MP3 Player Shoppers Guide

An anonymous reader writes "Says this three-part rundown of the latest DAPs "When Sony execs crowed a few weeks ago that their latest MP3 players were THE iPod Killers one thing was obvious. They were oblivious to the fact that the term "iPod Killer" had already gone from clever market-speak to running joke." Still, quite a few neat players here and I bet most don't scratch up as bad as iPods do."

Comments

Vorbis Support

[RAMMS EIN]

While on the subject, what players can people recommend that support Ogg Vorbis? Support may be either as-shipped-by-the-factory, or available through something like Rockbox. I dislike moving parts, so Flash is preferable over hard drives.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the now discontinued iRiver iHP-120, and it supports .ogg out of the box, along with .m3u playlists. Personally, I love it, but it has a 20GB hard drive so it might not be for you.

You'd have to hunt it down over eBay or something like I did for mine.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Hakubi_Washu]

I enjoy a Trekstor i.Beat organix, which, after downloading their firmware upgrade, does .oggs (Many of their other players do as well and they have a really nice collection...). On the downside (from iPod-POV): It's a flash-based player, aka, 1 GByte is the most you'll get. For me that is no problem, since I dislike the thought of having a spinning HD in my pocket when walking, jogging or rock-climbing :-)

Re:Vorbis Support

[Ktulu_03]

I just bought an iAudio U2. 1 GB model for $130. Has great sound, Ogg support out of the box. Also has voice recording, Line-in encoding, FM stereo (can record/encode the FM stream as well). It comes with a case, neckstrap, ear-buds, line-in cable, two USB connectors, manual and software. The software is optional though.

Re:Vorbis Support

[PitaBred]

I just bought a 512MB Samsung YP-F1X. I love it... tiny, got an internal rechargable battery that charges off the USB connection, good sound. Best part is that it just mounts as a standard USB storage device, so you can use it under Linux as well. Plays ogg, mp3, wma, etc.
Just my $0.02

Re:Vorbis Support

[the_bahua]

There's an ogg-capable flash player coming out from Cowon, the same people who made my HD-based X5L. It's called the U3.

http://mp3.iaudio.com/product/product_U3_feature.p hp

Sorry the page is mostly in non-english, but with 1GB and 2GB models, it looks great for things like working out, et al.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a sony free zone.
All sony products suck.
Put that in your drm and smoke it.
Watch a sony dlp tv cut in half with a chain saw.
www.fucsony.com

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Samsung YP-T6. I got the 512MB version but 1GB ones are available. It plays mp3 and ogg, plays FM radio, records (in mp3) from mic, line in, or radio, and it uses one AAA battery. As my last player (an Archos Jukebox Recorder 20) died due to battery issues, having a standard battery was a major selling point for me. It's standard USB interface is another must-have in my book.

Re:Vorbis Support

[anonymous22]

I agree with 2 or 3 others here. The X5L would definitly be my choice. It can do your ogg AND flac, along with mp4 and the video crowd. What catches my attention with the 'L' variant is the long battery life. Cowon claims 35+ hours which may seem like a little overkill, but according to user reviews I have read it is not far off. If you can't afford the 'X', they also have an M5L with the same battery life and audio codec support, but no video or pictures.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute essentials that I want:

• Ogg Vorbis support.
  
• FM tuner.
  
• Recording (mic + aux-input).
  
• Flash memory, 1GB and up.
  
• Normal AA/AAA batteries. I don't feel like throwing away the whole player after the n:th and final recharge.
  
• A simple screen. I don't need to see colour photos or video on my music player (which also must be small!), but the iPod Shuffle is a retarded product.
  
• OS-independent.
  
• USB2.
  
• A good price.
  

Give me that and I will replace my old 512MB IRiver. Upgradeable firmware would be a plus, too.

Re:Vorbis Support

[crush]

Samsung make a couple of decent, cheap 1Gb players that are USB2.0, flash, with FM tuners, with a good backlit screen e.g. this one and this one. They also support MP3 and WMA and a whole load of other codecs out of the box and have about 15 hours battery life on a single AAA.

Re:Vorbis Support

[GFunk83]

I recently bought the iAudio G3, which supports Vorbis, among a number of other formats.

My favorite feature though? Definitely the bookmarks, which are great when I'm listening to a podcast or some other long-format piece of audio.

Re:Vorbis Support

[jdclucidly]

I highly recommend any of the iAudio series of portable players -- they advertise Linux and Mac OSX support. The hard drive players even have FLAC support. I have an iAudio G3 and I love it and use it for recording from Line-In microphones.

Here is a link:
iAudio

Re:Vorbis Support

[k31bang]

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)

Re:Vorbis Support

[PybusJ]

I have an Adamond ZK1 which hits all the points on your list, except perhaps price -- it wasn't the cheapest out there.

http://www.adamond.com/press/zk1.html

I have the 2Gb version (which accounts for the price, Adamond can't command the volume discounts of Apple). It takes a single AAA battery, has a small but sharp OLED display which is totally unable to display JPEGs, or even thumbnail video clips, and records to wav on the built in mic and MP3 though the line in. I've used it with Linux over USB2 and it plays my ogg vorbis files fine.

The earphones it came to weren't great, but it sounds great with a pair of sennheiser earbuds.

The register have a review:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/07/review_ada mond_zk1/

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds OK, but... Anyone knows what the player's "original" name is, and who else sells them other than Adamant?

I don't feel like paying an additional 50% for a pointless logo and the privilege of feeding a redundant middleman like Adamant or Jens of Sweden. I'm a Swede, but that doesn't mean I necessarily want to support our new re-branding industry. :)

Re:Vorbis Support

[vettemph]

Newegg and most electronics resellers will list file formats in the specs. I think you can even keyword search for ogg. I found quite a few.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung YH-J70:

• USB Mass storage, USB host
• Ogg support
• Linux friendly
• Comes with Lame, Xvid and other cool GPL software on w32 CD

http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b2 c_product_detail.jsp?prod_id=YH-J70SB%252fXAA

Pre-emptive Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mp3newswire.net.nyud.net:8090/stories/5 002/xmas2005.html

Sony eh?

[saskboy]

"Sony execs crowed a few weeks ago that their latest MP3 players were THE iPod Killers"

What we didn't know, is that the Sony MP3 player actually DOES kill you if you copy non-DRM music to it. Look it up, it's in their EULA.

Re:Sony eh?

[canuck57]

And do keep in mind that the Sony rootkit could in theory come in from a USB device like it does from a CD. I would go with iPod. Apple is not likely to make the same mistake that Sony did. Or I would hope not.

Re:Sony eh?

[WestCanadaCitizen.ca]

Even if their MP3 player did kill you, they would only be on the hook for five bucks (eerily enough, also in the EULA).

Re:Sony eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me at least Sony are dead in the water.

After the recent stunt with their rootkit there is NO WAY that I'll have any of their products in my house. None. No PS2 (just sold it), no Walkman (just thrown out my old cassette walkman), no TV, no CD player, nothing. They're gone.

As far as I'm concerned Sony are poison, sheer poison. I'll never buy anything from them ever again.

Re:Sony eh?

[d34thm0nk3y]

And do keep in mind that the Sony rootkit could in theory come in from a USB device like it does from a CD. I would go with iPod. Apple is not likely to make the same mistake that Sony did. Or I would hope not.

Sony has a major label and Apple has a major media store. It is in both of their interests to prevent you from using "unauthorized" content. Buy a player from a vendor without vested interests in copy "protection" to be safe.

And I bet...

[chipset]

They won't put a dent in the iPod sales, either.

This issue is user experience. You can add all the gadgetry you want, but it becomes a complex tool. People want their music device simple, easy to navigate and elegant. They don't want the kitchen sink thrown into the tool.

Re:And I bet...

[ScrewMaster]

What they want is the equivalent of a Bic lighter that plays music, and that's pretty much what Apple gives them.

