New Media players

Two new developments on the Personal Media Player front... Today's Seattle PI had a writeup on a new product line being developed with Microsoft and companies including Samsung Electronics, ViewSonic Corp., iRiver International and Creative Technology. These will be units with 20 to 40 GB hard drives and a decent size LCD screen and will be able to display Video, play music and show still images. The article claims that a unit with a 40 GB hard disk will be able to store 175 hours of video, 10,000 songs or 100,000 pictures using Windows Media file formats. Price is expected to be in the $400 to $700 range depending on feature set. On the other hand, Epson is releasing a product that just does photos (no video or music) and just has a 10GB hard disk. It is selling for $599. The only plus I can see is that it is designed for the digital photographer in that it can view several different camera file formats and has a built-in CF card reader. A review of this is at the excellent DP Review website here and Epson's own description can be found here My guess is that the Epson will be eclipsed - it's too expensive for people wanting a simple digital wallet and if someone needs high-quality viewing, they will carry a notebook with them since they will also want high-quality editing and image adjustment (Photoshop). Considering the file size of modern digital cameras, the 10GB drive is just too small for anything more than a weekend trip.