Anyone see the Motorola simpliFI with built-in wireless? It sells for $379 and streams MP3's from your computer. Comes with a USB wireless adapter for PC. It also streams from internet radio stations.

Seeing how nobody had much to say about the HP unit I posted about in the Central forum, I'm not expecting much, but I'll post any reviews I can find.

http://www.motorola.com/broadband

hmmmm looks interesting... a few random thoughts from what I saw...

definitely like the built-in wireless... except for one thing... it is NOT 802.11b compatible, it's the semi-proprietary HomeRF wireless (though they state that they may support 802.11b and other standards in future models, doesn't sound like a simple firmware upgrade).

remote looks nice, but having the remote dock in the main cabinet and act as front-panel controls may not be the best idea (I would likely misplace the remote and then have no way of controlling the thing)

bulge on right-hand side leads me to believe that you can't stack other equipment on top (maybe not an issue)

I wonder how readable the front panel screen is? It's difficult to judge from the pictures I saw, but at first glance it looks like it is more visible than the rio receiver...

The TagIt feature is interesting as well... wonder how much information they keep though (minor privacy concern)

One more thing, it looks like their management software has a lot more features and is more useable than what we've gotten with the rio receiver (I haven't tried jrec so can't compare that)

The internet radio streaming is nice, but if the recent royalty structure guideline gets followed I'm wondering how many stations will survive...

I would like to see on-screen access for items like this... If I'm supposed to plug it into my A/V center I'd like to be able to show something on the tv (songlist, visualizations, etc.)

~fiddy

Fiddy, I couldn't agree with you more about the on-screen display. I have a 53" Sony and I would love to do a "picture in picture" thing and have the mp3 menu in a little box will I play various video stuff during parties.

Does this thing support ethernet? I didn't see it on the page..

Ethernet is not supported (according to their FAQ in the user guide you can download), it is in the same list as 802.11b, 802.11a, HPNA, and HomePlug