Re:And I bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the issue is branding. There are plenty of better, cheaper MP3 players than the iPod. But "iPod" has become the Kleenex or Xerox of mp3 players.

Re:And I bet...

[the_bahua]

Also, I fear that non-ipod players are to the point that they are regarded like using mozilla instead of IE, back in 99 or 2000. People don't call it an "mp3 player" or a "digital audio player" anymore. The common term, nowadays, is ipod.

When I try to convince friends that are in the market for an mp3 player to consider something besides an ipod, they look at me funny, and ask me a question to the tune of, "why would I want something else?"

I just hope that other companies can keep manufacturing great players.

Re:And I bet...

[DWIM]

You can add all the gadgetry you want, but it becomes a complex tool. People want their music device simple, easy to navigate and elegant. They don't want the kitchen sink thrown into the tool.

This is a tiresome argument anymore. At one point, it had more credibilitiy, especially when discussing the merits of competitors to the iPod, such as the iRiver H-1xx & H-3xx line of DAPs. But with the iPod gaining first a color screen (so you can view pictures on your music player!) and now video, it is almost laughable hearing about the desire for simplicity. Apple are slowing throwing the kitchen sink into their product. It won't be a surprise at all if they eventually provide FM tuning & recording features in a future iPod.

DAPs are becoming more complex for the average Joe. The challenge, which is where Apple continues to shine, is in continuing to make it easy to navigate and elegant (which you rightfully point out).

Re:And I bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

So recommend me something that plays AAC (not protected) and has software that works on OS X or interfaces with iTunes.

Re:And I bet...

[jsebrech]

But with the iPod gaining first a color screen (so you can view pictures on your music player!) and now video, it is almost laughable hearing about the desire for simplicity. Apple are slowing throwing the kitchen sink into their product.

Apple throw the kitchen sink in there in a way that makes it invisible. The video functionality if the ipod is completely invisible unless you use it. The basic behavior of the ipod is pretty much unchanged, except it has gotten a little glossier over the years.

Same thing with itunes. Even though it can do a LOT more, its user interface has actually simplified over the last few versions (in my experience at least).

Re:And I bet...

[adrianbaugh]

I just wish KDE could learn from Apple in this regard. Not in the sense of slavish copying, I hasten to add; I just wish that as KDE is becoming more powerful it could also become simpler. At least by default, even if the whole configuration jibjab could be accessed by clicking on an "Advanced" button. I use it all the time, but while I like the configurability I find the "complex by default" approach annoying.

Re:And I bet...

[bonch]

Well...can you give them a reason why they should want something else?

Your Mozilla/IE example isn't quite applicable because IE is so flawed and crippled compared to Mozilla. iPod may not play Ogg (only people on Slashdot really care about that anyway), but it plays MP3/WAV/AAC/AU/Apple Lossless/MP4/MPG, has the best audio output quality (ever since the Shuffle), and clearly has the best user interface and experience.

The iPod clickwheel is like Mozilla's tabbed browsing. It's hard to imagine not having it.

Re:And I bet...

[Overly Critical Guy]

iPods have had recording features for years now. Apple has been adding more functionality to the iPod, but in a subtle and sometimes invisible way. Adding video or a color screen (album artwork, hello) to a portable digital media player is hardly adding the "kitchen sink." A kitchen sink feature is something silly and unrelated, like adding cell phone functionality.

Re:And I bet...

[DWIM]

Apple throw the kitchen sink in there in a way that makes it invisible. The video functionality if the ipod is completely invisible unless you use it. The basic behavior of the ipod is pretty much unchanged, except it has gotten a little glossier over the years.

That's a pretty self-serving argument. Apple are not particularly innovative in this regard. Other DAPs that provide video and picture viewing also implement these so that they are basically invisible unless used. Not only that, but they also keep their other features, such as FM radio and recording out-of-site unless used.

Maybe the arguments used so often in the past that those extra features add useless complexity and keep their manufacturers from focusing on "doing one thing well" were a good deal overblown.

Re:And I bet...

[DWIM]

iPods have had recording features for years now. Apple has been adding more functionality to the iPod, but in a subtle and sometimes invisible way. Adding video or a color screen (album artwork, hello) to a portable digital media player is hardly adding the "kitchen sink." A kitchen sink feature is something silly and unrelated, like adding cell phone functionality.

Believe me, I agree. However, in many prior debates with iPod fans over the merit of that DAP vs others, such as the iRiver H-120, I frequently would get this kind of criticism directed at the H-120. They trumpetted the beautiful simplicity of the iPod doing its one thing very well and criticized the many features the H-120 could boast over the iPod as irrelevant and unnecessarily complex. Of course, their argument was a crock , although a bit more ironic as the iPod continues to gain features other DAPs have been offering for years.

Re:And I bet...

[Scrameustache]

You can add all the gadgetry you want, but it becomes a complex tool. People want their music device simple, easy to navigate and elegant.

with the iPod gaining first a color screen (so you can view pictures on your music player!) and now video, it is almost laughable hearing about the desire for simplicity.

What the guy meant was that it's not the feature list that counts the most, it's how well the features work. If they add features that also work as well as the existing ones, they do not break the advantage they had.

Re:And I bet...

[DWIM]

What the guy meant was that it's not the feature list that counts the most, it's how well the features work. If they add features that also work as well as the existing ones, they do not break the advantage they had.

That position makes the uncharitable assumption that those who speak of features in other DAPs lacking in the iPod are simply bragging about feature counts. Of course it matters how the features work. In my experience, it was not how well the features worked in other DAPs, specifically, that was nay-sayed, but rather the Swiss Army knife nature of those competing DAPs missing the "does one thing very well" credo.

Re:And I bet...

[JakeD409]

Actually, I think the real difference is that Apple already did it well. Now that they have brand recognition, they can slowly throw in extra things and people will view them as improvements, instead of the clutter it would look like if it were a new, unheard of product.

Re:And I bet...

[AlysseumWarrior]

His argument for simplicity is still valid - the added features did not make the iPod more complex or harder to use. It still has the same great user interface.

Re:And I bet...

[toddestan]

Apple throw the kitchen sink in there in a way that makes it invisible. The video functionality if the ipod is completely invisible unless you use it. The basic behavior of the ipod is pretty much unchanged, except it has gotten a little glossier over the years.

Well, the FM tuner, timers, alarms, ability to speed up and slow down playback, and other features I don't use much on my iRiver are pretty invisible too. They don't get in the way of it operating as a music player, so they are easily ignored (you have to press and hold a button if you want to get to them). But unlike the iPod, they are there if I want them.

Re:And I bet...

[the_bahua]

I meant it in the sense that people use IE and buy the ipod, because they don't know any better. It's the most common, most widely publicised/used player out there, and of the people that even know what an mp3 player is, I am willing to bet that a very significant portion couldn't name any other player than the ipod, just as a vast portion of http users have never even heard of Firefox.

Re:And I bet...

[CronoCloud]

only one player I can think of that plays unprotected AAC and has mac syncing sofware, that being the Sony PSP.

Re:And I bet...

[Castar]

And they're throwing in the wrong kitchen sink. It's great to have video playback on their device when it can't even play music correctly. (Lack of gapless support)

I don't believe it...

[oberondarksoul]

...a website which, when most seem to think über-long flash intros, banners everywhere and convoluted stylesheets are acceptable and good, chooses to use plain old-fashioned HTML?

High-fives to whoever designed the website. The layout is nice and clean, and is pretty much guarenteed to load in any browser. If we had more websites like this, the web would be so much more tolerable.

Sony MP3 players?

[legirons]

So do Sony MP3 players play MP3s now, or are they still using incompatible formats, incomatible memory, and selling for 3x the price of generic units that do the same thing?

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Halfbaked Plan]

I saw a player at WalMart last week that takes Compact Flash, and cost about $40.

There weren't any on the racks, though. They were all sold.

I think we have an iPod killer here, folks.

