Bad Thurrott! Bad!
For these reasons, Apple TV is recommended only for those people who have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid and decided they really like the taste and can afford the upscale lifestyle. General fans of digital media or those who are interested in accessing PC-based media from their TVs should know that there are better solutions out there.
That’s fine and all, but he also says:
For the same price, you could get an Xbox 360 and use that device to stream media from any XP or Vista-based PC, access live and recorded TV, various online music, movie, and photo services via its Media Center Extender functionality and a Media Center PC, or download rented and purchased TV shows and movies, many in high definition (unlike iTunes, which only offers standard definition video).
The Xbox 360 “tard pack” is $299, the same price as Apple TV. This does not include a hard drive, or high-definition cables (the box includes “low-def” composite cables, not component) so his point that Apple does not include cables is moot.
The $399 unit (that’s $100 more than Apple TV) comes with a hard drive (a whopping 20GB, with ~8GB free when you take it out of the box thanks to the system software), half the size of Apple’s. It also lacks HDMI output, so all content suffers from an unnecessary digital to analog conversion.
There’s also no internal wireless connection on the 360 (that’s $99 more), bringing the overall price to $100 - $200 over the price of the Apple TV.
But in all fairness, the Xbox 360 does do more:
It also plays DVD movies, and, heck, it can play high-definition video games too. Yes, the thing sounds like a wind tunnel, especially when its playing games, but it’s far more versatile and powerful device than the Apple TV. And it costs exactly the same price.
However, Paul fails to mention that the Xbox 360 has worse DVD playback quality than most $99 stand-alone units. Besides, can you really enjoy a film with the box screeching like a F16 the entire time?
As for games, not everyone looking for a media center device is in the market for a hardcore gaming console. Rewind back to 1977, it would be like buying an 8-track player with a pinball machine grafted onto it. Convergence, bleh.
Not to worry, BOHICA, Microsoft will soon roll out a $480 Xbox with a 120GB HDD and HDMI. If you add the external HD-DVD drive ($200) that’s quite an expensive (not to mention unsightly) media center device.
When you add it all up, if a high-end game machine *slash* media center device is what you’re after, you’re better off getting a Playstation 3. You get a Blu-Ray player, internal HDD, internal Wi-Fi, HDMI, and high definition gaming for $599, almost $200 less than the Microsoft solution. All in one nice, quiet package.
So, basically, I’d recommend Apple TV on the low-end, the PS3 on the high end.
March 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
All fine points, but I think the most egregious thing in that whole article is this:
…Apple TV is recommended only for those people who have drunk the Apple Kool-Aid…
Not because it’s incorrect, but because this is just one too many times that I’ve heard the “Kool-Aid” reference used wrong (as it almost universally is). If someone has “drunk the Apple Kool-Aid,” they’re dead. The people at Jonestown weren’t indoctrinated into the cult by drinking Kool-Aid, they were killed by it. The Kool-Aid wasn’t a mind control substance, it was a means to suicide. It’s not even that I’m offended by references to this incident, it’s just that I’ve pretty much had it with the continually incorrect references to it. And once someone’s said that (just as when someone uses “M$” for Microsoft or refers to the “liberal media”), I just can’t hear anything else they say. It’s one thing in a Weblog or from a Slashdot commenter, but it’s just inexcusable from a paid journalist.
March 25th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I’ve always taken it as the person has been so brainwashed by the cult that they “drank the Kool-Aid” willingly, knowing damn well it would kill them. Not really accurate in respect to Jonestown, more towards the Heaven’s Gate mass suicides or the Branch Davidians. They thought they’d wake up in a better place.
As for Thurrott, he’s no more of a pro-journalist than most full-time bloggers. He spouts the “Kool-Aid” talk because Microsoft has so far been unsuccessful gaining a loyal following in the CE realm. Xbox is as close as they’ve come to success (if you consider six-billion-dollars in the red a success), but for every step forward they’ve made in that respect, there’s Zune, PlaysForSure, WinCE Smart Phones, Tablets, WebTV, and Origami to pull them back.