Hands-on with AOL and Haier's PMP

When we first got word of AOL (disclosure: AOL is our parent company's parent) and Haier's Linux-based WiFi and Bluetooth-enabled PMP yesterday, we were a little confused. On the one hand, the shot that PC Magazine snapped was of a device that looked pretty beat up; on the other, the feature set appeared to be impressive. Today we got a hands-on with the device, which managed to exceed our initial low expectations regarding the design of the player. The problem here is that the brushed stainless steel casing looks awful when photographed with a flash. In person it could actually be called attractive, although fingerprints on both the screen and the casing are still easily noticeable. For menu control there's a square, clickable trackpad which does a great job of menu navigation due to the fact that you don't have to move your thumb off the trackpad to select an option. The Linux based operating system has a nice and simple (albeit iPod inspired) design, which compliments the trackpad control system. In terms of specific features it has a QVGA LCD screen (which didn't appear particularly bright), built-in WiFi (with which you can buy music from online stores, stream internet radio, do background downloads, and search for similar songs), built-in Bluetooth for using wireless A2DP headphones, and USB 2.0 connectivity. The range of files that it'll play is also impressive, with PlaysForSure WMA files, AACPlus, AACPlus Enhanced, WAV, and MP3 all playable. On top of that you can play MPEG-4, WMV 7/8/9, H.264, and AVI video, as well as display JPG and PNG images. An AOL representative told us that they're expecting to ship the player for $249 sometime around the second quarter of this year, so hopefully we'll be able to give you an idea of other more specific features -- such as battery life -- as it nears a commercial release.

Hands on with AOL and Haier's PMP

[ScOObyDoo @ Jan 11th 2007 6:36PM]

That actually looks pretty darn impressive. 30Gb, Wifi and BT for $249 is a good price point.

[Chris @ Jan 11th 2007 6:51PM]

crazy fingerprint magnet! why do they insist on make stuff out of those materials.

i guess the benifit of a dim screen is a longer battery life

[erwerwer @ Jan 11th 2007 6:55PM]

Conrad: At least say sorry for your unjustified bashing yesterday. I still wonder how you could say the player was ugly, when it was totally obvious that it was simply a rather bad photo.

[applesucksLeo @ Jan 11th 2007 7:14PM]

This actually looks real nice. Why can they do a device so quick that runs Linux and has useful wifi and MSFT with all their resources csnt ? Being a car guy I luv the look...now do one in carbon fiber too :)

[Sam @ Jan 11th 2007 7:24PM]

The built-in Bluetooth is enough to make me get one. If it also has a mass-storage mode I'll buy it as soon as it goes on sale. But do I have to use the docking cradle or can I also transfer over Bluetooth?

[directhex @ Jan 11th 2007 7:39PM]

Linux based, but no Ogg support? Bah.

[cdman98 @ Jan 11th 2007 8:01PM]

Now if I can download all my podcast through RSS on the player that would be a deal maker for me.

[Noa @ Jan 11th 2007 8:27PM]

someone (not sony) needs to make an alternative to playsforsure

[Dystopia @ Jan 11th 2007 8:44PM]

Would be nice if someone could learn how to use fill-in flash and high exposure settings (iso and the like) so that we can get decent product photos without these horribly over saturated and flash affected photos... Honestly, how hard is it? We either get crazxy blurry shots or horrible over exposed flash jobs.

I think this think will look pretty hot in person... looks like an industrial take on a creative pmp. If it sounds as good as a creative i might just pick one up to compliment my gigabeat s.

[Evan @ Jan 11th 2007 8:55PM]

Is anybody going to comment on how much of an ipod ripoff that is?

[Chris Merchant @ Jan 11th 2007 9:07PM]

Now THIS is a huge improvement over what we saw yesterday. Featureset is promising. Enough to make me want to look twice at my 5G iPod. If it has decent battery life, and it's as thin as it appears- it might win over my iPod sexiness half.