People who think they need to carry around their 'entire music collection' are being pretty anal. Build a 'playlist,' stuff it in your player, and go out and enjoy listening to it. The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is the player I use. Nice, simple, and I don't have to use any iTunes or other crapware to load it up. It just looks like any normal USB drive when I connect it to my computer. If I need more room, I can always just get a bigger SD card.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[pauljlucas]

People who think they need to carry around their 'entire music collection' are being pretty anal. Build a 'playlist,' stuff it in your player, and go out and enjoy listening to it. The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

Only in your limited experience. I personally don't feel like syncing my iPod to my computer every time I want to change my music line-up. At any given time, I may be in the mood to listen to something else.

In my case, having my entire collection is even better since the only place I use my iPod is in my car (connected to my Alpine head unit via an adapter). On a long drive, it's nice to have my entire collection to choose from.

Just because you don't want or understand why somebody would want their entire collection doesn't mean it's not a valid thing to want. Your understanding is irrelevant.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[jred]

People who think they need to carry around their 'entire music collection' are being pretty anal. Build a 'playlist,' stuff it in your player, and go out and enjoy listening to it. The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

It really depends on your usage. If I were jogging, or commuting, I might want a limited storage flash player. I have a CD player in my car for that, and a dozen burned CDs. Yet I also have a 20gb Archos MM. I use it for a portable HD, usually having ~10gb of music on it. I rarely use it for an MP3 player. Unless I'm on a trip. Nothing sucks more when on a road trip than having to listen to the same damn songs over & over. Well, ok, listening to the radio or not having any music at all would suck more, but just barely.

Different devices for different uses. That's the beauty of Apple's ipod scheme. They have an ipod for just about every possible use, and most price points. All using a similar interface. When my Archos bites the dust, I'll most likely get some flavor of ipod.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Bastian]

The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

Nobody needs to carry music anywhere. MP3 players are about fun. I think it's more fun to just slap every CD I have into my hard drive MP3 player and not worry about shuffling playlists back and forth.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the beauty of Apple's ipod scheme. They have an ipod for just about every possible use, and most price points.

Does Apple sell an iPod at the $40 price point?

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Halfbaked Plan]

What I say doesn't matter, any more than what you say matters.

What matters is, the nice cheap MP3 players were sold out. There were TONS of iPods and various other expensive players on the shelf.

Please don't describe my experience as being 'limited.' Yes, I have not been 'properly exposed' to the iPod. There are a lot of things I haven't bought into.

To be frank about it, I have too many good recordings in my collection to EVER have my 'entire music collection' on some little shiny device I bought last week. Those big boxes of vinyl albums aren't in an easily convertable digital format, and never will be. Let's not even get INTO the matter of all the acetate 78 RPM records.

If your entire 'music collection' is composed of CD-era and later music, then fine. Have your 'entire collection' on an iPod.

Definitely don't say my experience is limited, though.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[pauljlucas]

I have too many good recordings in my collection to EVER have my 'entire music collection' on some little shiny device I bought last week. Those big boxes of vinyl albums aren't in an easily convertable digital format, and never will be. Let's not even get INTO the matter of all the acetate 78 RPM records.

And how often do you actually listen to all your vinyl? If there are albums you haven't listened to in quite a while, then they ought not even to count as part of your music collection. They're just gathering dust in some box.

We're talking about portable MP3 players. Unless you carry around a turntable with you, mentioning your boxes of vinyl is comparing apples to oranges at best.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how often do you actually listen to all your vinyl?

And how often do you actually listen to all 10+ GB of audio on your iPod?

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

What matters is, the nice cheap MP3 players were sold out. There were TONS of iPods and various other expensive players on the shelf.

And you were at Wal-Mart, which caters to the bottom end of the market. Their customer base are generally non-tech-saavy people to whom price matters more than anything else. Apple caters to an entirely different crowd.

Those big boxes of vinyl albums aren't in an easily convertable digital format, and never will be.

I have a fairly large number of "vinyl rips" on my DAP; they're all rare recordings that only exist on vinyl so if I want to listen to them on the go I have to digitize them. Frankly, it's nice to be able to listen to them all I want without causing further wear to the precious vinyl. Interestingly, the sonic advantages of vinyl ("warmer" sound, etc) all carry over into digitized vinyl rips provided you use proper technique. Once again, your experience doesn't necessarily generalize to the whole world.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I can't speak for the person who posted the grandparent comment, I can say that I have about that amount of music on my iPod and I'm glad it's all there. I don't listen to all of it, but depending on my mood I'm glad I have the choice of listening to any particular subset. I usually do this by setting the iPod on shuffle. When it starts to play something I don't really feel like listening to at that moment, I hit the "next track" button. This is entirely adapative. The songs I listen to change as my mood changes, and my mood changes as the songs change.

This wouldn't be nearly so nice if I tried to guess my mood a day in advance while sitting at my computer. I'm very happy to carry my entire music collection.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get a decent CD based mp3 player for less than $75.00. When you combine that with a pack of CD-R discs ($25 for 100 Taiyo Yudens) or even CD-RWs you have all the music you need for all but the longest (more than a week or so) trips, and for those you will probably have a laptop with you so refreshing your songs won't be a big deal assuming your laptop has a CD burner.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[DWIM]

People who think they need to carry around their 'entire music collection' are being pretty anal. Build a 'playlist,' stuff it in your player, and go out and enjoy listening to it. The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

You have a highly self-centered view of the world there. Reminds me of those who just don't understand the desire for true gapless playback.

So let me attempt to edumacate you. Folks may like to carry around their entire music collection so they have the option to listen to whatever they are in the mood to listen to at a given point in time. Sure, they could build a playlist, load it, and shuffle away through it during the day. But, personally, what I think I want to listen to in the morning isn't necessarily what I want to listen to later in the day. Having your entire music collection with you gives you options you would otherwise not have. It's about choice.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Exantrius]

I disagree.

Case in point, I spent a month of this summer in Europe, and had access to a computer twice, let alone access to my mp3 collection at home. I had about 8 gigs of music/podcasts/lectures, and managed to listen to about 2/3 of it while I was on the road (just the flights over and back were 35 hours in airports airplanes)

I also used it as a portable hard drive for my digital camera, as I could connect them directly, and thus never ran out of space on my camera (well, except the day in rome where I grabbed the wrong memory stick, and forgot the adapter in the hotel...)

Granted, this is a "once in a while" type thing, but it was worth the $400 I spent on 30g ipod photo + adapter to not have to buy a bunch of gig sticks and hope I didn't run out or lose any of them.

Now that I'm home, my main computer's m/b freaked out, and so I've been without my music collection except for the music I have on my ipod and on cds. Do I need the 30 gigs? no, but it makes this stuff a whole lot easier. /Ex

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[DWIM]

[...]
Please don't describe my experience as being 'limited.' Yes, I have not been 'properly exposed' to the iPod.
[...]
Definitely don't say my experience is limited, though.

By your very admission your experience is limited. You are commenting on something you haven't even used. Your experience is, indeed, limited.

HD-based DAPs provide an opportunity to put your entire music collection on that player, if you so desire. An individual's particular music collection may be more or less difficult to put on one of these players, but it is hardly anal if folks put their collections on these because they can and want to.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Hal_Porter]

It's a shame that those mp3 CD players haven't upgraded to DVD actually.

4.7GB of mp3s on dirt cheap media would be great. Hell most DVD mechanisms play dual layer, so my music collection could fit into a wallet full of discs, even if they aren't exactly cheap.

