What is this, Cowanmodo? It seems every story is speculation about what Cowan may or may not be working on for the future. I know you have a lot of Cowan fan-boys to appease, and I'm sure that Lam is on Cowan's payroll with free access to any unreleased Cowan products in exchange for plugging any leaks before they happen, but this is ridiculous. Just once I want to go to my favorite gadget site and read some real tech news. What is Kevin Rose wearing? Where does Walt Mossberg eat lunch? What is Coleco up to? These are questions I want answered. #tablets
Strangely enough, it only plays "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, and touching it causes the owner to race through a colorful star tunnel, arrive at an elderly version of himself dying in a well-furnished room, and transform into his own fetus enclosed in an orb of light.
Reminds me of a dog tag or piece of jewelry...I could easily see this around people's necks, it is quite stylish. I guess it depends on the size, since we have no frame of reference for the size in the photo I'm at a loss.
What about storage space the trend use to be twards large capacity in the hundreds of gigabytes. Now all the new players are sporting flash wich is fine however 16-32GB is just not enough I have an archos 605 160GB and i could use even more space than that. Where is my 1TB pmp damn it.
@Deimos_Anomaly: Agreed. PMPs with under 64GB seem destined to be relegated to the junk pile. While some may say it's a simple matter to swap content out on a daily basis, in practice it becomes yet another annoying bit of drudgery. A PMP functions best when it is not only a portable player, but also a portable large storage solution for most if not all of your media.
I'd prefer to not have to overly compress my media, as well as shuffle everything around when I decide I'd like to bring episodes of a different show and a movie with me.
The point is that if it has web browsing capabilities I don't see why 3G would not be a very beneficial feature.... I assume it would require it to be able to take a SIM card, but that does not mean it has to have cell phone functionality as well.
okay maybe im still a little drunk from last night... but...all im saying is that... if it has 3g and a sim card, its not just a pmp, its a freakin phone... lol
@Jim Halpert: There are plenty of devices that support 3G for wireless internet access. The SIM support is because there are providers who use the SIM as a register subscribers per identity code rather than by device. It is not necessarily indicative of "phone" status.
Phones have mostly adopted 3G because of the simpler migration for portable devices that require a subscription service package. Many people would be loathe to purchase additional 3G access for other devices when they already have an internet provider.
Recording audio with the integrated microphone worked fine-functional but not stellar-which is to be expected: The mic is but a tiny hole in the case.
Sorry to nit pick here, because this is a good, thorough review, but having just a tiny hole in the case actually shouldn't affect the sound quality at all. If designed correctly, a tiny hole with the mic mounted closely and properly gasketted will provide the best performance.
The things to be more concerned with are the quality of the mic, routing of the cabling and the A/D converters/gain settings (unless of course it uses a digital mic).
I don't why they would not use a 120GB HD in this. That would be the killer app. The Touch interface is great but 32GB is not enough memory for me and it is way expensive. The interface begs for even more space for video too.
The Archos is way too big and not pocketable. Zune here is your chance.
@fastm3driver: The most likely reason is battery life. Even though modern 1.8's are light on the battery sippage, they're not as good as media that lacks moving parts.
@General Halfshaftery: Yep, it's true. While editing this story, I used a term that has generally been accepted as a nice colloquial abbreviation, like Blam's "AirBook" and the universally approved "Wiimote." The greatest thing about our language, Gen. H, is that it's constantly in flux, and not even the powers at Apple can stop it!
This looks like lots of potential that wasn't given time to bake thoroughly. Unless you really hate iTunes, I don't see much reason to go for this over a touch.
As for video resolution, the site's tech specs sheet says recommended video res is 480x272. That's sort of disappointing, as the touch supports higher resolution, which is nice for video out, and works well for those who want higher res videos for viewing on their computer at home, negating the need for duplicate files. The claim to 11 hours of playback for video is impressive though.
The audio codec support specs are interesting too:
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I'd prefer to not have to overly compress my media, as well as shuffle everything around when I decide I'd like to bring episodes of a different show and a movie with me.
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Also, I don't understand why 3G is even mentioned, thjis is just a media player and not a cellphone,r ight?
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Look at the picture... see the browser?
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so...? Looks like a crappy render, the iphone has done better for 2 years.
@aerospaceman:
Im not sure why is had gps and stuff if its a pmp.. maybe we'ere missing something?
02/15/09
The point is that if it has web browsing capabilities I don't see why 3G would not be a very beneficial feature.... I assume it would require it to be able to take a SIM card, but that does not mean it has to have cell phone functionality as well.
02/15/09
okay maybe im still a little drunk from last night... but...all im saying is that... if it has 3g and a sim card, its not just a pmp, its a freakin phone... lol
02/15/09
Phones have mostly adopted 3G because of the simpler migration for portable devices that require a subscription service package. Many people would be loathe to purchase additional 3G access for other devices when they already have an internet provider.
01/19/09
Sorry to nit pick here, because this is a good, thorough review, but having just a tiny hole in the case actually shouldn't affect the sound quality at all. If designed correctly, a tiny hole with the mic mounted closely and properly gasketted will provide the best performance.
The things to be more concerned with are the quality of the mic, routing of the cabling and the A/D converters/gain settings (unless of course it uses a digital mic).
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I don't why they would not use a 120GB HD in this. That would be the killer app. The Touch interface is great but 32GB is not enough memory for me and it is way expensive. The interface begs for even more space for video too.
The Archos is way too big and not pocketable. Zune here is your chance.
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I'm afraid i'm going to have to send you to detention!
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[store.archos.com]
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Wow those look clunky.
Does it come with 15,000 applications?
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As for video resolution, the site's tech specs sheet says recommended video res is 480x272. That's sort of disappointing, as the touch supports higher resolution, which is nice for video out, and works well for those who want higher res videos for viewing on their computer at home, negating the need for duplicate files. The claim to 11 hours of playback for video is impressive though.
The audio codec support specs are interesting too:
File format:
MP3/2/1, WMA, FLAC, OGG, WAV, APE
Audio codec:
MP3 : MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, ~320Kbps, ~48KHz, Mono/Stereo
WMA : ~320Kbps, ~48KHz, Mono/Stereo
OGG : ~Q10, ~44.1KHz, Mono/Stereo
FLAC : Compression Level 0 ~ 8, ~44.1KHz, Mono/Stereo
WAV : ~48KHz, 16bit, Mono/Stereo
APE : Fast, Normal, High 16Bit, Version 3.97~3.99
When looking at that, it sure looks like a very solid device for people who don't have a lick of AAC files. The UI niggles are disappointing though.
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