Features:
* Watch up to 85 hours of movies, recorded TV or home videos * Store and listen to over 10,000 songs * [b]Carry and enjoy 100,000 photos[/b] * Large, high resolution 3.8" TFT LCD Screen * Plays all popular formats including WMV, WMA, MP3, and JPG
That’s a huge bonus. My current pocket pc lets me carry several thousand photos, but it doesn’t let me enjoy them.
Can’t see myself using it unless I’m on a long flight.
If the battery life is decent or there is a 12v plug, this would be excellent for the kids on long car trips.
And it costs more than a refurbed laptop. :?
You can get a decent 1Ghz class laptop for less than $500?
YEAH, like I’m really gonna give some snot-nosed kid a $500 piece of hardware just to watch movies and what not. Just get a portable DVD player for the car. Sheesh.
You can get a decent 1Ghz class laptop for less than $500?[/quote]
I don’t know, but you can get exactly this list of features (as copied-and-pasted from the ad):
- Watch up to 80 hours of Movies, recorded TV or Home Videos
- Store and listen to over 10,000 songs
- Carry and enjoy 100,000 photos
- Large, high resolution 3.8" TFT LCD backlit for crisp and clear images
- Removable and rechargeable Li-Ion battery – carry a spare so your entertainment will never be cut short
- Powerful Windows Mobile operating system lets you easily sync, find and manage your digital entertainment
- Quickly transfer content from your PC to your Zen Portable Media Center with USB 2.0
- Built-in speaker means you can enjoy your movie or music with others
- 4 preset buttons that shortcut to your favorite TV show, movie or song
- Plays all popular formats including WMV, WMA, MP3, JPG
- Supports Microsoft Photo Story - creates your own photo slideshow and add in your own narration, music, transition effects and more!
- Up to 90dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio - as good as expensive hi-fi systems!
Except for the four preset buttons. Oh, and I’m afraid you’ll have to tolerate something like a 12" LCD instead of the 3/8" one on the unit. :wink:
Just for a goof I went to http://www.toshibalaptops.com/ just now and the main big item on the top of the front page is a 1.2GHz P3 with all the blahs for $685, as one data point. They have some Dell refurbs (yeah yeah I know it doesn’t match the domain name; it’s not my site) for $400-450 with DVD players built in.
There was a report that Amazon has pre-orders on the Samsung Portable Media Player, the Yepp YH-999, but I haven’t found it.
Slightly smaller screen, but I like the form factor better.
http://www.samsung.com/DigitAll/GlobalExhibition/Exhibition/ICES2004/ppk/YH999/ppk_YH999_over.htm
Yeah, but a laptop is a laptop. This is streamlined so my kids won’t get too confused about how to operate it and hopefully it won’t be so easy for them to crash. Besides I bet you have to more tasks to do to maintain a laptop than you would one of these. Sometimes less is more.
As for the hardware, I’m not sure I need a bigger screen for a device that’s mostly for viewing media on the road and I bet the speakers beat the laptop.
It does cost ~50% more than a portable DVD player, but 200 is still pretty expensive item. If I am going to spend that much, I want something that’s going to fit my needs. Penny wise/dollar foolish, right? For example, portable DVD players aren’t great for the car. My experiance with one last year on a car trip was that any small bump could destabalize the disk. Since we were just using VCD’s of TV cartoons that I burned, it meant having to start the disk over at the begining each time that happened. Plus, if I didn’t have to burn VCD and could just use MPEGs, I would save myself a huge amount of time leading up to long car trips. Besides I would never buy something like this right off the bat. Soon (next year?) these are going to be lots more affordable.
Spoken like a true parent dilettante, Brian. :)
Or they could just do what I did as a kid on long trips–read some books.And while they’re at it,they can get off my goddamn lawn.