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Microsoft News Tracker mentions a rumor that Microsoft is planning to build their own iPod or more precisely, an “iPod killer.” Aside from the advisability of Microsoft going head to head with Apple in the portable media player arena, it would also seem to create difficulties for Microsoft partners Creative, Samsung, and iriver who have built players based on Windows Mobile using Microsoft’s Portable Media Center specification.
Since you don’t seem to hear much about Portable Media Centers, I thought I would see what I could dig up. Below are the three contenders with some typical reviews and they are apparently nice players with big screens and easy to use, if somewhat bulky and expensive. However, they have a major negative. All of the Portable Media Centers are effectively accessories for Windows PC’s running Windows Media Player (WMP) 10, because that’s the only way to get media files onto them. And if you don’t have a PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition (or at least a PC with a TV tuner/recorder), you are limited to whatever video content you can obtain or purchase through the services offered within WMP 10. Because of this, they haven’t been a rousing success.
Creative Zen Portable Media Center
- Generally most highly rated
- Retail about $485
- Reviews at CNET, Engadget, and PCWorld
Samsung Yepp YH-999 Portable Media Center
- Seems to have been discontinued
- Available refurbished for about $275
- Reviews at CNET and WhiningDog
- Retail price: about $440
- Reviews at CNET, PC Magazine, and Trusted Reviews
As always, you may find lower prices at your favorite online or offline emporium.
Google has taken it’s Web based Gmail service (still nominally in beta) and shrunk the interface so that it can be conveniently used on mobile phones with Web browsers. Details are here and the actual service is at http://m.gmail.com. If you don’t want to punch that in on your phone’s browser, they have an application where you enter your phone number and they’ll send you a text message with the URL.
The beauty of this is that since Gmail is a web application, there are no charges beyond whatever your phone plan charges for Internet access and there is no problem, common with other mobile email systems, of your mail account getting out of synch, since you are just accessing the regular Gmail using a different, smaller interface. Other features include viewing attachments and “reply by phone” to email whose senders are in your Gmail address book.
Check out the FAQ for which phones have been tested and more details. The service is currently English only and I have seen press reports that say it is limited to US mobile phones only, although why they would bother with that limitation isn’t clear and I coudn’t find it in the documentation.
You do have to wonder why no other provider of Web email has done this as well. Yes, it costs money to develop and test the interface for many different small screens and many phones don’t yet provide web browsers or Internet connectivity, but the latter is only a matter of time. Windows Mobile phones have a somewhat similar setup for MSN Hotmail, but the whole point of a Web based interface is that it should be OS independent.
Ed Oswald at BetaNews:
The beginning of an expected flurry of Windows Mobile 5.0 devices over the next several months began on Monday as Cingular released the 2125 Smartphone, an apparent update to the SMT 5600 that the carrier offered through Audiovox.
The 2125 is very similar to the 5600 — in fact it is being marketing as the upgraded version of that phone — although it offers quad-band GSM technology. Other features include a 1.3-megapixel camera, EDGE data, 64MB of SDRAM, Office Mobile, Pocket MSN, a stereo headphone jack, and Windows Media Player 10. The phone runs on a Texas Instruments OMAP 850 200MHz processor.
Cingular will offer the 2125 for $299 USD before a $100 mail-in rebate with a two year service contract for new subscribers.
The phone is based on the HTC Faraday. Missing from the 2125, however, is Wi-Fi support, which many of HTC’s models overseas have included in recent releases.
More by following the link and at Engadget.