These are the conclusions of a pair of PMC reviews published today at PCMagazine.com by Bill Howard.

Howard finds that the Zen's audio and photo playback work well. You can start music playing, then start a slide show, and the music continues playing in the background, he says. Video playback produced an occasional stutter, but not enough to detract from the overall enjoyment. His biggest complaint is that the black reflective screen bounces back room light and fingerprints as well as the images. On the other hand, the early production unit delivered exceptional battery life: 7 hours, 25 minutes when playing video.

The iRiver PMC-100 is not quite as far along in development, and thus a little less polished than the Zen, but still quite good, in Howard's estimation. Video watching was fine, with a few occasional artifacts. Output to a TV is possible but not desirable because of the 320-by-240 resolution. One advantage of the PMC-100 over the Zen is a two position "kickstand" that makes video watching easier, Howard says.

While other reviewers have been underwhelmed by Portable Media Centers, PC Magazine gives the Zen 3.5 out of 5 stars and the PMC-100 3 out of 5.

Creative's Zen PMC was the first Portable Media Center to reach retail store shelves in September of last year, priced at just under $500. The following month iRiver released its version of the PMC, the PMC-100.

Read both PCMagazine.com reviews here:

• Review of the Creative Zen Portable Media Center
  
  
• Review of the iRiver PMC-100

More info about Portable Media Centers

The Portable Media Center concept was unveiled a year ago in Bill Gates's keynote address to the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show. The handheld devices allow users to take digital media content from their Windows XP PCs with them for playback anytime, anywhere. Supported multimedia content types include digital music and videos, digitally recorded television shows, and digital photos. The PMC software platform, based on Microsoft's Windows CE embedded OS, provides support for both Microsoft's Windows Media Series audio and video formats and for MP3.

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