Sure I've seen portable DVD players, but they tend to be a fair bit bulkier than a CD walkman. They also play DVD videos, which is something I don't really need.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Maxwell]

So do Sony MP3 players play MP3s now, or are they still using incompatible formats, incompatible memory, and selling for 3x the price of generic units that do the same thing?

no,yes, yes, yes

I bought a Bean fri night, playe dwith all night,brought it back sat morning. Same old sonsy shit - it ONLY plays atrac3 DRM songs. It does NOT play MP3's. It acts like a USB device, and you can see the files on it, but your MP3's get renamed 10000001.OMA, 10000002.OMA etc and are unreadable by any other system. If you copy MP3's to it, it will not recognize or play them.

and the kicker, the crappy sony software is painfully slow (4 minutes to switch from 'album' listing to 'artisit' listing...) and the player needs to be registered with sony so you can play your (now) protected material...

same old sony shit. they still dont get it. I though they did, and the sales guy at Sony Store thought they did. I showed it to him on my laptop. He is obvously tired of this complaint and really thought that sony had changed...nope

JON

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Halfbaked Plan]

And you were at Wal-Mart, which caters to the bottom end of the market.

They had iPods at Wal-Mart, too.

I agree that a botique store like the ones owned by Apple probably only has expensive players. That isn't where America shops.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[toddestan]

It's a shame that those mp3 CD players haven't upgraded to DVD actually.

They sort of exist. Some models of those portable DVD players supposedly can handle MP3 disks. Granted, it would be kind of big to haul around, and I would guess that most of them would suck pretty hard as just a music player. But it might be something to consider if you are already planning on hauling a DVD player with you on a trip.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[CronoCloud]

I think you got bit by a SonicStage default setting, by default SonicStage will encrypt and turn into Atrac3 any mp3's you transfer to a portable device. I found that out playing with it and my PSP. Bur you can turn it off so it won't alter them.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think they need to carry around their 'entire music collection' are being pretty anal. Build a 'playlist,' stuff it in your player, and go out and enjoy listening to it. The only people who need to carry their entire music collection with them at all times are the homeless.

I am intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[Hal_Porter]

I had in mind something like an MP3 walkman that just happens to play DVD media, and I've never seen one. It's a shame really, it would give the companies who make them a way to charge way more than $75 bucks for a relatively small increase in parts price - I'd guess that a cheap DVD mechanism must cost about the same as a CD one these days.

Wish I was in asia where I could probably get that idea mass produced.

Re:Sony MP3 players?

[jred]

Yes, I suppose I could do that. *Or*, I could just use the device I already own. Before I got the Archos, I went through 3 of the mp3 cd players. I wanted that to work, I really did.

The Archos does, AND gives me portable storage. It's a win-win.

This is the iPOD

[bogaboga]

The iPOD represents and is a way of life. Anything other than the real thing is not worth the effort, and Sony will discover this pretty soon. Others did discover this long time ago...including Dell and Microsoft.

Re:This is the iPOD

[mochan_s]

Yes, I think the iPod killer will be something twice as expensive and twice as bling-bling.

Maybe they will include headphones that glow and light up to let everyone know you are using the iPod killer. Also, the headphones will include a big subwoofer so as you walk by or at the library everyone will know you're listening to an iPod killer.

I'm sure it will come with clothes and jewelery too as you can then integrate it to your look - the goth with the iPod killer look or the nuMetal kid + iPod killer look.

Re:This is the iPOD

[Halfbaked Plan]

The iPOD represents and is a way of life.

I remember when the rich 'new wave' chicks started wearing the first sony walkmans around in the 'new wave/punk rawk' scene in 1979.

They thought they represented a 'new way of life.'

Most of them are now probably out fussing around deciding which SUV to buy this coming year.

Re:This is the iPOD

[grazzy]

The "giving away all your money to steve jobs"-lifestyle?

Re:This is the iPOD

[TheRaven64]

Hmmm. Mine didn't seem to come with the bundled way of life - it seems to be just a portable music player.

I bought an iPod because it was the first HD-based player I'd seen which supported AAC (I jumped on the AAC bandwagon when the Ogg one was just getting ready to leave, and seem to have stayed on it). At the time, the only other players I was seriously looking at were made by Philips, and could play AACs from a mini CD. The iPod was smaller than the Philips device, and much smaller than the stack of CDs I'd have had to carry.

It's quite a nice device. The user interface is not perfect - I filed a series of UI bug reports with Apple (none of which have been fixed in firmware upgrade, by the way, although they have been locked in the Apple bug tracking system. I think a few have been fixed in newer iPods). It is, however, far better than anything else I've seen.

Is it possible to make something better than the iPod? Yes.

Are Sony in a position to do it? Probably not.

Re:This is the iPOD

[user9918277462]

I jumped on the AAC bandwagon when the Ogg one was just getting ready to leave, and seem to have stayed on it.

AAC in many ways is Apple's version of WMA; although technically it is MPEG4 standards-based in practice it is nearly as proprietary as WMA (perhaps intentionally so; I believe patent law is involved). It also doesn't live up to the quality hype; a 128kbps iTunes track *does not* sound equivalent to a 192kbps LAME-encoded MP3 track. It is, perhaps, somewhat better than generic CBR MP3 at 128k but then so is WMA; Ogg Vorbis (according to nearly all listening tests) is markedly superior at 128k. At 160kbps Ogg is transparent to most listeners, at 192kbps virtually everyone.

The next generation lossy audio codec winner might be AAC (or it may not), but technical superiority won't be the reason why. It will have far more to do with market penetration and entrenchment.

Re:This is the iPOD

[DWIM]

The iPOD represents and is a way of life.

OK, that is just sad. I've often referred facetiously to "Club iPod", but I didn't really think people were building their lives around an electronic gadget. Sounds like it is less a club and more a religion.

Re:This is the iPOD

[ikea5]

Most of them are now probably out fussing around deciding which SUV to buy this coming year.

And by "SUV" you mean Prius?

Re:This is the iPOD

[pintomp3]

what way of life are you refering to? if a consumer product can alter your "way of life", perhaps you didn't have much of a life to begin with. now the mods who modded you up can mod me down.

Re:This is the iPOD

[Anonymous Coward]

The design of all these ipod alternatives are bad jokes. Incredible how no one can come up with something beautiful, eye-catching and different of iPod.

Re:This is the iPOD

[Anonymous Coward]

> OK, that is just sad. I've often referred facetiously to "Club iPod", but I didn't really think people were building their lives around an electronic gadget. Sounds like it is less a club and more a religion.

That's giving religion a bad name.

Few things are more pathetic and undignified than extreme Apple brand loyalty. Apple zealots are worse than creationists. Just thinking about them gives me indigestion.

Re:This is the iPOD

[geminidomino]

The iPOD ...is a way of life

Err, no. The iPod is a toy. So is the Zen, the iRiver, and every other DAP out there. It's no more a "way of life" than Starbuck's is. That is to say, not at all, but it SOUNDS cool, as long as you can get another empty-headed shmuck to mod you +1 insightful for talking like a marketing blurb.

Killers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so they chose iRiver U10 and such in potential iPod killer list, which naturally makes iPod look better.

Clearly, they set out to declare iPod a winner.

Such biased article chosen on the front page of /. ?

Oh wait.. its Apple iPod...

What was iPod killing?

[midom]

Right now everyone is so interested about something to kill ipod, but there's not that much of innovation hapening.

iPod wasn't just providing same stuff with some click wheel. It brought a rather unused concept into masses.

Therefore, iPod may be killed by a new concept only. Let it be... direct audio->brainwave projection or audio-pills.

Re:What was iPod killing?

[timeOday]

iPod wasn't just providing same stuff with some click wheel.

It wasn't?

It brought a rather unused concept into masses.

And what concept was that?

I may never understand the iPod craze. A few posts ago somebody called it a "way of life." All I can say is, hats off to companies like Harley Davidson and Apple, with their ups and downs. I only wish I could predict their rebirths in time to buy stock.

Gapless DAPs?

[The Warlock]

Do any of these support gapless playback, or do DAPs still suck for albums with transitions, like Abbey Road or Dark Side Of The Moon?

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[BeerCat]

Do any of these support gapless playback

Given that the iPod is successful because of its user experience, rather than the gee-whizz features, it looks as though an iPod killer will have to have gapless playback to even have a chance of competing (that and obviously a really to use UI). The first manufacturer to announce this should clean up the market.

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[Halfbaked Plan]

You know, I think I remember there as being a brand of spackle called 'DAP'. Since we're on the subject of filling gaps.

