete with the iPod at all. Looks like they are trying to create a whole new device market here.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  2. Re:No one can beat iPod by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    iPod is #1 because of marketing, pure and simple. They're selling a branded lifestyle, not electronics.

    Designer jeans don't cost so much more because they're necessarily better, or of a higher quality construction, etc..

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  3. Re:Not an iPod killer by kevlar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't supposed to compete with the iPod. The LCD screen alone is the size of a PocketPC screen, but has incredible resolution, so much to the point where you look at it and you FEEL like you're looking at a much larger high-res screen. (I am speaking from personal experience).

    Yes it plays MP3's, VCD's, etc etc and uses hard drives for storage (they might have a CF version, I don't recall), but its definately not an iPod competitor based on its dimensions alone. It is still _VERY_ cool, and I wonder if their intention is to turn this into some sort of Game Boy Advanced device a-la XBox Embedded or something to that effect. That would be pretty cool....

  4. Right approach by coolsva · · Score: 5, Insightful
    iPod isn't popular because it can do a lot, rather, because it is simple to use and very limited in what it can do. But what I can do, it does it very well. I don't need 3 rocking buttons, 5 regular silver buttons, one jog dial having a zillion functions to play my music.
    Walkman, before this, was popular not because it offered equalizer (it didnt), radio (initially, it didnt), multiple headphone jacks etc. It was popular because it was simple.

    If you want to make a iPod killer, make a device that is simple to use, good 'OS' (that has AI like remember my favorites and gives them priority in random mode), practical capacity (not insane sizes like 40GB, who has or wants 10,000 songs on their palm?).

    Oh, it also has to look cool and not be a commodity. And, did I say, no DRM?