HP Officially Announces 40g MP3 Stereo Component 294
jspectre writes "HP announced their new
de100c "digital entertainment center." Containing a 40g drive and a built in CDRW drive it will store "up to 750 CDs of music" or 9000 tracks. You can make your own playlists and burn them out to CDR/CDRW's. All of this for $999.99. No mention of any digital management controls on the device." I totally need a review model! I saw this thing at the last LinuxWorld and it looked good, but only really playing with it for a few weeks will let me know if it's better then the audiotron that I've been using in my home system.
Digital Rights Management (Score:2, Interesting)
I certainly have no idea how to look at 2 mp3s, and say, 'Uh, this person owns this cd', or 'Uh, it was downloaded from napster! Evil copyright infringment person!!!!"
I'm wondering if it is set up to only store mp3's that are ripped IN that unit, with no other method of transport. But that doesn't stop someone from copying someone elses CD, then ripping it. Or borrowing the CD for a day, and ripping it that way. I hate to rant on and on about the DMCA, but even though they won congress over, they are still fighting an uphill battle.
Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Because it (guessing) makes less noise than a PC?
Because it doesn't look like your science project gone bad?
Re:Too expensive (Score:2, Interesting)
Also take a look at the extra features (that I should have mentioned when submitting the article). The box also is 'net savvy and will download to your portable mp3 player (doesn't mention which ones are supported though). So it's a little more sophisticated than your average mp3 player.
Wonder what OS it's running and what upgrades they could come up with for it. Turn it into a WebTV/PTR unit and it's a nice combo box for your bucks.
A Waste Of Time. Another HP Blunder (Score:2, Interesting)
As for having "all of my music in one box" - sure, if its portable. Why would I transfer all of the CDs in my jukebox over to another box, at lower fidelity? By virtue of having all of my CDs in my jukebox, all of my music is already in one box. The fact that the unit accesses the data on CDs instead of off of a hard drive is inconsequential.
The only value add I can see is tha TV interface. Not worth a grand.
This is as pathetic as the Audrey rollout by 3Com months ago. I makes me wince to watch the once venerable tech giants roll out ridiculous toys to the collective shrug of the consumer public.
HP in particular is just becoming sad. They've devolved from a tech powerhouse to a manufacturing dinosaur trying to compete with $39 inkjet printers I can buy at the grocery store (who cares if they are junk??), Dell in the PC world, and IBM in enterprise computing. Maybe its good that both founders are gone now, so they don't have to see their once-great creation mate with Compaq.
Tech Specs (Score:5, Interesting)
in case anyone's curious
It's new. Wait. (Score:4, Interesting)
As for your $300 CD jukebox, check out the specs on this toy -- internet connectivity, TV display, HomePNA broadcasting, and of course, a larger hard drive. Feature-wise, there's no comparison.
Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a cheap PC that I use as an mp3 jukebox and dvd player. As such, I have a video card that has a tv output. They're really not uncommon, nor that expensive. So with that and a RF keyboard I can do all the things you want to do from the comfort of my couch.
So far it seems the only justification for a component mp3 player is that people are *really* anal about the appearance of their stereo.
Heavy! (Score:4, Interesting)
<EMILY-LATELLA>
Ohh... you meant 40GB! That's very different! Never mind.
</EMILY-LATELLA>
When will they get it right... (Score:2, Interesting)
I know I'm fighting the very premise of creating a product line that so many manufacturers follow. Before I go plunk down $1000 on a device like this, I want it to do this first:
Give me a device like that and I'll stop using my computer for the same thing.
-silversurfWhy compress at all? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was on a focus group for one of these (Score:5, Interesting)
About 9 months ago I was on a focus group to review these things. It was supposed to be four sessions in four months or something, and then we got the device, but I was "dismissed" after the first session and told not to come back. I think I pissed them off by telling them that if this device wasn't open, it would be hacked.
They were very interested in how we would respond to advertising that was downloaded to it and played for us based on our music choices. The group said downloading concert info about the bands we liked was fine, most of the people didn't really mind more annoying ads, but I said that if there wasn't a way to opt out of the ads I would firewall its outgoing network connection.
They asked if it would be ok if the box reported back certain user preferences, and I said that would be fine if they were totally upfront about what information was sent. I told them that lying would just get them in trouble, because we would see every packet this thing sent over the wire, and would raise a stink about any unexplained ones.
I think the final insult is when they asked the price we would pay. Most of the other people said $1000 or $1200, but I said that I would pay $300, because had built similar devices for $300. That was a bit unfair, because $300 doesn't include the surplus and out of date computer pieces used from work, and their box was certainly nicer than what I had put together. At the time their box had a 20GB drive, and a CD burner, so it would have been more fair of me (on then prices) to have said $450-500.
The ironic thing is, that I have never needed my own home mp3 box (the ones I built were for friends), but just yesterday I started getting pieces together for one. I think it'll cost me $80-120. Of course I am using a surplus K6-2 (clocked down to 200Mhz, no fan!) scrounged from work. The $80-120 is for a 40-60GB 5400 hard disk. My box won't have CD-RW, modem, HomePNA, etc., but I don't want those things, why should I pay for them?
I think their main problem was they had tried to pack the room with people who were very into music, yet somewhat tech savy. Unfortunately I am very tech savy, and only somewhat into music, so instead of spending my time dreaming about the virtues of a 20GB CD changer (besides I already had the equivilant in my notebook) I spent my time dreaming about all of the evil things they would be doing with this box.
802.11 Support (Score:1, Interesting)
My living room has neither a phone line nor an ethernet jack. My home network is 802.11 based.
Are there any stereo component MP3 players that support 802.11 yet?
This is a Great Product (Score:2, Interesting)
Apple may get similarly criticised for cutting out non-Mac users (95%!) out of their iPod customer pool, and also for overpricing the portable 5Gig iPod ($399) But we're dealing with apples and oranges here: Apple's motivation is to add value to owning a Mac and be innovative at the same time, to differentiate themselves further in the market. With no uniqueness, this HP product will find itself lost in the consmer woods.
And Cmdr Taco, didn't you say "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." in your coverage [slashdot.org] of the iPod? But for this (unquestionably much "lamer") product you say "I totally need a review model! I saw this thing at the last LinuxWorld and it looked good..." Spltt! Ack!! Barf!!!
Put down the crack pipe.