Gameboy70
Member
Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Metro Station, Hollywood and Highland
Posts: 1018 |
quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
I meant that it IS whimsical to charge $80 for flash memory when I can pay less than 1/3 of that price in another form factor. Would you pay $100 for Zip disks from Iomega when you can get the same disk from another vendor for $10? Of course not, 8MB is still 8MB no matter what format it comes in. Why would should I pay this price, just becuase it wears the Handspring logo.
Unfortunately the format does matter, and there's no constistency in price between "equivalent" technologies. I just bought an MTrip CD-RW portable audio player for $106. I can burn 650MB of MP3 onto a CD from my PC and play that CD on the MTrip. And it plays regular audio CDs. The price of most portable MP3 players (standalones and Springboards) is comparable to buying an MTrip and a CD writer. You can also get a Nomad Jukebox, which stores 6GB of MP3, for $499. Chip-based solutions like Flash, MMC, SD, Memory Stick, etc. vary wildly in price. But I'll concede to your basic point: memory is cheaper on PPCs than on Visors. Since Visors aren't multimedia, they don't need that kind of memory.
quote:
How is the Pocket PC with 32 MB of RAM better than the Visor plus MP3 module?
It isn't a matter of being better. It's a matter of value. By the time a buyer pays $250 for a Visor Deluxe, and $270 for a Soundsgood, or MiniJam, they could have purchased a Pocket PC for $400. The whole point of the Palm platform is value and versatility. In this case the Visor is clearly a poor value. After all, you aren't getting color display with the Visor, and there is no need to lug MP3 modules around with a Pocket PC. But I wouldn't say that one or the other was better as an MP3 player.
False economics. If, like me, you're not buying an MP3 module, then you've saved $150. I'm also not paying for a color display that I don't need. On the other hand, if I change my mind at a later date, I can always buy the module to lug around like, say, the CF card that you'll need for an acceptable amount of MP3 storage on a PPC. But I'd probably keep the Springboard in the Springboard slot for convenience.
As it stands, I'd rather carry my MTrip and listen to 650MB of MP3 than either a 32MB PPC or a Visor with a 64MB MP3 module. Moreover, instead of dealing with the transfer times necessary to swap out files in the latter two devices, I can just switch CDs.
quote:
I doubt you would be able to add two mp3s on the Pocket PC once you install a few software.
Pocket PCs come with a desktop application that converts MP3s into Windows Media Files. In short, it can take a 5MB MP3 and turn it into a 1.5MB WMA file without any loss of quality. It's rather impressive, and the sound quality is great.[/i]
True. A definite plus for the PPC.
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And if the Pocket PC is sssooooooooooooooo good ..why is it that they are stuck on the store shelves?
Stuck on store shelves? Where have you been? In case you hadn't noticed, Pocket PCs are selling hand over fist. In fact CNET just ran an article that mentioning that Compaq and HP are ramping up production. In fact, Compaq expects to ship 1 million handhelds by the end of this year. You can't even get a PPC in any electronics store because they are out of stock. Ebay is a feeding frenzy right now for people wanting to grab an iPAQ. I know because I just sold mine there for a handsome price. I don't see Palm IIIc's going for $1000, do you?
The iPaq is a definite hit, but the increased production has as much to do with short supply as it does with high demand, so I wouldn't read too much into the eBay prices. The Staples a few blocks from me has iPaqs in supply, for what it's worth. HP will lose market share to Compaq, but still hold its ground. I predict that Casio will be the fifth OEM to drop WinCE/PPC.
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It is unrealistic to compare the Pocket PC to the Visor+MP3 and say "they're the same price, so what's the difference?"
They are not the same price in every instance. You can get a Jornada 540 for less than $400. But by the time you pay for a Visor Dlx + Soundsgood, your paying over $500.
Again, false economics -- unless you're original intention is to buy a PDA as an MP3 player, which isn't true for most of us. Here's a test: make a note of the next 10 times you see someone in public using a PDA. How many of those 10 were using their PDAs to listen to MP3?
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Where is the value there? You would be far better off buying a Diamond Rio for $150.
Rumor has it that the Diamond Rio's not much of a PDA.
quote:
There isn't a chance in hell I would ever pay $270 for an MP3 "module". I'm not really arguing with you in this case. In my opinion, all of these devices are grossly overpriced.
Amen to that. At last, we've reached common ground.
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09-13-2000 07:50 AM
You too?
and more and more teens are carrying Cell phones. Where does that leave a low-end plain vanilla Palm? And they aren't going to be downloading many third party apps with only 2MB or Ram. AvantGo will take up at least half of that allotment, and that is by far the best "Killer" application for the Palm platform.
) Not dissaggreing with you James just playing devils advicate(or however you spell that word) the one thing I thik that ppl haven't considered is that in the next generation of Visors which should include More Powerful processors, More memory, and maby if we are lucky a software grafti software area. This would basicly be a pocket PC only with PALMos, and you should be able to use all of your existing springbords (hopefuly) but this might be a dream
Yeah Right!
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