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From: p on 5 Feb 2006 18:17
Hi,

I'm after a cheapish mp3 player (the hardware kind), any suggestions?
Capacity isn't too important - 256MB would be fine.

Browsing Amazon, a few caught my eye as being cheap with reasonable
reviews: ATMT Lite, Creative Zen Nano Plus, Netac C620, and Ministry of
Sound's MOSMP0xx. Has anybody had one of these working under Linux, can
you recommend a better alternative?

Cheers,
Pete
From: mike on 6 Feb 2006 04:51
p wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm after a cheapish mp3 player (the hardware kind), any suggestions?
> Capacity isn't too important - 256MB would be fine.
>
> Browsing Amazon, a few caught my eye as being cheap with reasonable
> reviews: ATMT Lite, Creative Zen Nano Plus, Netac C620, and Ministry of
> Sound's MOSMP0xx. Has anybody had one of these working under Linux, can
> you recommend a better alternative?
>
> Cheers,
> Pete
I'd go for one that has removable memory and ALSO has the ability to
play standard format mp3s loaded by a card reader. One don't
necessarily imply the
other. And anti-piracy concerns are making it harder to find devices
that can do it. Second thing I'd look for is ability to be recognized
as a USB hard drive by the system...and not require any software to
protect "you" from piracy. That way you're covered no matter what.
I wouldn't touch one that didn't have both capabilities...if I were
microsoft averse.

Another good feature is resume from where you left off.
Some restart from the beginning of the play list. So you only
get to hear the same 10 songs every time you start it up.
I thought, "no problem, I'll just run it in random mode and it'll be
fine." WRONG!!! the damn thing ain't random at all, just a
deterministic sequence. Looks random, but it's the same every time,
so doesn't help the resume problem at all.

Good luck trying to determine exactly how it works
from the advertisement. User manual ain't much help either.

I use a Rio Forge. Has both capabilities and is really cheap.
Grab a handful of 512MB SD cards next time they go on sale for $10
and you're set.

I'd personally stay away from hard drive devices.
I have a Rio Nitrus. Proprietary Windows SW to load it is a PITA.
Works really nice unless it's cold. If I leave it in the
car overnight in winter, the hard drive won't start.

mike
From: John Thompson on 7 Feb 2006 21:05
On 2006-02-06, mike <spamme0(a)netscape.net> wrote:

> I'd go for one that has removable memory and ALSO has the ability to
> play standard format mp3s loaded by a card reader. One don't
> necessarily imply the other. [...]

> I use a Rio Forge. Has both capabilities and is really cheap.

Do these play ogg/vorbis format by any chance?

--

John (john(a)os2.dhs.org)
From: mike on 8 Feb 2006 23:45
John Thompson wrote:
> On 2006-02-06, mike <spamme0(a)netscape.net> wrote:
>
>
>>I'd go for one that has removable memory and ALSO has the ability to
>>play standard format mp3s loaded by a card reader. One don't
>>necessarily imply the other. [...]
>
>
>>I use a Rio Forge. Has both capabilities and is really cheap.
>
>
> Do these play ogg/vorbis format by any chance?
>
Welllll,
That's an entirely different kettle of fish.

The answer to your question is "NO", but read on if you're bored.

I LIKE OGG. I found the quality more pleasing to my ear at lower
bit rates. I experimented with it some trying to stuff more
music onto PDA. The result was good.

BUT!!!!

For most of us, OGG is not a viable option.
If you're just starting to build a compressed music collection.
And you're willing to go with one of the few players that support OGG.
And you do NOT want to be able to play your music on virtually ANY
player on the plantet.
You might be happy starting out with OGG.

I bought a $10 used PDA and a $10 512MB SD card. Put an OGG player on
it and life was good for about a week. A PDA is the cheapest most
versatile player you can get.
Battery life on a PDA is short by music player standards. 4 hours was
just not enough. It was kinda delicate too. The weight causes it to
fall out of your shirt pocket when you bend over. And the big screen
is just asking to be broken.

My music is in MP3 format so I can play it on any player on the
planet...see above...so I had to convert about a gigabyte a week to OGG
to load on the player. That got very boring very quickly, so I started
archiving the OGG. Soon I had TWO music collections. Was cheaper to
buy twice the memory than to archive the ogg stuff.
When I found a good deal on the "Forge" I punted the PDA altogether.
Better is not always best.

While I'm at it, I'll say that a MP3 CD player works very well if you
don't need to stick it in your pocket. Fry's puts 'em on sale for
under $20 periodically. It's a lot easier to swap a CD than to
reload a flash memory. Biggest problem I have with mine is that it
doesn't remember where it left off. I get same 10 songs every time
I turn it on. I'm wearing out the FF button getting to new tunes.
Not a problem if you just let it play.

YMMV,
mike
From: Chris on 9 Feb 2006 05:41
John Thompson wrote:
> On 2006-02-06, mike <spamme0(a)netscape.net> wrote:
>
>> I'd go for one that has removable memory and ALSO has the ability to
>> play standard format mp3s loaded by a card reader. One don't
>> necessarily imply the other. [...]
>
>> I use a Rio Forge. Has both capabilities and is really cheap.
>
> Do these play ogg/vorbis format by any chance?
>

To more or less guarantee ogg support go for any of the iRiver players.
I don't have one so can't vouch for their quality, etc.
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