walt mossberg doesn’t just hit the nail on the head today, he frickin clobbers it with a jackhammer. when you buy a PC these days, it’s so overloaded with c-r-a-p, it’s an insult. and what gives pc manufacturers the right to pollute computers with all this crap? most of which kicks back to them in the form of rev shares and subsidies.
OK, I got one and I like it. It’s not perfect, but here’s my high level thoughts on the device
1) No internet radio – bummer
2) The UI is SO easy to use, it’s almost ridiculous.. MS has no clue when I see apple make a UI that’s this easy to use
3) My house uses wireless-N, and syncing my pictures and music took a looooong time (a few thousand pics and a few hundred songs)
4) Biggest gripe – 40g HDD.. that’s not enough for my entire music.. so I’m doing a handful of playlists and all pics. There is a USB port, which claims is only for service/diagnostics – I’m sure one day it will support an add-on hdd. I turned off podcasts, tv, movies, and video – takes up too much disk space!
5) Slideshows are wonderful, it will play some of your music and show pics – easy and cool. But I haven’t yet found a way to just browse my pics ..??.??
6) Music plays nice, good on-screen graphics and sound quality is solid, over just RCA connections.
7) 1080i via component looks excellent
VERY quiet, more quiet than my HD DVR! (it gets a bit warm, even in stand-by mode)
9) Remote is simple and elegant
10) It only comes with power cord, so you better have some excess cords lying around 
11) Hooking up to wireless network was pretty easy, but I don’t have WEP/WPA, only SSID broadcast off.
After years of bickering, Denver might finally get a brand spanking new antenna, for HD OTA (over the air). This has been years of bickering, but somehow, the politicos snuck this through congress.. ahh, you have to love the backroom dealings that is politics.
It will be hosted on lovely lookout mountain
Makers of new DVD players are going too far in copyright protection efforts, but buyers needn’t take it lying down.. I know I won’t. The studios can kiss my ass with all their DRM. I don’t tape movies in theatres and buy my DVDs when I want them, but I take offense to their attitude that all consumers are criminals and can’t be trusted. And I refuse to take part in using a technology that is laden with shackles as this is. In fact, I’d love to read about someome cracking this DRM, just to show the industry to get back to wasting movies and stop wasting billions in a futile exercise. And this article mentions all these add’l blue-ray features I had no idea about, but have turned me off completely. Sony has their heads up their ass, a painful admission for me as someone who has been a lifelong Sony fan.
I really hate this us against them mentality the industry has adopted.. and their complete lack of PR is making them look like complete losers. Apple launches DRM (Fairplay) for iTunes and it’s somewhat restrictive, but is really focused on casual copying, and Apple looks like innovators and consumer/industry friendly in their approach… Maybe the entire industry should just get deep into bed with Apple. Microsoft is trying to look like a hero and make lots of money at this, but we all know they aren’t looking out for the consumer, their products are designed by engineers, not product designers..
