Philips PMC7230 Portable Media Center
June 19th, 2006 Jason Dunn
Engadget has a report and some photos of the new Philips Portable Media Center, dubbed the PMC7230. According to the Engadget report, it’s going to have a 30 GB hard drive, a 3.5 inch 320 x 240 display, a kickstand on the back, and will be PlaysForSure compatible. It will apparently sell for $349 USD, which is better than the $500 price point the first generation units were at, but there’s not a lot that impresses me about this unit. Where’s the memory card slot? Being able to dump photos from a SecureDigital or CompactFlash card into the PMC is one of the killer scenarios offered by second generation PMCs, and this thing certainly looks big enough to handle a memory card slot of some sort. I continue to believe that the PMC has great potential, but so far it doesn’t seem like any of the OEMs other than Toshiba are willing to really push the boundaries beyond what we saw in the first generation units - though the LG also looks slick. This week I’ll be profiling the forthcoming second-generation Portable Media Centers.