Microsoft Portable Media Center Reviewed 177
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."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
My favorite quote (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy has a real hate on for Apple doesn't he?
Re:DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 a blog! (Score:4, Insightful)
And we should pay attention to him why?
P.S. that thing looks huge. It has a GUI, for cryin' out loud!
What the hell? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Zen Media Center (Score:5, Insightful)
Affliations put to the side (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's a blog! (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't ever actually make any points other than showing off at his DVD, music, TV, and movie collections. Honestly I don't give a flying rats ass WHY you were chosen to test something and I certainly don't care about how much music you have...
He said that the UI is fast while loading the songs he put on the device. How long did it take to put those songs on the device? Did you have to load a special driver for it (possible DRM) or did it just use USB mass storage that is standard with more recent Windows versions?
He did mention that the external sound sucks and that the display isn't any good in the daylight. Sounds like a bummer to me. I am not exactly going to be sitting at home watching movies on my portable media player.
I am more concerned with battery life and heat from the 400mhz XScale CPU.
I guess he didn't spend enough time explaining that afterall he did have to type out 204GB several times and count all his tracks in his music collection (44,190).
Re:Homestar... (Score:2, Insightful)
What about Archos? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Homestar... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's the target market? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
cat got my tongue (Score:4, Insightful)
Your friendly neighbourhood troll.
The only thing more (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW: if nobody on
Re:Slashdotted Already (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Homestar... (Score:3, Insightful)
Smells to me like fishy soup.
Re:Maybe it's just me but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
I could be wrong but... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this is going to as successful... (Score:4, Insightful)
... as Tablet PC's. iPod killer, my ass. This thing is too big. If portable TV's [google.com] were popular, people would be carrying them everywhere, but they're not. There are portable DVD players [google.com] 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 [oqo.com] is already on the market?
Re:My favorite quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Simplicity isn't one of them either, though some people aregue that it is. Non geeks haven't got a clue what to do when Windows isn't working right, which unfortunatly is often.