WSJ review of Soundbridge

Walt Mossberg reviewed the Soundbridge in the WSJ (online) today.

Some excerpts...

[...]

On the user-interface issue, the Roku was a pleasure. We found we could 
sit 10 feet away, remote in hand, and select songs and playlists from 
the music stored on a Windows or Macintosh computer, and actually see 
what we were doing. Most of this is done by simply using the arrow 
buttons on the remote, and it worked well in our tests. Score one for 
Roku.

About my only complaint was that, like most other music-networking 
devices I've seen, the SoundBridge can't play the copy-protected songs 
Apple sells in its iTunes store online. It can handle only nonprotected 
MP3 or AAC files in your collection.

But the Roku fell down on the Wi-Fi setup test. I thought Roku might do 
better than its competitors because it is tied into iTunes and uses a 
terrific Apple technology called Rendezvous, which allows Windows or 
Mac computers running iTunes to instantly share their libraries of 
songs. But that wasn't as great an asset as I'd expected.

[...]

My preproduction test unit also exhibited a few other glitches, 
including drop-outs in song playback. The company is confident it can 
fix these by the time the SoundBridge ships.

But even if all the glitches are resolved, I can't recommend the Roku 
SoundBridge, or any similar product, as long as it requires users to 
know anything about techie terminology like "Hex." I'll keep looking 
for a product that spares users such hassles.

[end of article]
-- 
Matt Thomas                     email: [email protected]
3am Software Foundry              www: http://3am-software.com/bio/matt/
Cupertino, CA              disclaimer: I avow all knowledge of this 
message.