Gizmodo: personal media player

Qualcomm FLO TV Personal Television Hands On: $250 To Shut Up The Kids?

Joanna Stern — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

After renders and box shots, FLO TV is officially airing its Personal TV device (or PTV). The 3.5-inch player broadcasts live terrestrial digital TV. But $250 along with a $9 monthly subscription fee for just a handheld TV?!

The hardware, made by HTC, is pretty run-of-the-mill. The 4.4 x 3.0 x 5.0 inch, 5 ounce device didn't feel too heavy in my hand. And I quite liked channel surfing with a finger on the capacitive touchscreen. My favorite part of the device? It has a kickstand on its back so you can prop it up on a table (none of this having to hang it with a case stuff).

The television service on the Qualcomm FLO TV Personal Television runs smoothly (it is the same thing as Verizon's VCAST, etc). And you get a ton of channels, including ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV, NBC, and Nickelodeon. What you cannot do with the PTV is watch live programming on a plane or subway. You also cannot record any of your shows, even though it does have 4GB of on board storage for your music or movies. So yeah, it is a bit of a dead gadget when there is no service around. And while it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, there is no video out. Balls! No chance of hooking this baby up to your monitor or HDTV.

The device itself has a suggested retail price of $250, but the buck doesn't stop there. You also have to pay the monthly $9 subscription fee for the television service. I guess I see it being worthwhile for those that watch so much FLO TV on smaller screened cell phones. But it seems like quite a load of money to drop on a device that just does TV, especially when you can snag a phone for the same price or lower (like the new HTC Imagio which actually has the FLO TV service). Though, I do see it being useful for keeping the kids quiet during a meal and, oddly, for watching TV on the John (or job). [FLO TV]

Qualcomm FLO TV Personal Televison (PTV) Should Arrive Soon

Joanna Stern — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EDT

There is no doubt that Qualcomm is planning to bring its FLO TV Personal TV (or PTV) to market soon with this fresh box shot we received. The device, as rumored, puts live terrestrial digital TV in your pocket.

The box, like the leaked device shots, don't reveal anything about the predicted capacitive multitouch screen or 4GB of on board storage. Either way, it looks like you will be able to get FLO TV service on more than a bunch of multimedia cellphones from AT&T and Verizon soon with the nicely packaged PTV. Left off the box is a price tag, but let us hope it isn't as painful as whatever is under the anonymous box handler's Band-Aid. [FLO TV]

Qualcomm's Personal Television Device Will Have Mobile Live TV, Multitouch Goods

Joanna Stern — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:20:00 EDT

The era of the PDA is gone, but what about a PTV (Personal Television Device)? Qualcomm is said to be working on an unconfirmed iPhone size-device without the streaming video restrictions; it will broadcast the company's mobile FLO TV.

FLO TV, which broadcasts live terrestrial digital TV, has become a staple on a bunch of multimedia cellphones from AT&T and Verizon, including LG's Vu and Samsung Access, but with this FLO TV Personal Television (PTV) you'll get a standalone viewing gadget.

The device will have a capacitive touchscreen supporting swipes and gestures, 4GB of memory for storing other media, a built in speaker, and apparently a battery that allows for 5 hours of TV viewing. I'd love to see an HDMI or video out option on this thing.

Not sure people are interested in a device solely for watching mobile TV especially when you will probably have a monthly subscription fee, but throw some Wi-Fi and a browser in there and maybe. No idea of when the PTV will drop, though Gdgt says CES or earlier could be likely. [GDGT]

Apple's Simplistic iPod Marketing Trumped by Competitor's Shamefully Blatant Sexuality

Mark Wilson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:00:00 EDT

Short of physically inserting the waterproof Cube H100D into an open orifice, I can't imagine this ad for the Chinese PMP being any more suggestive. [imp3 via Le Journal du Geek]

iRiver Spinn Controller and UI Caught on VIdeo: Sleek, But Confusing

Kit Eaton — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:47:47 EDT

We've talked a few times about iRiver's Spinn PMP with its revolutionary controller, and now its UI has been captured on camera. Check out the radio-dial-like menu selection system, which looks pretty sleek and shiny. You dial through/click the menus with the feature wheel on the unit. Or by jabbing at the touchscreen. Hmm.... so the purpose of the big wheel is as an additional control that doesn't offer the flexibility of touchscreen controls? It's a little confusing: as is the UI itself, to my eyes at least. [IRiverfans via Engadget]

Dell to Release New MP3 Player with Zing Tech, Media Store, Says Rumor

Kit Eaton — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:23:00 EDT

Remember Dell's DJ Ditty MP3 player? Probably not, since Dell shut its PMP shop a while back. But over at the Wall St Journal, there's a rumor that Dell is planning on re-entering the PMP market with a new device that's been under development and testing. The device, name unknown, has a screen and simple navigation controls and would "connect to online music services via a Wi-Fi internet connection." This would tie in with a new online media service, allowing downloading of music and movies which could also be played on PC. Key in this is software developed by Zing (which Dell bought last year) which would come installed on PCs and PMPs, and manage the media movements. There's mention of a potential fall launch, and costs for the PMP of less than $100. [WSJ. Subscription warning.]

Sunvision PMPP, World's First Media Player With Pico-Projector

Kit Eaton — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:55:21 EDT

We've been talking about pico-projectors for a while, and here's what's apparently the world's first commercially available media player with one built right in: the Sunview PMPP. The LED-lit iView IPL630 unit inside it can project a VGA display up to an impressive-sounding 53 inches, but only a brightness of 9 lux at this size. The rest of the PMP sounds ok: a 3.5-inch LCD, speaker, remote, SD slot and size of around 5.2 x 3.1 x 1 inches. Interestingly it runs a Windows CE core, so it should be able to project documents and presentations. How does it look or sound? We don't know, as it's only available in limited quantities for now, and there's no word on prices. [Display Daily]

IUBI Blue PMP Updated: Bigger Disk, Lower Price

Charlie White — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 08:42:50 EST

We already liked the IUBI Blue personal media player when our main man Travis took a look at it in June, but now the dang thing's got twice as much disk space at 60GB and it costs $433, $17 less than its predecessor. Plus it plays just about every video and audio format you can imagine.

We've noticed that a 4.3-inch display size such as the 480x272 screen on this IUBI Blue PMP hits that sweet spot between portability and viewability. We want one. – Charlie White

IUBI upgrades its Blue PMP [Akhihabara News]

Archos 504 PMP is Really Pretty, Slim and Available

Charlie White — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:04:07 EDT

In his demo video you'll see after the jump, you'll notice that this European dude has a lot to learn about video-making (this is a close-up medium, man!), but he does finally end up giving us some tight shots of the Archos 504 PMP's 4.3-inch widescreen in action. Notice in the video how small the player is, whose dimensions are not adequately presented in their proper context in the company's official product photography.

We mentioned yesterday that the $600 player is officially available today, and its largest-yet 160GB capacity can store 450 movies in just about every imaginable format, including our personal favorite, DivX. We simply must get our hands on one of these players, letting you know firsthand whether it's worth the trouble.

Jump for the video; it's weird but revealing.

This video's poster frame is so butt-ugly we couldn't bear to have it on our front page, but it's worth your time to shuttle forward to see the tight shots. – Charlie White

Product Page [Archos, via Archosfans.com]