Save up to $300/year on phone billsOctober 12, 2004 10:01 AM PDT
Virgin takes on iPod
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The $249 Virgin Player, weighing 3.1 ounces, supports MP3 and WMA music formats and is capable of working with various digital music services, the company said.
The 5GB Virgin Player
includes an FM tuner.
The device has separate buttons for volume, skipping to the next song, and pausing the music, and features the ability to create playlists. The storage is sufficient for 1,200 MP3 songs, or around 80 compact discs, it said.
Apple's $249 iPod Mini has a 4GB hard drive, can store 1,000 songs and weighs 3.6 ounces.
The device comes bundled with the company's music software and service, Virgin Digital, which sells song downloads for 99 cents, or monthly subscriptions for $7.99. Virgin said people can also select songs from other music services that use WMA or MP3 formats.
The company also announced a new line of portable speakers that work with the player.
Both the player and the speakers are set for release later this month.
Software, hardware and consumer electronics companies currently dominate the online music market. But Virgin Electronics, the electronics arm within the Virgin Group, hopes to take advantage of being part of an offline music retailing giant.
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Apple iPod Mini,
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Apple Computer,
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I guess what i'm worried about is that Virgin is going to make you buy songs from their company (or maybe even ones that they have contracts with...) and that consumers won't be able to load their own songs from their own collections...
I don't know that they're going to do this.. i'm just *concerned*
Sincerly,
Christine Margaux
For that matter.. where's the OGG support in other players? :(
*sigh* now we see the supression of open-source projects inherent in the system! Now we see the supression of open-source projects inherent in the system!
*sigh*... whatever happened to the 1984 Apple commercial.. breaking from the norm and doing somthing completely new and different.. OGG support in iPods? of course not **rolls eyes**
piece of sh#t!
And even if it was a Virgin rep saying so, CNet still has a journalistic obligation to point out such obvious falsehoods. Otherwise, they have absolutely no credibility.
There should be a correction.
have an open license. And we all know how well MS did
after entering the browser arena late, then pounded
Netscape with IE, which created it's own standards and now
hasn't been updated in 2 years... because they have no idea
how to innovate on their own. IE is now the E-ticket to
spyware/viruses and all the stuff no one wants on the PC's.
one reaction in my brain ... WHAT the !@#$$
A slightly larger number of songs and lighter weight, both of
which aren't really offering anything of value to the consumer.
Where is the form, where is the ease of use, where is the
elegance. Who in the world would choose a product that they
would be ashamed to show?
Oh yeah ... and please make sure that we don't mistake OPEN
with Microsoft again.
1. User interface by far the easiest
2. iTunes
3. Looks
the only con is it is pricey...
But that is what PC companies do I guess, make a sub-standard copy of someone elses idea and mass produce it, just look at Microsoft.
why don't they come out with a new dvd player
that plays their own format of dvd...:P