(if a smooth sequence from track to track on 'Dark Side Of The Moon' really, REALLY bothers you, you should probably merge it all into one big WAV file and encode it as a single track anyway. You're gonna listen to it all as a complete work anyway, right?

(disclaimer- I had to quit listening to The White Album for a number of years, because of the trauma when 'Martha My Dear' on my vinyl copy developed a skip. The White Album MUST be listened to in it's entirety, with the only breaks being getting up to flip or switch the LP, and that skip represented a horrible train wreck)

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[usrusr]

mp3 players are not gapless because mp3 only does full blocks, so the tracks need padding at the end. there is no way to really find out where padding begins and where there just happened to be a zero signal before encoding.

lame enc can put the actual track sample count into a special id3 tag but i'd be surprised if any hardware would support that.

one more argument in favor of vorbis, which has sample-accurate track length. still wouldn't bet on the few makers of vorbis-aware really making the vorbis support better than mp3 though :(

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[RDW]

The obvious answer is that sometimes you want to listen to the whole thing, and sometimes you want to access a specific track. There are plenty of mix albums, live albums, and 'concept albums' (not to mention Wagner-length operas and other extended classical stuff) where frequent gaps ruin the music, but encoding as a single (maybe hour-long!) track is massively inconvenient. The (discontinued) Rio Karma showed that it's technically possible to have continuous music from separate tracks in a portable player. Why can't the iPod (or most of its 'killers') do this?

Incidentally, the iPod is a particularly serious offender here, with bigger gaps than some of its competitors. See:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/

for an analysis (and why crossfading is no solution).

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[RDW]

"lame enc can put the actual track sample count into a special id3 tag but i'd be surprised if any hardware would support that."

See:

http://www.rockbox.org/

(Open Source firmware for various portables - experimental iRiver version does gapless from Lame enc mp3 and OGG). I think the Rio Karma also respected the Lame tags - it was certainly gapless with later firmware.

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[bullitB]

If you honestly *have* to hear every little transition in your albums, you're almost always better off just ripping it as one continuous file. That way it will be gapless in every player.

(see Advanced->Join CD Tracks in iTunes, for instance.)

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[The Warlock]

But that's an ugly hack, and sometimes I might want to listen to just one track. Besides, if Foobar2000 can play my MP3s gapless, why can't my portable player?

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any hardware supported by Rockbox open source firmware can do gapless with properly encoded albums. Rockbox on the iRiver hard drive DAPs is perfectly gapless.

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[roseblood]

I have a CD based mp3 player. Transitions between tracks are *ALMOST* seamless.

In the last few seconds of a track you hear, well, feel, the CD spin up (if it's in your lap, further away and it's undetectable.) When the CD is up to speed the track is stored in RAM and the CD spins down. Depending on the size of the track (in terms of MB) the CD may or may not spin down before the transition. If the file is LARGE and the CD is actively reading durring the transition (say, when playing audiobooks with 20MB+ files) you will notice the change from one track to the next. When the file sizes are small enough that the player isn't still reading from the CD at the transition then it's a seamless transition. I suspect that the machine dosen't have enough CPU to read and decode the start of the next audiostream in real-time and gets a hiccup (a tiny gap in the sound.)

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[pintomp3]

i have an iriver h140 and use the rockbox firmware. i rip my cds using EAC and encode with LAME 3.96.1. gapless playback is flawless. i think rockbox also supports gapless in other formats also. it also supports a few other players, though i don't have much experience with them. they r also working on an ipod port of the project for the nano and 5th gen. www.rockbox.org

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[nrc]

The Rio Karma plays MP3s gapless. It also had Ogg Vorbis support and a parametric equalizer. But nobody cares about audio features. Only old farts want to listen to entire albums and old farts don't buy DAPs. So Rio went belly up.

The good news is that their firmware developers got sold off to Sigmatel so there is hope that the Karma feature set could show up on other players eventually.

Re:Gapless DAPs?

[AJWM]

The White Album MUST be listened to in it's entirety, with the only breaks being getting up to flip or switch the LP,

..or to skip "Revolution 9".

Sorry, but it has to be said. Love the rest of the album, and in fact first heard "Birthday" actually on my birthday, when I got a copy about a month after the album was released. But Rev9 was 9 minutes of wasted vinyl. (At that point I already had a couple of LPs of music concrete and early electronic music, and while it's historically interesting given the technology available at the time, it's not exactly enjoyable to listen to. And you certainly can't dance to it ;-)

Ogg on iRiver

[Anonymous Coward]

iRiver - most of their models support ogg. And beats mp3 anyday. iRiver H320 (out of production) works like a charm with ogg - though is not flash. iHP-120 is a flash player.

Also, you will get FM, inline recording, voice recording, and better sound quality as a bonus (over iPod)!!

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[hattig]

The current iPod 'supports' voice and audio recording.

From the iPod Specs page:

I don't know how you connect a microphone - does anyone know?

As regards sound quality - that mostly depends on the headphones you use rather than the player. Most people use the headphones that come with the player, and Apple's get consistently good scores for them (not excellent, but good). The headphones that come with other players often get quite poor results - making the purchase of decent headphones mandatory when getting such a player.

FM functionality? Meh ... unless it had RDS. I'd rather someone shrunk Digital Terrestrial Radio reception into a portable player. Still it is an extra feature, and for a $0.50 chip at most I think Apple should include it, and stick the 'Radio' application under 'Extras'.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[hattig]

Erm ... it was correct in preview. Oh well. Shame that Slashdot doesn't have an edit function, even if it only worked for up to 2 minutes after posting a comment.

# Voice recording settings:

        * Low (22.05 KHz, mono)
        * High (44.1 KHz, stereo)

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[user9918277462]

Not true. iRiver H120 (aka iHP-120) is a HDD player and was the (arguably superior) predecessor to the H320/H340. The stock firmware supported Ogg Vorbis out of the box (along with MP3 and WMA), it also has features like near DAT-quality recording in WAV or MP3, analog line in/line out and digital optical line in/out that no current player matches.

Today it runs the open source Rockbox firmware and supports virtually every major audio format in use today: MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, A/52, AAC (experimental), FLAC, Shorten, Apple Lossless and WavPack. It even has a 33 shade greyscale JPEG viewer.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[fizze]

Also noteworthy, listening to ogg vorbis files on my iRiver H320 does chow up battery faster than listening to mp3 files.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[E IS mC(Square)]

>>As regards sound quality - that mostly depends on the headphones you use rather than the player.

True. But then, if you listen to different players with the SAME headphones, iRiver scores much better. Check this 'blind' test performed by cNet a while back. See where iPod stands compared to others (esp iRiver).

As for RDS, iRiver scores there, irrespective of RDS, as long as iPod does not have it.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, "a while back" means March 25th, well before the new iPods (which have better sound) were released.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[E IS mC(Square)]

Fact still remains the same. Have you compared the sound-quality again? I have, and it still is behind.

IMHO, iPod almost always loses out on features and sound quality compared to some other 'less popular' devices.

At the risk of modded down as troll, let me say that its hard not to notice that Apple/iPod is to DAP what Microsoft/WIndows is to OS. Just because its popular does not make it better. In fact, most of the times, popular is NOT better. And that is because the average user is not a power user.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[Lord Omlette]

What version of Rockbox are you running, 2.5 or a straight-from-CVS build? Either way, did you have any problems or quirks w/ it?

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[user9918277462]

You have to get a daily build (or cross-compile it yourself from CVS) to use it on iRiver. Despite very active development it is quite stable (occasionally a daily build will break, but not often). Either way, you always retain the ability to boot into the factory firmware if something goes wrong. The functionality can't be beaten; Rockbox on iRiver is an audio geek's dream gadget.

Maybe the only downside is that the UI is a little spartan so far (the Archos devices that Rockbox was originally designed for had smaller screens that didn't support grayscale, just black and white). You can customize it pretty extensively, though, so with a little work you can make it look much better.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[Johnny O]

Supposedly all their portables do, that I have read.

