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A Day with
Personal Media Center
If you've been reading
devbuzz for a while, you've probably come across
our
Portable Media Center section. I"ve been using
Creative Labs Creative
Zen - Portable Media Center and I can't be more
positive about the Zen. It's not surprising that Microsoft
probably didn't want to enter a saturated market (digital
media players) late and try to compete from there. So
it looks like they decided to take a different track - create
a market that doesn't yet exist. "Huh, isn't this just
a Microsoft based iPOD? A glorified MP3
player?" is a question I've heard in some sort or another
whenever people first see the Zen with the power off. The
answer is an emphatic NO. I'm not knocking iPODs but
they aren't similar products. Sure, the Portable Media
Center plays music and can store images or other data; however
it also, and this is a BIG ALSO, plays Video and does a
phenomenal job of it. Moreover, they've simplified
the user experience to a level that I've NEVER seen before. When
I first got it, there was no instruction book accompanying
it or anything, other than just the base hardware. Within
5 minutes I had it up and running and could load media back
and forth, as well as navigate around it comfortably. This
is because it looks, feels and acts like Windows Media Player. Accordingly,
it integrates with WMP seamlessly and handles syncing and
everything else for you. There's only one catch to
the whole process, and unless you are "dyed in
the wool" Microsoft basher, I don't think it's an issue:
You need is
Windows Media Player 10 . Currently it's still in beta
but that's not a show-stopper since Portable Media Center's
aren't for sale yet, although you pre-order
the Zen and Samsung
Yepp YH-999 from Amazon now. Currently Amazon is
listing the price for each at $499.00 which isn't cheap,
but you get a lot.
5:15 PM
I first downloaded Windows Media Player 10 and
installed it on my machine.The download went seamlessly
and I had it running in just about 3 or 4 minutes:
As you can see, my pet Cuckoo
bird came out of his clock and started creating some sample
playlists.
Next I plugged in the PMC cable
to a USB port and set it in the cradle. A sync box comes
up and there's nothing to it:
After selecting Yes, it
started to sync my existing playlists and that was it. The
form factor of the Zen is very different from that of the
Yepp, so I can only speak to the Zen. It has an extremely
sturdy feel to it and a very powerful screen. It's
just slightly bigger than my iMATE when it's in a leather
case and can easily fit in my pocket:
Once you have that set up, off
you go. If you can navigate Windows Media Center, then
you're already a PRO Navigating Portable Media Center devices
(while different vendors will build them with different
form-factors, the basic interface is identical thanks to
Microsoft's platform):
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5:23, out the door and off to the gym. I've
been working out for a few weeks now and have become addicted
to my Zen. It comes with a 20GB hard drive (no expansion
is available now but I've been told that later models will
have expandable memory) so you can really load up a bunch
of data. I've found that to load an average album it
takes about 15- 30 seconds. I can load a full length
movie in approximately a minute and a half to two and a
half minutes. You can obviously move pictures and smaller
data formats much faster. Usually 15 songs is plenty
for a quick trip to the gym but you can load a lot more
if you want. I've tried to fill it up just to see how much
I could get on it and at 500 songs I wasn't even touching
the capacity. Since it's pretty small it can
easily fit in your pocket and stay there pretty much transparently. Obviously
if you want to watch video or read an ebook you'll need
to hold it in your hand but that's quite convenient too.
You'd have to hold one to get a feel for it, but it's VERY
dense and has a very natural balance. I've almost
dropped my iMATE about 200 times since I've had it (and
have consequently taken about 10 minutes off of my life
each time) yet I haven't even had a close call with the
PMC.
The downside to it is very small. There's
no clip and doesn't seem to be anywhere you could put one
on. So you're either going to have to sit it somewhere,
hold it or keep it in your pocket. The speaker in it isn't
very powerful and I think the iMATE actually can play audio
a little louder. However this is not a big deal b/c
you can't really jam to music in most public settings. There's
no bluetooth or wireless in this version so you have to
use a wired headset - again, an absolutely trivial issue. I've
used it for an entire week (with about an hour a workout
each time and a 15 minute walk to the gym) and didn't even
move the power bar down at all. I've played with it
for about 6 hours straight and still didn't come close to
using the power (it's indicated by three bars and I have
yet to get it to the second bar).
Anyway, if you travel,
I can't think of a better device to have. You can easily
load WebCasts or similar media, movies you want to see and
a bunch of music onto the device and relax on your trip. For
high-schoolers and college kids that take a lot of road
-trips, it'd be even cooler. You can also use the A/V
jack to play your media on a television or computer if you
want to share it with others or play it on a bigger screen. This
allows you to save resources on your laptop and save that
precious laptop battery life. I can't speak highly
enough about this thing, it's just plain cool in every single
regard. If you travel, or are a multimedia/gadget
buff, you won't be able to live without one!
Zen
and Samsung
Yepp YH-999 from Amazon.