News Microsoft confirms iPod-a-like

[WilHarris]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03...od_competitor/

[DougEdey]

They had better not be talking about a cut down version of the Origami!

[Monkey200SX]

Would you buy a converged device that offered music, Xbox and PDA functionality all in one?

Hmmm it aldepend on quality, ive seen too many products come out that offers an all in one soloution but the quality they offer are under par, i'd rather have 3 separate items, (phone, MP3 player, PDA) and have high quality that one product offering all three in one device that is medeocre.

[Nexxo]

Erm, didn't we already have the Windows Portable Media Centres? How is this going to be different?

[Shepps]

It depends on how good a job they made of it. My k750i plays mp3's but i never use it for that, i just use my mp3 player. It's mainly a software problem though, if my phone had the same interface as my rio carbon does to play mp3's and it had a large enough capacity then i'd have no problems with using only one device.

Think its going to be a while before a decent all in one solution comes to the market though..

[RotoSequence]

Whats wrong with non - all in one devices? They never have a good interface. I want to buy an MP3 player, not an MP3 Player/Mobile Phone/PDA/swiss army knife

[antiHero]

I am nether a friend of All-in-one`s. Just think about dropping your Mobilphone/mp3 player/camera/PDA. You are plain fu....! I rather carry 3 thinks with me and break them one after another

[Motivator]

Originally Posted by antiHero

I am nether a friend of All-in-one`s. Just think about dropping your Mobilphone/mp3 player/camera/PDA. You are plain fu....! I rather carry 3 thinks with me and break them one after another

agreed.

The Nano has so many features, but i use it for my music and that's it
sometimes for the games if i'm that bored waiting for something/someone.

[dragontail]

The trouble with all-in-ones is that they have all the basic fuctions, but never excel at anything. Anyway, imagine your listening to music in your uberallinone, and then someone calls you - you'll need a really good user interface to deal with all the functions... I'll rather stick with my camera phone/5th gen ipod combo for the meantime :/

[<A88>]

Originally Posted by Motivator

agreed.

The Nano has so many features, but i use it for my music and that's it
sometimes for the games if i'm that bored waiting for something/someone.

As in mp3 player and photo viewer?
I dont see much point in giving PMPs more features, but instead making the current ones better. Manufacturers should start concentrating on integrating features such as DAB (makes radio listening much better on the go), support for all popular file formats (ie OGG, FLAC, Divx etc) and USB mass-storage-compliant partitions for the larger devices. Once they've attended these sorts of issues they might want to consider which other features could be integrated- but this again is an area they'll have to tread carefuly in. For example, there's no point in putting cameras in MP3 players because most mobile phones already have them. Merging different devices into more hybrid options will require finding out which combinations work best and then sticking with them so that customers don't end up with a dozen devices that can all play music or take pictures.
I'm not sure about Microsoft's Origami project- it seems to be the jack-of-all-trades but master of none, and there are very few devices that have used their Portable Media Centre software to its full potential. They seem to be moving in the right direction in terms of consumer software (delays aside ) but I'm not sure whether they're really giving the consumer what they want in the hardware market. We'll just wait and see

<A88>

[Firehed]

No interest for me. I'd prefer twelve things that do each function well instead of one device that sucks at everything.

And A88, regarding "popular" file formats, there are just two, and both are supported by the iPod. Popular among the elitist enthusiasts doesn't mean popular in the mainstream (which are MP3 and M4A/B/P/V). Don't get me wrong, I'd love flac support on my iPod (or any other device for that matter), but what "we" want and what typical consumers need are not one in the same.

[Hans Voralberg]

FLAC support would be uber cool. And realistically if M$ want to have a share than they have some serious marketing and design issues to do.

[Tomm]

Originally Posted by Monkey200SX

Hmmm it aldepend on quality, ive seen too many products come out that offers an all in one soloution but the quality they offer are under par, i'd rather have 3 separate items, (phone, MP3 player, PDA) and have high quality that one product offering all three in one device that is medeocre.

I agree. All-in-one things at the moment (basically mobile phones that pretend to be cameras/MP3 players/anything else) are a bit crap. I much prefer to carry my iPod, my Palm and my simple Nokia 3220 than one device that attempts to mash everything into one bit of fugly technology.

But you better believe that in 5 years time I want my phone, PDA, camera and music to be part of one small device. I'm not expecting DSLR quality, but something similar to the uber-compact digital cameras you can buy now would be nice. By this point the technology will have improved, hard drives will have gotten smaller and these devices will be practical.

Also, you'll be able to mix functions. Such as being able to write texts with the handwriting recognition on my palm (Hopefully in 5 years it will recognise my handwriting...), or emailing a file from the hard drive. So that's the future, in my eyes, and it looks good. At the moment though, these kind of devices are a bit rubbish and we're not ready.

But if someone can produce a decent device that does everything well, I would buy it. To be honest I'm waiting for an Apple PDA rather than a MS pocketPC + jukebox or whatever Microsoft have planned. But I won't be holding my breath. Let's just wait and see what Microsoft will announce.

[Risky]

For a long time I've thought that the best sulution would be a set of tow or three devices - sold as a set with inbuilt wireless connections. You have a small phoen device if you just want to make a call, but if you need to sen email or text you leave that in your pocket an pick up the pda-type thing to write on and leave the phone bit in the pocket. You could then have an third thing with the hard disk for music and docs that would only be called in when you needed it to save power.

The point is they would have to be a set, not three devices hacked to communicate. You have the all-in-one capacity but you don't have it all in one lump.

[dullonien]

I'm looking foreward to getting all-in-one devices. I'm after the W800i phone or something similar, because it does everything reasonably well (good enough for casual use)

I have a Nokia 7610, which does alot of things badly, especially mp3 playback, but i couldn't go back to a phone without a camera. Sure it's only 1mp, but i didn't have any photos before i got this phone, i couldn't be arsed to carry a camera everywhere i went. So even if the pictures are pretty dire, atleast i have them!

Another thing is, with contract phones u can upgrade for free, this means i get all this stuff for essentially nothing, cause i'd have a contract no matter what. This means i don't have to shell out the money for everything seperately.

In a year or two phones will be able to do most things at a decent level, good enough for anyone who isn't an enthusiast.

I like my music, but i don't need anything more than 192 mp3, I certanly can't hear the difference between it and cd quality, so I don't care about FLAC etc. DivX/xVid would be nice though.