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Microsoft Portable Media Center Reviewed
dhopton writes "The first public review of the PMC that I've seen is interesting. It's critical in places, but also praises. It also covers Windows Media Player 10 to some extent. Overall, I'm looking forward to reviews of the non-Creative devices."
I'm pretty much an average geek...
As Homestar would say: More like NOT AVERAGE GEEK!
This guy has a real hate on for Apple doesn't he?
"I'm Corey Gouker (obviously); I'm a Media Center MVP who hangs out in the Microsoft newsgroups for everything Digital Media and Media Center related."
Also worth noting that the review was posted by someone likely to exhibit bias. I did not RT whole FA (did you see how long that thing was?!), so it may be completely impartial, just something to keep in mind...
It's long-winded, reminescent of Jerry Pournelle's columns in Byte. It takes forever to get to the point. It's from a guy who (apparently) has a 204 MB music collection!
And we should pay attention to him why?
P.S. that thing looks huge. It has a GUI, for cryin' out loud!
Site is already slashdotted but why are we supposed to read a review on a blog on coreygouker.com? Is there not some more reliable site we could get a review from? Maybe a little background on who this Corey guy is would be nice?
Yeah. Gouker even seems to feel that licensing, rather than owning, music is the way to go. Maybe it is if all you listen to is here today, gone tomorrow top-40 crud that you'll be bored with in a month.
It's a Media Center, perhaps, but it looks about as portable as a Mac Portable. Can I carry it with me? Sure. Do I _want_ to carry it with me? Absolutely not.
Ignoring it's Microsoft, and ignoring that there will probably be a million posts about iPod in a few seconds, I think this is going to be very interesting to watch for an entertainment and psychological standpoint (outside tech).
Will people actually carry one of these around for their commutes? How much of an increase will we see in TV viewing? Will it contribute to the growing social isolation I'm beginning to see (a world full of people wearing headphones)?
I'd give it a few revisions and then consider buying one.
Archos has had these kinds of portable media players out for at least a year now..with no drm, and recording from video sources to mpeg4 or divx I believe. Definitely something fishy in that blog
Techno-saavy users who want to watch / listen to media on the go? I may be in the minority, but a main reason I have a laptop is so I can play my movies and music on the go. (Oh, there's that whole job thing too...)
Mr. & Ms. Adult Consumer? They don't know what "Creative" is unless they also fit into the computer geek category. They're going to spend their money on the portable DVD player for home and car at Wal-Mart or Best Buy.
Mr. & Ms. Consumer's kids? They're going to go with what all the "cool kids" have, and around here that'd be an iPod.
I think only the techno-saavy are going to go for this, and look how many of them won't buy these things because of DRM or Apple loyalty or because they already own 3 other devices that'll do the same things and possibly do them better. I just don't understand how the companies expect to crack this market.
Any article that has "LOL" in it is not worth reading.
Your friendly neighbourhood troll.
more disappointing then this article is the fact that it has not been slashdotted.
/. reads the articles, how are these sites getting slashdotted?
BTW: if nobody on
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wow. This guy is a dork. If he's the market for the PMC, Apple has nothing to worry about -- nothing these guys think is cool EVER becomes popular.
I mean, shit, remember the Archos? I had to listen to assholes tell me how great that ten pound, boat sized piece of shit was for three years. Then when I bought my svelte little 30 gig, I had to listen to them scoff about how it does nothing new and had a small screen and terrible battery life and no microphone or radio or ogg features.
Man, STFU. Nobody cares who made your webcam or what make and model your 7.1 speaker system is or how many MP3s you pirated from eJackass. Just tell us: was the thing convenient, did it have good response from the controls, was it easy to get your shit on and off it, was it comfortable to hold, did it feel durable, and is it worth $300 over the cost of a comparable iPod?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Actually, considering how many people still use and defend Apple's failures (G4 Cube, Newton), one could argue that Apple doesn't usually design a crappy product, but sometimes overestimates the demand for it at the price point they use.
Fellowship 9/11
I believe it's a setup too. Google "Corey Gouker"... Wade through some of the results, interesting what you'll find.
This is either the biggest-- and most clueless-- Microsoft fanboy in existence, or Microsoft's ad department is creating a fake blogger (actually, blog community) to give their products some "street cred."
with all these bells and whistles and Janis DRM glistening in the sun, did they installan ALARM CLOCK? Or is that just too passé?
/.BANG
... as Tablet PC's. iPod killer, my ass. This thing is too big. If portable TV's were popular, people would be carrying them everywhere, but they're not. There are portable DVD players out there, but I've never actually seen anyone running around with one either. Microsoft just thought "hey, let's make it better than the iPod by adding video." Unfortunately, that was the wrong idea.
If they had any brains, they would simply add HD capacities to their existing Pocket PC PDA's so they could store a lot of media. Something this size would only catch on if it were a portable XBox, combining the Media Center features with it. In fact, if they combined the XBox and a Windows Media Center set-top box, and let this thing be a portable extension, then maybe this would work. Then again, why bother with that kind of a setup if this device is already on the market?