Chris

[sbrisendine @ Jan 11th 2007 11:10PM]

I was going to mention the photography, but someone beat me to it. Seriously, no one will ever really seriously take the gadget blogs umm... seriously.... until you get someone who knows how to take a picture on staff.

Like me. HIRE ME NOW!!!

No, seriously.

[baroo @ Jan 12th 2007 12:22AM]

There's video of aol/haier's pmp here:

http://zdpub.vo.llnwd.net/o2/dltv/episode129/dl.tv.129.mov

starts around 42:45

[Shawn @ Jan 12th 2007 12:25AM]

I'm a *very* happy MusicNow subscriber (i have thousands of tracks on my laptop for only $10/month; i could never afford that on ITunes). Between AOL Radio with XM and MusicNow, i'm able to satisfy both my electic tastes and my wife's...well...more stable tastes (she'll be listening to the same Crystal Gayle tracks forever). I'm psyched about about having a small device that we can use in the kitchen to stream mood music (like the AOL SinatraStyle channel) but quickly switch over to specific tunes if the kids want to dance around to Laurie Berkner. :-)

[Aaron @ Jan 12th 2007 6:22AM]

Looks like it has some good features, but I think the thing is kind of ugly, sorry. And it looks just like a metallic iPod with different buttons. If we're all going to be doing video now, let's have a large widescreen on it instead of copying that stupid tiny iPod screen. The iPod didn't sell a bajillion units because it was the best, people.

[dave smith @ Jan 12th 2007 7:52AM]

Hey, this looks like a cool little device... good report. And may I just say I've never seen Engadget do such a complete aobut-face for a product before. Did the AOL Overlords write you some nasty, threatening emails? something smells fishy here about the sudden "this is crap!" to "This is cool!" reversal, and Engadgets' integrity is too precious to endanger. Please be careful.

[XSportSeeker @ Jan 12th 2007 8:29AM]

"disclosure: AOL is our parent company's parent"
MWAHAHAHA Oh wow... someone got some spanking...

[martian @ Jan 12th 2007 4:36PM]

some simple math....

APPLE'S IPHONE
""""""""""""""""""""
$599 DEVICE (8GB) only plays apple licensed media
$960 MANDATORY TWO YEARS OF CINGULAR SERVICE (only 450 min a month)
$1559

[martian @ Jan 12th 2007 5:28PM]

TEGIC/AOL DEVICE
"""""""""""""""""""""""""
$250 DEVICE (30GB) plays almost all popular media formats
FREE as VoIP wifi phone with JahJah or Skype for Linux Installed* (unlimited minutes or pennies a minute)

* assuming we can get into that linux backend to trick it out a bit.

It's a question of economics. As a technologist, for me it comes down to specs, and as much as i hate to admit it, the tegic aol device potentially does much much more, for much much less:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/specs.html
http://www.smartscreensmobile.com/media-solution.php

why so many otherwise tech savvy people continue to be enslaved by apple, i will never understand. sure she's sexy, but in that gold digging high priced dominatrix way.

an interview with someone from tegic:
http://uncutvideo.aol.com/users/uncutvideoces/53a20b614a845b648cc96a36e97b9c67?index=15

[WARlord84 @ Jan 13th 2007 1:50PM]

what hd sizes does this come in I have a 30 gig ipod video and i want somthing larger

[Mogrify @ Jan 13th 2007 4:15PM]

Now that's more like it. In better light it's pretty sharp looking, altho I'd want a case with a belt clip for it anyway. Accessories like cases will be hard to come by at first, right? And as I said yesterday, with a device that promises so much for so little I'm a bit skeptical that Haier (of $29.95 microwave oven fame) can make it work. I'll be watching with interest as first adopters put this baby on the dissecting table.

[Philip @ Jan 16th 2007 8:45AM]

I wouldn't worry too much about it missing ogg atm.. if it really is based on linux it will be hacked/modded to play pretty much everything eventually