Plus when you select MP3/OGG you lose WMA. That is not a concern for me but maybe others. Their players dont seem to be able to do everything at once.

My big beef with their ifp line (I have owned 2) is that when you decide to use the UMS firmware you give up being able to record with the line-in/mic at anything higher than 96k. Yet if you use their manager firmware you can record at up to 320k. I 3 UMS... I dont like to carry abound a CD with either the linux or the windoze software/drivers on it just so i can plug it into a friends machine and transfer music. Hell I put programs on it just like a hard drive all the time. I cant use their manager version. But I like to use the ifp as a kick ass recorder for cassettes, i have used it for recording from the headphone out to the line in on a betamax for Rush Exit Stage Left. It was out on Beta and Laserdisc, but I dont think its available on VHS or dvd... I just wanted a CD soundtrack to listen to in my car. thats when I discovered alot of this stuff.

Kick ass unit... Convenient as hell! Oddball quirks with no good reason...

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[Lord Omlette]

Good to hear, thanks.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[jrockway]

I will agree that the sound quality of 4G and lower iPods was not spectacular. However, the new video iPod has AMAZING sound quality. It's to the point where my amp makes it sound noticeably worse (whereas with every other source I've ever listened to, it's made it sound noticeably better). Listening to a new iPod directly attached to Sennheiser HD600s is just amazing. (But not loud enough for soft classical pieces.)

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[Anonymous Coward]

> has features like near DAT-quality recording in WAV or MP3

Sorry but MP3 is a lossy format. There is NO WAY that any variety of MP3 can even approach DAT quality. WAVs however are lossless (well as lossless as it gets with current technology) so do fit the bill.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[fizze]

Plus when you select MP3/OGG you lose WMA. That is not a concern for me but maybe others. Their players dont seem to be able to do everything at once.

That is not true for the H3xx series. Using the standard (US) iRiver firmware, it plays wma (even protected), mp3 and ogg out of the box.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[YomikoReadman]

Going by what you've said as well as the short, uninformative blurb there, the iPod is rating last. However, if you actually look at how the players are rated, the iPod is ahead of everyone. If the player is truly that bad, then why is it alwasy rated so highly by reviewers? User reviews put it lower, fourth of those five, but if you read through them it's either an issue with the Photo, or something unintelligible written by someone clearly trolling to bring the rating down.

As to the article, I found myself wondering where the rest of it was.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[hattig]

Meh, if I've just spent north of $200 on an audio player, it had bloody damn well come with decent headphones out of the box. I don't personally know about iRiver's headphones, but generally I think that Apple have got the package more balanced than other companies.

Equally however, if I've paid north of $200 on an audio player, I don't want it to sound like shit if I do use it with decent headphones. My iPod scratcho sounds alright to me however, which is what matters to me.

I never though this would be appropriate, but...

[chris_eineke]

All Your Music Are Belong To Sony?

I bet I know which link gets most hits...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it'll be the iPod Nano now available at Amazon one right at the bottom, adding in a kind of "oh by the way, did we mention..." style.

Reality Distortion Field

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying that Apple DRM is good and anything else is bad.

Is this just Apple fanboyism?

Most people would say DRM sucks ... period.
That includes Apple DRM regardless of how fashionable the Apple marketing department has made iPod.

At the end of the day you don't buy music from Apple, you license it only for use on Apple products.

Re:Reality Distortion Field

[rdoger6424]

The thing is, the DRM for iTunes is easily crackable, and very lax.

avoiding Sony

[FudRucker]

after the two stories - one about the rootkit and two about Sony's EULA i think i will not buy a Sony product when it comes to an mp3 player...

Re:avoiding Sony

[Tsiangkun]

Don't forget the stories online about the Playstation 3 being infected with DRM worse than what they tried with their music.

Re:avoiding Sony

[tmannes]

Amen, I too don't plan on buying anything from Sony for a very long time! They have lost me as a customer, but I'm just one person. What is going to hurt Sony in the long run, is that they have lost our trust in their products. Who will trust any product they sell?

Seems odd...

[NVP_Radical_Dreamer]

Looks like sony wants to have their cake and eat it too. If its not legal to rip their music. Then how is their MP3 player supposed to be filled? I guess its ok to rip OTHER peoples music.

Re:Seems odd...

[Jonny_eh]

I would REALLY like to see Sony Consumer Electronics called to the stand by people suing Sony over the rootkit. They could ask them if they believe ripping music is 'fair use', and if not, what the point of their product is.

Re:Seems odd...

[marsperson]

This article from Wired a few years ago actually sheds a lot of light on this issue. Sony has become a bit of a schizophrenic company, with the consumer electronics arm having interests which go against those of the content arm.

Re:Seems odd...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy.

Testifying Sony PR Agent: "Our product is designed for the enjoyment of online purchased DRM music".

Of course your point was that Sony is by very nature of their other recent activities, are limiting the legal use of the product.

-Captain Obvious
"Clarifying simplistic points for those who can't think 5 minutes into the future".

DRM-free?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are those players at least DRM-free and how about the Linux driver support? This are some if the things that are becoming increasingly important purchase criteria for devices.

Re:DRM-free?

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Linux driver support? What are you talking about? Linux can handle it, try plugging one in sometime.

Re:DRM-free?

[mr_shifty]

I have an Archos Gmini 400 (the model just previous to the Gmini 402 mentioned in TFA) and it works fine in Slackware with no additional drivers or apps. I plug it in USB, mount it like any hard drive, and drag and drop what I want to listen to on it via whatever graphical file manager I happen to be using at the time (lately Konqueror).

Oh, I trust Sony a great deal right now...

[Starker_Kull]

...and what interesting Sony software do you have to install to use one of these? Does it uninstall as well as their little rootkit that comes with their music CD's? I wouldn't touch a Sony product with a ten foot pole right now.

You jest, but whose going to buy Sony gear now?

[Anonymous Coward]

+4 Funny? Nah +5 insightful, who is dumb enough to buy a Sony MP3 player and install Sony's companion software on their PC after the Sony rootkit fiasco?

How Sony is going to kill the iPod....

[WTBF]

rename iPod $sys$ipod

Check out Apple's misdeeds and mischief

[Anonymous Coward]

http://malfeasance.50megs.com/

It DID look good...

[ratseno]

I saw a posting over at one of the MiniDisc-related boards a few months back about Sony's new Walkman, and at the time, I thought about buying one. Great design, good form factor, but lack of OGG support and having to use their crappy Connect music software to install music kept me on the fence. Now, with all the flack from the rootkit, trojans and DRM Sony put on their CDs...I think I'm gonna avoid Sony for a long, long time to come.

Neuros

[rsax]

If I had the cash allocated for an mp3 or ogg player right now I would go with the Neuros 442. It's got a 40 GB drive, lets you record audio and video from numerous sources, tonnes of features. Plus the company supports open source development. Shouldn't we all be supporting a company like this? Or has someone here had bad experience with Neuros?

Re:Neuros

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, is it smaller than their other stuff? I remember that I was really going to get a Neruos mp3 player, until I actually saw one in person and realized how giantic the damn thing was, something like 3 times the mass of an iPod.

Re:Neuros

[GreyDuck]

...except that the 442 doesn't play Ogg Vorbis files.

I have a Neuros I. I loved it while the battery lasted, but now I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to get next. The Neuros II is disco'd, and the 442 doesn't play most of my music collection. I've seen the XiphWiki list; it's got a lot of brand names I've never heard of and can't trust not to vanish within a year. Even the much-vaunted Rio Karma is gone. So... I dunno.

Re:Neuros

[evilviper]

It's got a 40 GB drive, lets you record audio and video from numerous sources, tonnes of features.

All good... I just have one question.

