Entertaining Developments

Bowers & Wilkins

Let’s face it: If your personal media player (PMP) doesn’t connect to the Internet, it’s old-fashioned.

Six companies now offer connected PMPs, which allow for emailing, Internet surfing, and streaming audio and video. Most of these devices run the same operating system as smartphones do, which provides you with access to an array of applications (including games), social media and even Voice over Internet Protocol calling. The latest connected PMPs also are sprouting multiple cameras, GPS capability, and faster processors to remain relevant amid competition from tablet computers and smartphones. And PMPs don’t need an expensive voice/data plan to keep you connected, because they connect to the Internet through Wi-Fi.

Roughly 10 percent of all PMPs are connected PMPs, but we expect that percentage to rise in the next 2 years due to the arrival in the past year of Android-based PMPs. Android can be licensed by any manufacturer that wants to pay to use it (think: Windows-based computers). At press time, it is challenging Apple for supremacy in the smartphone market, but it remains to be seen whether the same battle comes to PMPs. Unfortunately, as of press time, only Samsung has licensed the full Android app market for its Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 and 5.0, which come out this summer. (The price hasn’t been announced as of press time.) All other Android-based PMPs can access only a limited number of apps.

Among PMPs, you now will find more touchscreens. As of press time, roughly 30 percent of all PMPs and 25 percent of all nonconnected PMPs have touchscreens. Each number is approximately 10 percentage points more than it was 2 years ago.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Apple’s dominance of the PMP market. According to market researcher The NPD Group, the four models of iPod (Classic, Nano, Shuffle and Touch) made up 77 percent of the PMPs that were sold in the United States from January to July 2010. As a result, competing companies’ lineups dwindled or were dropped.

Dell and Toshiba were the largest companies to get out of the PMP business in the past 2 years. Haier, Pioneer and RCA haven’t updated their products in a while and cut back on their distribution. And at press time, it appears that even one-time would-be iPod-killer Microsoft is getting out of the game. Bloomberg reported in March that Microsoft no longer would develop its Zune PMP, although the company wouldn’t confirm or deny this officially.

FLASH DANCE. Whether it’s a connected or nonconnected PMP, flash memory has become the rule. In fact, we found only five hard-drive PMPs that remain on the market, including the once-ubiquitous iPod Classic. But don’t cue taps just yet for the hard-drive PMP. As long as free, widespread Wi-Fi (and access to limitless online content) remains a fantasy, hard-drive PMPs should stick around for those who want to carry around their entire collection of music and videos.

Flash-memory prices have come down, but the popularity of tablet computers and smartphones has kept flash-drive prices high enough so no PMP has more than 64GB. We believe that one or two 128GB models will appear in the next year, and they probably will cost $500.

Capacity is less of an issue among connected PMPs, because Wi-Fi provides access to free and paid streaming content (no need to download it) as well as cloud-based (online) music storage. Cloud storage is an attractive option, but it requires constant Internet access for dropout-free listening.

And connecting with the cloud can drain your PMP’s battery if you use wireless connectivity a lot. For example, we’ve used PMPs that have batteries that are supposed to last 40 to 50 hours when playing back music, yet when we spent all day streaming videos and surfing the Web, we couldn’t get 8 hours out of the battery.