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."

Just Great!

[intekra]

More goodies to spend my unemployment check on!

Robotic Women?

[joeldixon66]

From TFA: And please, I don't mean to get you worried at this point, I don't find them attractive in a sexual way or anything like that, I'm much more drawn to a nice 5'8" red head than anything made of silicon, LOL, err, no pun intended.

If only there was a way to combine the red head with the silicon. *ponders*

Re:Robotic Women?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there was a way to combine the red head with the silicon. *ponders*

Not yet, but with today's technology we can combine red heads with silicone [google.com].

Philistine!

[spellraiser]

Overall, I'm looking forward to reviews of the non-Creative devices.

I'm not. As a patron of the arts, I find this statement unexplicable. Creativity is what separates us from the lower animals! It is the foundation of civilization!

Go and play with your non-Creative devices, plebeian. Some people were just not born to appreciate the finer things in life. Run along now, you're cramping my contemptuos sneer.

"non-Creative" devices...

[gargonia]

If it's a Microsoft product I'm pretty sure you can count on it being non-creative.

Re:Philistine!

[oacis]

I think he means devices which are not under the brand name Creative (a la Creative SoundBlaster, Zen Touch)

see Creative [creative.com] for an expansive list

WMP10 Feature

[mrchaotica]

FTA:

"But really one of the main things in WMP10 is Janus [DRM technology]."

<sarcasm>Remember, kids, it's a feature, not a bug!!</sarcasm>

Re:It's a blog!

[mrchaotica]

that thing looks huge. It has a GUI, for cryin' out loud!

It looks to me like it was designed by the same guy responsible for the Xbox, and more importantly, the original big chunky controller.

Yeah, this is going to TOTALLY smoke the iPod.

[Moofie]

I mean, come on! It's full of Microsoft goodness! Just look at the fun you can have trying to turn it on!

I unplug it and try turning it on, it doesn't come on, I take the battery out and pop it back in, still nothing. Keep the battery out and plug it in, still nothing, then I pull the power out slowly and with the plug in half way the screen goes white. I was baffled. I thought the device might be dead. After letting it charge again for another hour or so I tried again, still nothing. I tried some tricks to get it to turn on that sometimes work with electronics and such. Like holding the power button in and popping the battery in and plugging it in, trying the reset button, holding the Start (aka green) button and pressing power, everything I could come up with. Finally, somehow the device turned on.

Yeah, I'm going to break my iPod into teeny little pieces and use the polycarbonate shards to open my veins before I buy one of these POSes.

Re:DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think DRM is great because it prevents people from listening to music that sounds like shit anyway.

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty small, lightweight, and easy-to-carry device.

Sincerely,

The '80s Cell Phone

Obligatory...

[p0]

Yeah it looks nice, but does it run linux?

Re:It's a blog!

[KarmaBlackballed]

204GB of music. Wonder if the RIAA reads slashdot.

Re:Non-Creative devices?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people do not want to use apple products for fear of being labeled gay. It is even seen here on slashdot. Someone says that they own a powerbook and you get at least one post calling them gay. But microsoft is not thought of as gay because everyone uses their products. Microsoft and Apple are the only two companys who currently make operating systems and most all heterosexual people use windows.

Yes. I realize that many people, especially slashdot readership, still use wierd old computers from the 1980's like Ataris, Amigas and TRS-80s but the average business person uses windows.

By the way. I have been unable to properly navigate to slashdot by using the correct AOL keyword in my web browser. Does slashdot even have an AOL keyword? Does AOL even run on your Amigas and TRS-80s? If you people ever want to get real jobs in the real IT world you need to ditch your archaic machines and buy some newer Dell or Gateway eMachines running Windows XP. Just a bit of friendly advice! :-)

-Jennifer Hull
-Webmaster
-Computer Specialist
-Karate Black Belt
-Grand Rapids Citizen Corps Founder

Re:Robotic Women?

[Bombcar]

You mean like:

\documentstyle{redhead}
\begin{woman}
\height{5ft8in}
\end{woman}

Re:Philistine!

[Bombcar]

Sound level of a 747 at 50,000 feet: 1dB
Sound level of a 747 taking off next to you: 120dB
Sound level of a F-16 doing mach 2: 160dB
Sound level of a joke flying right over your head: 180dB

Article Summary

[Sinner]

Corey Gouker is a 20 year-old geek who likes 5'8" redheads. He sits on 204 GB of music. He has one media device. His hobbies including hanging out in Microsoft newsgroups.

He is reviewing Microsoft's "iPod killer". It is gonna be like iTunes, except instead of buying music, you rent it. We all know this is a foolproof business model. It is loaded up to the gills with more of that tasty DRM that everyone loves.

The first thing he did was plug it in to the mains. Then he tried to take it apart. I think we have a potential Darwin Award nominee, folks. Then he had trouble turning it on.

The device has a 400MHz XScale CPU and 64Mb of RAM. It can play videos on its 320x240 screen. It performs well, apart from the artifacts and frame drops.

The device has cables coming out of every side but one. The good news is, you can add blue LEDs and make it really sexy.

Battery life is 22 hours for audio and 7 hours for video. The device weighs as much as a can of coke.

If you scroll to the bottom, you can download a 23Mb video. I'm too bored to watch it, maybe someone else can post a summary of that.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Writer]

I think it will really take off and everyone will have one!

Sincerely,

Betamax

Gotcha...

[ayjay29]

>>I was sitting on a 204GB collection of music. That's approximately 44,190 tracks for the curious. My main Media Center Edition PC has a 250GB HDD which at any given time has about 200GB of recorded TV. Then there's about 500 or so DVDs as well.

This is the RIAA.

You are surounded.

Come out with your hands up.

Article Summary

[callipygian-showsyst]

For those who don't want to read the whole thing.

Hi! My name is Corey! I love myself. I'm a big geek and take lots of photos and have a big movie collection. And I like girls! I spend all my time on the Internet chatting about stuff

I spend lots of money on electronic things. And because I'm so important and special I got a Portable Media Center! It's way cool! It's not an iPod! It's something different

I have such a large movie collection, I'll wear once of these out a week! I have lots of on-line friends who love to read my blog. I live in my parents basement

Even though I just said I'm an ultra high-tech geek, I serve this web site on a slow DSL connection from my l33t Linux box. Please use a mirror!