With DVDs almost entirely widescreen, HDTV on the horizon being widescreen, and even some current TV programs being widescreen... Who in their right mind is making these portable players with a 4:3 non-widescreen? It's absolutely moronic. Most things people will watch will be wasting 1/2 the screen space for black bars, and the screen is so small to begin with, you can't really afford to lose half the screen.

iPod Video (H.264) becomes a standard.

[network23]

Look at the new video formats supported by iTunes and iPod Video. The H.264 320x240 AAC format will quickly become a standard much like the MP3. Everyone is converting funny videos, music videos, TV-show episodes and full length movies into H.264.

QuickTime is now installed on most Wintel computers from using the trojan horse iTunes. QuickTime is far more popular today than Real and close to Windows Media. And QuickTime 7 with H.264 is fricking excellent. Even Sony disitributes their stuff using QuickTime today.

And you can easily encode your own (and DRM-free) stuff into H.264 with QuickTime or with open source stuff like mencoder. Much like iTunes and iPod allows you to use ripped and even pirated MP3s in your collection

Steve Jobs is a truely excellent player. This part of the game will be really fun to watch.

Re:iPod Video (H.264) becomes a standard.

[Russ Nelson]

Is the codec patented? The only way you'll see a distro ship the codec is if it's patent-free, if the patent is licensed on a royalty-free basis, or if the distro can buy a flat-rate patent license for a reasonable sum of money.
-russ

Re:iPod Video (H.264) becomes a standard.

[CronoCloud]

Ahem, the Sony PSP supported H.264 video before any iPod did. It's not a new video format at all.

Re:iPod Video (H.264) becomes a standard.

[CronoCloud]

ffmpeg can handle it, at least for me it does. I can play PSP encoded H.264 AVC video with ffplay.

Maybe

[ballpoint]

they don't scratch as easily, but I wouldn't touch Sony products with a ten-foot pole anymore. They will need to prove themselves over and over again to make up for pushing Atrac and Memory Stick down peoples throats, let alone the recent DRM debacle of their music division, before they will regain a semblance of credibility.

If you're in the market for an MP3 player, do yourself a favor, bend over and get an iPod. Really. What it lacks in barely-missed features is made up by style, capacity and a whole ecosystem of third party accessoires and software. And don't forget, iPods have a decent second hand value.

Not getting an iPod now is like not getting a PC in the 1990s. Sure, you can always buy something else if you want something different just for the sake of it, but your idiosyncrasy is going to cost you in the end.

Re:Maybe

[karnal]

Everyone has an opinion, so here's mine.

What I'd like is a hard drive player that just accepts files. I don't want a management interface. I have a small CF (nex 2e) mp3 player that is fairly decent, and the golden thing about this player is that I can take a CF card (and reader) anywhere and load it up.

Now, that being said, for the way I use my music, my nomad zen xtra has been awesome. But again, that is how I see myself using an mp3 player. My wife? Got her a nano for christmas.

But she's also the person who didn't want an mp3 player in her car... opted for the 400$ cd-only panasonic that "looked pretty"..... She regrets that now..

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

One main thing kept me from buying an iPod when I was MP3 player shopping.

The fact that you need to use an app (like iTunes) to load music onto it that you want to listen to.

To me, a hard-drive based digital audio player should be able to play music copied to it via Windows Explorer or Konqueror or whatever file manager you prefer to use, on whatever operating system you prefer to use.

Making it so that the iPod will ONLY play music loaded onto it via iTunes frustrates me and makes me feel restricted, like they want me to ONLY use it the way they want me to.

I don't like paying that kind of money for a device and feeling restricted.

Which was why I took my $300 and went with a different player. What I ended up with actually does more, as it turns out, than the iPod, and does it cheaper and it works the way I want it to.

Drag, drop, play. Simple. No annoying applications necessary, no annoying and unnecessary compulsory synchronization with my computer.

Personally, I think the iPods are pretty slick, but that one thing is enough to make me unwilling to shell out my bucks for it.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, looking pretty is the most important part of an AUDIO DEVICE!

Re:Maybe

[nile_list]

Uh.. wh.. what?

If you're in the market for getting a computer, bend over and make sure it has Windows XP pre-installed. Really. What it lacks in features and flexibility is made up by being the de facto OS and having a whole ecosystem of third party software.

Not getting Windows now is like .. using *nix. Sure, you can always search tirelessly for docs and howtos on EVERYTHING, and be forced to research your hardware before you buy it, but your idiosyncrasy is going to cost you.

Yeah, wtf, is this really /.?

Re:Maybe

[Bud]

Making it so that the iPod will ONLY play music loaded onto it via iTunes frustrates me and makes me feel restricted, like they want me to ONLY use it the way they want me to.

You might have missed the point of the iPod. Remember that computers are great at handling large amounts of tiny pieces of information, and great at performing rule-based actions. Managing your MP3 player manually is like editing your web site using a text editor. Sure, you have 100% control. Sure, your HTML looks exactly like you want it to. But it just doesn't scale. Have more than N pages, you need a content management system. iTunes is your content management system for music. Stop micromanaging, give up control, gain command.

--Bud

Re:Maybe

[jsebrech]

Without metadata you are locked into a single way of organizing your files: folder view. No artist view, no genre view, nothing but the basic folder view. MP3 players used to be like that, and they never caught on because such a system is a pain in the rear end to use if you don't like micromanaging folders and filenames.

If you really want to load up the ipod everywhere, enable it for disk use, then place the itunes installer on there for mac and win. Or, just put sharepod on the ipod, which will run without an install.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the music management software I have used, iTunes takes the cake, so I'm not sure why using iTunes is such a bad thing. It's as easy as it gets. If you think manually ripping and moving music to your MP3 player is easier, then you aren't like 99.99% of the rest of humanity.

Re:Maybe

[sapgau]

So which one did you get?

Re:Maybe

[pimpkracker69]

Making it so that the iPod will ONLY play music loaded onto it via iTunes frustrates me and makes me feel restricted, like they want me to ONLY use it the way they want me to.

There are a number of utilities that allow you to transfer music to your iPod from Windows without iTunes. One opensource application is vPod. You can also try XPlay from MediaFour.

Re:Maybe

[adrianbaugh]

I know a few people who bought macs rather than PCs in the 90s. Funny, not one of them reckons their "idiosyncrasy" has cost them in the end...

Re:Maybe

[Overly Critical Guy]

Great, have fun not having the advantage of auto-filling the music player with specially designed playlists. I can fill my iPod with highest-rated songs, or songs of a certain decade, etc. You're missing the whole point of a metadata-based jukebox application.

It feels weird to me that you feel "limited" by iTunes. I would feel limited having to use the FInder to manually drag-and-drop files to the iPod. I like that iTunes auto-syncs my songs whenever I plug the player in whenever I add new music to iTunes. If I set a rating on my iPod, it will appear in iTunes next time I sync, my playcounts will update, etc. You won't be able to do that in Konquerer or Explorer.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

So tell me how do I run iTunes on my FreeBSD/amd64 box. I love the iPod, a coworked showed me his, but I won't get one until I find a way to manage it on my computer, which doesn't dual boot any other OS in case you're curious.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

My player does have metadata. If I don't want to view things by folder view, I have the option on it to use the included on-board app that scans through the music folder on it and categorizes things by artist/genre/album via the ID3 tags contained within the music files.

There is no reason, however, why Apple couldn't have made the iPods capable of handling things on a file/folder level as well though. Archos managed it pretty well on their player. It is just as easy to load a playlist on the Archos Gmini 400 as it is on an iPod.

The difference is, I'm not forced to use any one app to manage the files on it.

No lock-in.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

But that's my point... I shouldn't need to use a specialized utility to put music files on what basically amounts to a portable USB hard drive.

If the player can't play files simply dragged and dropped onto it, it's broken.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

Great, have fun not having the advantage of auto-filling the music player with specially designed playlists.

Ugh, no thank you. I have my entire CD collection ripped and on my Archos player... that's around 2300 tracks. I like to be able to find things when I want them. I don't want some application automatically moving things to and from it.

I wouldn't be able to stand that.

