ptorrone writes "The Portable Media Center is officially shipping today, along with announcements of more TV Tuner and recording hardware. The NYTimes covers some of this and Engadget has an in-depth review with photos, screenshots, videos and how to convert DVDs to play on these devices."
Re:Kinda small but they will sell
by
skiflyer
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Long train commutes. I work in Chicago, and mercifully live blocks from the office, but many of my office mates travel an hour plus on train. If they could combine this with their Tivo's I can imagine it getting alot of play.
Also, if they can host USB on these to offload your camera pics that'd be a nice feature (like the iRiver iHP300 series audio players).
But I think the big one here is for the commuters that don't read newspapers or books.
Re:Kinda small but they will sell
by
zonker
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
neat, but pricey. kinda annoying that you can't play a dvd disc on it, as you aren't going to always have access to a pc to rip it. it'll be interesting to see if and how these translate from the bleeding edge buyers to everyday folks...
No thanks. Give me a cheap laptop or tablet with XGA.
If Apple Did It It Might Be Worth It
by
The+Lost+Supertone
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If Apple found a way to make a portable video iPod branded whatever... it'd probably sell but it would by far be the least profitable model. They'd have to have a huge mark up to cover the costs of just having the thing. But the only company I would ever buy one of these from is Apple.. why? Because they're not making one! Why aren't they making one? Because it's a bad idea! OK take it in the car with you, most people who want this sort of thing will have built in TVs in their cars now. The rest of us... buy a bloody laptop and a car adapter. For double the cost you can do a ton more.
If this was a portable computer and priced this way with tons of features including music, light graphic manipulation etc it'd be worth it. But a solitary device for video and music, it's a dumb idea, it's not useful enough to regularly use.
I'm sure the market for these is there, I just don't think it's big, or the people in it are all that bright.
Re:If Apple Did It It Might Be Worth It
by
Opticalsky
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Apple isn't like most companies out there, they aren't ones to jump into a brand new idea and try to make money off of it, they wait for the market to mature, and apparently this market is brand new. The reason which I believe Apple is successful on some of their products is how they will read what customers want on these new devices and such, and make their own unique version of it. Apple didn't jump into the mp3 scene right away, they waited for the market to mature before introducing the iPod. So therefore you really can't say this is a bad idea, because there are some people out there willing to purchase something like this.
Re:If Apple Did It It Might Be Worth It
by
Frankie70
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Apple didn't jump into the mp3 scene right away, they waited for the market to mature before introducing the iPod
So what other products of Apple did you see this in? i.e. the waiting for the market to mature thing.
Other than the IPod?
Re:Kinda small but they will sell
by
Judg3
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Definately! Although I'm in Minneapolis now, for over a year I lived in Kenosha, WI and took the metra into Chicago - an hour and 45 minute ride each way. This thing would have been nice to have. Then again my laptop did the job quite well to.
(I went from a 20 minute commute from the NW side of Chicago to almost 2 hours - all because I was in love hehe)
-- Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
My kind of thing. WAIT NO DivX?
by
psyburn
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I listen to music all the time and have my own collection of movies I like to play on the go.
Sounds like a great device.
The my wallet gives a reality check. At $500, I think a cheap $800 Dell or PCClub laptop would do more for me than the PMC.
Except for the boot time and battery life, I would love to have one in a heartbeat....
-- This was brought to you buy the Department of Redundancy Department
I returned mine less than 24 hours after buying it
by
DougDew
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
On Thursday afternoon I bought one of these PMCs from Best Buy. On Friday morning I returned it.
I returned it because, plain and simple, it sucks.
Before I explain some of the ways that it sucks, let me first say that I bought the PMC on Thursday in exchange for a misbehaving 40GB 4th generation iPod. I loved the iPod, but was concerned that the iPod had stability problems. Having gone through two unstable iPods, I thought, "What the Hell, maybe a Microsoft/Creative device could work" and so decided to give the PMC a try. Within a few hours of trying I concluded that I would rather have an unstable iPod than a sucky and almost unusable PMC. So, when I returned the PMC I exchanged it for another iPod.
Anyway, here are some of the problems that I found with the PMC:
1. The PMC 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 switch 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. In gneral, I'd predict that because many of the unit's buttons protrude from the unit and are so cheap that they would not survive normal everday wear and tear.
