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As expected, the PC maker on Thursday launched a diminutive Dell Digital Jukebox portable music player, dubbed the Pocket DJ 5, along with a new line of plasma-screen televisions, a portable photo printer and an updated Dell DJ 20 music player.
The Pocket DJ 5, which will sell for $199 and offer 5GB of storage, will compete with Apple's 4GB iPod Mini, which sells for $249. The updated 20GB Dell DJ will sell for $249, a drop of $30 from the price of Dell's existing 20GB model. Dell plans to begin shipping them in November. Its current DJ 15 and DJ 20 models are likely to be phased out.
The new DJ music players and the plasma TVs are only one aspect of a broader effort begun last year by Dell, which aims to gain a position in the so-called digital home market. Such consumers are beginning to use technology to share multimedia such as music and movies between PCs and more traditional electronic devices such as televisions and stereos. PC makers such as Dell aim to compete with traditional consumer electronics brands, such as Sony, for a piece of the digital home.
Since beginning its latest consumer electronics effort last year, Dell has introduced a number of televisions, printers and PCs. Yet Dell isn't aiming to deliver products just for the sake of becoming a consumer electronics brand, Mike George, general manager of Dell's U.S. consumer business, said Thursday at a trade show in New York.
"We don't believe in invention for the sake of invention," he said. "What we want a consumer to feel comfortable about when we intro a product is that this is a product, a technology and a usage model that's ready for primetime."
Photo gallery
iPods galore
Music fans everywhere adore
their players. Webshots users
share images of their iPods
partying, traveling and relaxing.
Dell is also offering a $275 Windows Media Extender, a device that allows its Media Center PCs to share content with other devices throughout a person's house. The extender will allow people to, among other things, watch video stored on their PC on one of its new plasma televisions.
TVs and printers Given their extensive relationships with both consumers and suppliers of screens, hard drives and other components used to build electronics, PC makers including Dell and Hewlett-Packard have been eyeing consumer electronics as an area of potential growth for some time. Despite a mixed track record, the success of some products, particularly the iPod, have shown it's possible for computer makers to compete with established consumer brands such as Sony.
To that end, Dell has also extended its television line with two aggressively priced plasma-screen models.
Its W4200HD, a 42-inch plasma high-definition plasma TV is priced at $3,499, while its W4200ED enhanced definition, 42-inch plasma TV will sell for $2,299. The company will also offer installation services for the sets.
Dell's plasma TV prices are lower than many of the other brands on the market, the company said, because it sells huge numbers of computer monitors and can use relationships with suppliers to gain favorable prices. It also sells the sets directly to customers, eliminating retail mark-ups.
"We take that supply chain and design equity and we extend it" to TVs, George said. "Most other companies go through consumer channels and the consumer pays the mark-up." Dell also added two models to its printer line on Thursday. Its Photo Printer 540, priced at $189, is portable and creates 4-by-6-inch prints without a PC. The printer contains a 2.5-inch LCD screen, along with USB input, a PictBridge port for connecting cameras and a memory card reader that can download files from five different types of cards.
The company also updated its all-in-one inkjet printer line with the Dell 942 All-in-one Photo Printer, which will sell for $149. The printer adds features such as a 2.5-inch LCD screen for viewing photos.
Dell's new printers are available now, and the company plans to ship the televisions next month.
See more CNET content tagged:
Dell Digital Jukebox,
consumer electronics,
Apple iPod Mini,
music player,
plasma TV
anyone used it? What are its interfaces? What are is
capabilities?
COME ON! --- It's a joke right?
end of the article you state that the Dell products can be ordered
now, and will begin shipping in the next month.,
You have provided no background, no pictures, no reviews, and
the headline of the story is totally misleading.
the Dell release. If c|net can't do better, why exist. Guess you
have to keep your advertisers (Dell) happy though.
But, I can understand why they didn't run a photo of the new DJ,
it's butt ugly and looks like it has the same controls as the old,
larger brother that Dell could hardly give away. So, if you can't
say anything good, just run the release.
shadow?
If you can't innovate...imitate. Story of Dull's history.
Dull is the Wall-Mart od the entire computer industry.
cheaper, but legacy, jealosy, lousy,clunky wannabe rip-offs.
-Eyes wide open in Seattle -
In real life, most people who buy tech do not. Sure, there are people with limited funds and Dell is there for them because when it's PC's - Dell is about being cheap.
But beyond the couple hundred people who will buy a $2,300 Plasma sight unseen and a couple thousand who might buy a Dell DJ to strip out the mini HDD - they will fail miserably.
Dell just doesn't get it - below $1,000 for a PC, it's all about the price but above that - Dell is the 4-door car rental sedan - good enough for the company car - not so much for your personal driveway. Buying a Dell for the house is saying you can't afford more. THat's why they can't compete with Alienware on the high-end PC market. Dell is aptly named - square and squat.
Their strategy looks good to me... I like how they are concerned for the customer's needs and wants...
A better product for a lesser price than iPod... doesn't get much better than that!
http://allwaysmusic.modblog.com/
2. Read the article in the Wall Street Journal (paper) and there were no photos!
3. OK, 25% more music storage for 20% lower price. That sounds good, until you realize that:
a. it is not an iPod
b. 1 GB is no big deal
c. $50 is no big deal
4. If Dell actually starts to hurt Mini iPod sales, then Apple can easily up the capacity by one whole GB.
5. If Dell actually starts to negatively impact Mini iPod sales, then Apple can lower the price by $25.
6. Coolness counts. If the Dell device is not cool, then it will tank.
,dave
You could get a 20GB Dell DJ for less than an iPod 15GB 12 months ago. Where has that got them...nowhere....they don't get it. Simply reducing your price in this arena won't work, they are not selling boring old PC's. They should stick to giving them away with PC's - that's all they are worth!
In fact visiting Cnet is like that movie GROUNDHOG DAY, everytime I visit they have the *same* story on how Apple is going to fail and what the next "iPod killer" is. Hummm...I guess eventually they will be right, it could be years though..nice hedging Cnet!