Mmm, I really love my Portable Media Center
So I totally slacked and didn’t post part two of my Creative Zen PMC review, but nevermind. Battery life is quite good, I managed to listen to music nonstop for a drive in a 10′ U-Haul from San Jose to Redmond without needing to charge it so I’m happy. While I still think the Creative is a brick (albeit in a piano black finish), the user experience and just the overall satisfaction with what’s actually in the device is what does it for me. I’ll probably buy a Creative Zen Micro Photo when those come out since I refuse to have a player that can’t do album art… That’s actually one thing I love about the PMC. Personally I’d really love to see a Zen Micro sized device powered by the same stuff that’s in the PMC, imho, THIS is the key to making the PMC’s take off and making a true iPod killer. Well, at least from the device side. The other OEM’s are coming close to the level of Apple’s industrial design, Creative being the forerunner. After using iTunes for Windows on the laptop for over 3 months I’m still at a complete loss at how anyone could actually want to use it. Sure the real time search is nice but the software is just crap. It’s slow and total bloatware. I hate that it has the iPod service, etc.
Getting back to the point, I really love the PMC, I don’t really use the video enough simply because DVR-MS to WMV encoding takes too long with WMP10. I’ve not gotten down to really moving DVD’s to WMV either. But wow, I really love the way the navigation for all my music, and I really love my album art. The degree with which the PMC matches the UX of the MCE is sweet. I take the PMC into work everyday and I’m actually finding in the role I’ve placed it in, it works really well. Now if it only fit in my pocket…
Tags: Music