4. The unit's size and buttons make it impossible to operate the unit with just one hand. This is unacceptable for common everyday usage where one of your hands might be holding a cup of coffee, a newspaper or a cigarette.
5. 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 and instead looks kind of gross.
6. 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. The unit looks like one of those things designed by someone who has no sense of style.
7. 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.
8. Although the unit's UI seems to be easy to figure out, mostly this seems to be because the feature set of the unit has been dummed down to the point that the unit 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. In fact, I had expected to be able to write.NET Compact Framework apps for the unit, but there doesn't seem to be any provision in the unit's UI (i.e. no "Start" menu) for running custom apps.
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. 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. Than
Slashdot Mirror
Long train commutes. I work in Chicago, and mercifully live blocks from the office, but many of my office mates travel an hour plus on train. If they could combine this with their Tivo's I can imagine it getting alot of play.
Also, if they can host USB on these to offload your camera pics that'd be a nice feature (like the iRiver iHP300 series audio players).
But I think the big one here is for the commuters that don't read newspapers or books.
neat, but pricey. kinda annoying that you can't play a dvd disc on it, as you aren't going to always have access to a pc to rip it. it'll be interesting to see if and how these translate from the bleeding edge buyers to everyday folks...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Screen resolution: 320x240 pixels
No thanks. Give me a cheap laptop or tablet with XGA.
If Apple found a way to make a portable video iPod branded whatever... it'd probably sell but it would by far be the least profitable model. They'd have to have a huge mark up to cover the costs of just having the thing. But the only company I would ever buy one of these from is Apple.. why? Because they're not making one! Why aren't they making one? Because it's a bad idea! OK take it in the car with you, most people who want this sort of thing will have built in TVs in their cars now. The rest of us... buy a bloody laptop and a car adapter. For double the cost you can do a ton more. If this was a portable computer and priced this way with tons of features including music, light graphic manipulation etc it'd be worth it. But a solitary device for video and music, it's a dumb idea, it's not useful enough to regularly use. I'm sure the market for these is there, I just don't think it's big, or the people in it are all that bright.
Definately!
Although I'm in Minneapolis now, for over a year I lived in Kenosha, WI and took the metra into Chicago - an hour and 45 minute ride each way. This thing would have been nice to have. Then again my laptop did the job quite well to.
(I went from a 20 minute commute from the NW side of Chicago to almost 2 hours - all because I was in love hehe)
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
I listen to music all the time and have my own collection of movies I like to play on the go. Sounds like a great device. The my wallet gives a reality check. At $500, I think a cheap $800 Dell or PCClub laptop would do more for me than the PMC. Except for the boot time and battery life, I would love to have one in a heartbeat....
This was brought to you buy the Department of Redundancy Department
On Thursday afternoon I bought one of these PMCs from Best Buy. On Friday morning I returned it.
.NET Compact Framework apps for the unit, but there doesn't seem to be any provision in the unit's UI (i.e. no "Start" menu) for running custom apps.
I returned it because, plain and simple, it sucks.
Before I explain some of the ways that it sucks, let me first say that I bought the PMC on Thursday in exchange for a misbehaving 40GB 4th generation iPod. I loved the iPod, but was concerned that the iPod had stability problems. Having gone through two unstable iPods, I thought, "What the Hell, maybe a Microsoft/Creative device could work" and so decided to give the PMC a try. Within a few hours of trying I concluded that I would rather have an unstable iPod than a sucky and almost unusable PMC. So, when I returned the PMC I exchanged it for another iPod.
Anyway, here are some of the problems that I found with the PMC:
1. The PMC 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 switch 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. In gneral, I'd predict that because many of the unit's buttons protrude from the unit and are so cheap that they would not survive normal everday wear and tear.
4. The unit's size and buttons make it impossible to operate the unit with just one hand. This is unacceptable for common everyday usage where one of your hands might be holding a cup of coffee, a newspaper or a cigarette.
5. 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 and instead looks kind of gross.
6. 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. The unit looks like one of those things designed by someone who has no sense of style.
7. 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.
8. Although the unit's UI seems to be easy to figure out, mostly this seems to be because the feature set of the unit has been dummed down to the point that the unit 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. In fact, I had expected to be able to write
9. Windows Media Player 10 is required in order to synchronize the PMC with your PC. 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. Than