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First Portable Media Centers Hit Store Shelves
An anonymous reader writes "After months of speculation and hype, the first Portable Media Center based on Microsoft's 'Windows Mobile software for Portable Media Centers' has finally hit store shelves. The Zen Portable Media Center, from Creative Labs, is now available at Best Buy and Fry's Electronics, priced under $500. That money basically buys a 3.8-inch color LCD screen, ultra-fast USB 2.0 port to transfer video, music, and digital photos from your PC, and an internal 20 GB hard drive."
I have one (don't ask) and I'm really quite impressed with it. While it won't replace my iPod for music use, I really think that the video/tv functionality would be fantastic for someone who commutes to work on a bus or ferry every day.
The UI is clean and easy to use, and the sync works great. I also like that it is easy to configure the system to transcode (in the background) all of your content to lower quality in order to optimize space utilization.
These are actually surprisingly good tools. There's a good review here.
I will say, however, that if I had not gotten one for free (again, don't ask) then I don't think I would have been willing to pay $500 for one. When they either get down into the $350 range, or have MUCH higher capacities at the $500 price point perhaps.
jrjBlog
So when exactly did Slashdot jump the shark? Is there a specific date or story we can point to?
I mean, with every other story being press release, blog spam, or a rehash of the most recent issue of Wired what is the point of this place.
It's been bad for awhile, but it seems in the past month, month and a half it's just crossed the line to ridiculousness.
IMHO.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Which it will eventually- I think I just found a MUCH better solution to kid-in-the-car-on-a-long-trip boredom.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Interesting that they call it the "Zen", since Zen teaches inner contemplation and quiet listening to oneself and body, not MP3s.
So it has a color screen, sound volume control, all sorts of DRM support and costs almost $500? And I have no keyboard, no networking, no generic applications, it's just like a portable DVD player, but there's no DVD slot, just digital link?
Well, for $600 I can get this low-end laptop running Windows XP Home with wireless networking, 40 gig drive and DVD slot, which is capable of doing so much more, which pretty much includes all the options available in PMC.
For $300 the PMC might be interesting. For $100 it would be a hot seller. But $500? Give me a break.
I know, I can probably record it on my ReplayTV and then get it onto my PC and then onto the device, but I want it in one step!
Did Apple port a stripped down OS X for it, or even a Darwin framework?
They tried! Then they threw up their hands and hired an outside company, Pixo, to write the software for them. Otherwise it would have been another Copeland/Pink/Taligent disaster.Best Buy can have you arrested
my mobile does most of this but the screen is smaller...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Microsoft always wants to extend Windows even into areas where it does not belong.
:(
AMEN. Try having windows on your cellphone. It's absolutely miserable to deal with(work phone, otherwise I'd toss it in a heartbeat). Even simple tasks like dialing a phone number are long, arduous processes that involve re-keying often because I enter numbers too fast for the system to keep up. It's like having all the annoying problems of running windows on a low-end PC with none of the benefit.
Don't get me wrong, it's nice having so many features in my phone(email/instant messaging/etc), but couldn't they have at least left the core features like dialing ALONE?
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
A couple of hours ago I exchanged my new fourth generation 40GB iPod for one of these units.
...the unit seems to be dummed down to the point that it doesn't do very much besides play songs and movies. Given that the unit is running Windows CE.NET (v4.2 I think) I expected the unit to be loaded with PIM applications and such. But, there don't seem to be any such applications. The iPod provides such things as tasks, calender and notes viewing applications. I had expected the PMC to be more functional than the iPod, not less.
I loved my iPod, but it was unstable and locked up repeatedly. It was my second such iPod to do so. My first such iPod was one that I had bought only two weeks ago. I exchanged the first iPod for the second iPod because after only one day of use the first iPod had begun locking up. Many thanks to Best Buy for living up to their 30 day return policy.
Anyway, with regard to the Zen PMC, my initial impressions are mixed:
1. The unit is very large and bulky compared to an iPod. In fact, the unit is large enough that you'll have to wear very loose-fitting pants in order to carry the unit in your pocket. And the unit is too heavy to carry in your hand for a long period of time.
2. Installation of the battery is needlessly hazardous to the unit and is needlessly annoying. Before installing the battery, you must adjust a tiny, delicate on/off within the battery compartment to the "on" position using whatever small tool that you might have sitting nearby. If you're not careful you could *easily* break the switch by pushing too hard on it. Also, if you don't have a small tool (e.g. a jeweler's screwdriver) sitting nearby then you're not even going to be able to start using your unit. I was fortunate as after a few minutes of scrounging around I was able to find a jeweler's screwdriver. Had I not found a tool I would have been pretty pissed off. My iPod didn't require any such silliness.
3. The unit's buttons have a cheap feel to them. The "Back" button not only feels cheap, but is too far recessed into the casing to be easily used.
4. The top (user facing) half of the unit is made of glossy black plastic and therefore shows fingerprints a lot. Within a few seconds of being handled the unit no longer looks new.
5. (Completly subjective) The unit completely lacks the sexy, cool appearance of an iPod. If I were a Mac user (I'm a Windows and Linux user), I'd probably say that the PMC is to an iPod as a generic Wintel desktop box is to a Mac G5 desktop box.
6. The directions claim that you should charge the battery for *sixteen* hours before first use. Sixteen hours is a long time to wait before taking a new toy for a walk.
7. The unit's UI is very easy to figure out. Mostly that's because...
8.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. Without getting very far at all I got so annoyed with WMP 10 that I decided to post these comments. WMP 10 is bad in several ways. First, WMP 10 is still in beta. That's right. In order to get music onto your new $500 PMC, you're going to have to use beta software. Thanks Microsoft. And this is not just any beta software. This is software that installs a bunch of DRM stuff onto your computer. In fact, there are several steps in the installation procedure where you encounter DRM-related dialog boxes. These dialog boxes explain things such as the fact that the installer connects to Microsoft's servers to register your computer with Microsoft so Microsoft can assign your machine some sort DRM ticket. Depending upon how you feel about DRM, you might not be too happy about any of this.
10. Using WMP 10 to synchronize with the PMC seems to be broken. I keep telling it to synchronize and it keeps pretending that it is, but it isn't. I have about 16GB of songs to synchronize. With my iPod, I had the process of synchronization completed in less than an hour. I just plugged in my iPod to the cradle and everything just worked. With the PMC