Microsoft Monitor, Dazed and Confused.

Recently Joe Wilcox from Jupiter Media went monitor shopping and evaluated how MCE looked on those monitors and during this discovered some problems with how MCE is presented at retail:

• Recorded TV looked different on the same monitor at two different stores
• MCEs not correctly setup or not at all(first run had not even been run on one!)
• ClearType not enabled for LCD monitors
• Music played through Winamp and not MCE or WMP

He ends with:

I can’t strongly enough encourage Microsoft and its PC partners to treat seriously this channel problem. The

Recently I also examined how MCE was sold at retail. I visited several stores including Circuit City, Best Buy, Frys and Magnolia AV. My high level complaints are:

• MCEs indistinguishable from other Windows PCs
• MCEs were running some generic OEM demo program and users were unable to play with the MCE UI themselves
• MCEs were in the computer section instead of also being sold in the TV section alongside Tivos and ReplayTV
• Salespeople had no clue about MCE
• At Magnolia AV, a high end AV shop, they did not even stock them!

Once MCE 2005 hits stores shortly these problems should be resolved.

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