Besides, iTunes doesn't work on Linux.

I can fill my iPod with highest-rated songs, or songs of a certain decade, etc. You're missing the whole point of a metadata-based jukebox application.

Not at all.

I have every song from every CD I own on my Archos Gmini. With the "Arclibrary" app on the player itself, I can browse through things by genre, by release date, by artist, or by album. I can create playlists on the fly with just about any computer-based music player I have seen, and load them on my player, or I can use the player itself to create playlists.

I'm not missing a thing, trust me. :-)

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

I ended up buying an Archos Gmini 400. I bought it for $300 on Amazon.com and got a $25 mail-in-rebate, so it came out to around $275.

I've had it since June, and so far I have to say, I'm very pleased with it.

Re:Maybe

[idsofmarch]

I'm sure this has been pointed out several hundred times, but you don't have to use iTunes to load an iPod--most people like using iTunes because it manages a very large collection and allows you to change a playlists of a thousand songs very easily, which would take forever using drag-n-drop. I don't know why people don't want to use iTunes because it's a really nice, easy to use program that has so many useful features.
Now, you will need iTunes to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store and they will only work on the iPod, but no you're not restricted to using iTunes. And Linux support exists too, you just have to hunt for it. Which is more than I can say for the Dell DJ or a number of other DAPs that have almost no Mac support.

Re:Maybe

[ishepherd]

Once they do gapless playback, I'll get one. Here's hoping they get round to it before the 20th-generation iPod...

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

The Archos Gmini 400 player I have can do all that too, and it doesn't require me to use any one app. It can work with some computer-based music playing programs for playlist/metadata management, but it isn't required to.

Myself, I drag-and-drop actual files onto it, but then, I keep ALL my music on it all the time, so that isn't very labor intensive. Whenever I get a new CD, I rip it and add it to the music already on it.

Where playlists are concerned, I make those most of the time on the device itself, a lot of times by genre or artist, depending on my mood. I have a bunch of different playlists on it that I cycle through and play around with.

And I'll bet it doesn't take me any longer to do it on the Gmini 400 than it does you on your iPod.

That's the difference. Flexibility. It has the same capabilities, but doesn't shove one-way-and-one-way-only in your face if that's not the way you want to do it.

I can load music on my Archos player and listen to it... from ANY computer I've tried, regardless of what music apps are installed on that computer, regardless of operating system... Windows, Linux, Mac OS.

Can your iPod do that?

Oh yeah. I have several of my favorite DVDs ripped that I can watch on my Archos player too. It also has a line out adapter to display video on a TV if I want to play something that others can enjoy as well.

And the Gmini 400 has a voice recorder on it.

And a 10 hour battery life that recharges pretty quickly.

My point isn't so much a plug for my player of choice as much as it is to say that iPods and iTunes aren't exactly the be-all-end-all of digital audio players. They're good, but the majority of their popularity is due to the marketing genius of its makers, not its usability and flexibility and quality.

For slightly less money I wound up (after doing quite a lot of research) purchasing a device that is actually quite a bit more user-friendly and totally cross-platform, and has more capabilities to boot.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

I'm not sure how it gets easier than putting in a new CD, ripping it, and then plugging in my player's USB cable and copying the album to it.

I suppose I could rip directly to it, and skip a step.

I guess I don't follow what you're saying. How does adding the necessity for a proprietary app make things somehow "easier"?

???

Re:Maybe

[wootest]

For most people, simplicity is the argument here. Your average file manager doesn't do ripping of songs to audio files, so you're going to have to use an auxiliary app anyway (proprietary or not) - just using iTunes (or for that matter Windows Media Player or any other half-decent media player) makes it simpler by keeping the number set at 1.

Both database-based and filesystem-based players are about copying from the hard drive to the device. FS-based players are great because you're not being locked down to one computer, or a class of apps that can write to the database. DB-based players are great because of faster indexing (it's being indexed piece-by-piece as you copy tracks over) and because of a better mold when it comes to abstractions. The necessity for an auxiliary app is to make more features available (things like Smart Playlists or even keeping a track in multiple playlists at once) without resorting to messy abstractions. (I have no idea how to replicate Smart Playlists with *just* the file system, but I do know that symlinks would do it for keeping one thing in multiple places.)

In the end, it's all about choosing what's right for you. If you are set on wanting to keep it all in the file system, or if you simply just want a flat list or simple folder hierarchy, or if you simply want to avoid hokey database-updating apps (I can't tell from your comment if your beef is with non-open-and-documented DBs or with an auxiliary app needed to maintain it in the first place), well, then you don't need the extra features and the extra hassle with a DB-based player. Good on ya. But that's no reason for blowing off the other approaches. I use Smart Playlists heavily (could you tell? ;)), and so I'm happier with a DB-based player, but that doesn't mean that I'm in front of the rally to destroy FS-based players forever. There's no perfect solution, and both clearly need to be around for the foreseeable future.

Re:Maybe

[ben0207]

I have an Archos AV420, the model before the 500 mentioned in the article. I love it dearly, and use it every day from listening to music on the bus to ripping old VHS tapes from the BBCs archives (I have a friend there - anything I want delivered to me on VHS for the win!). It currently houses my porn collection, backups of all my college work and a good 5 gig or so of my music.

I would fucking kill for it to have iTunes support. Finder is a great file-browser, but a shitty music management tool.

Re:Maybe

[Overly Critical Guy]

Ugh, no thank you. I have my entire CD collection ripped and on my Archos player... that's around 2300 tracks. I like to be able to find things when I want them. I don't want some application automatically moving things to and from it.

Which is why iTunes has an option for letting you manually manage what music gets copied. However, your statement doesn't really make sense. How would you not be able to find things when you want them if iTunes is auto-syncing your music library to your iPod? Basically what that means is when you add new music in iTunes, the next time you plug in the iPod, you can have iTunes automatically copy the new music to the iPod. It seems to me iTunes makes it easier to find your new music...

Besides, iTunes doesn't work on Linux.

Well, that's a completely different topic. iTunes will never work on Linux, because desktop Linux isn't a major player whatsoever.

Not at all.

I have every song from every CD I own on my Archos Gmini. With the "Arclibrary" app on the player itself, I can browse through things by genre, by release date, by artist, or by album.

Same with iTunes/iPod.

I can create playlists on the fly with just about any computer-based music player I have seen, and load them on my player, or I can use the player itself to create playlists.

Same with iPod. You can create "On-The-Go" playlists.

You completely didn't address what I was talking about with regards to metadata-based playlists. There's no way, with your manual managing of the filesystem, to automatically copy, say, only 4+ rated 1990s grunge music added in the last two weeks to your music player. Or keep playcounts, ratings, and other metadata auto-synced between the music on your computer and the copies on your player. I could go and on and on here.

I'm not missing a thing, trust me. :-)

I think you've just never actually tried an iPod for a week.

Re:Maybe

[karnal]

My thoughts exactly, but then again, I've not known women in my life as a whole to truly appreciate good sound.

My girlfriend in high school would not give up cassettes for CDs for about 3 years. Said cassettes sounded better.

Re:Maybe

[evilviper]

If you're in the market for an MP3 player, do yourself a favor, bend over and get an iPod.

Could say the same thing for operating systems and Windows, couldn't you?

What it lacks in barely-missed features is made up by style,

Style is pretty close to worthless to me. I'd much rather have something that works well.

capacity

You're just simply wrong there. Lots of other players have greater capacity than anything Apple makes.

and a whole ecosystem of third party accessoires and software.

I don't want to be forced to buy accessories. I want a player to already have a radio built-in... I don't want to have to buy software either, I want to drop all my files on the player, and use something like rsync to keep it up-to-date with no hassle, and no Windows/Mac requirement.

And don't forget, iPods have a decent second hand value.

Only until the fad wears off... Then you'll hardly be able to give them away.

Re:Maybe

[wskellenger]

You might have missed the point of the iPod. Remember that computers are great at handling large amounts of tiny pieces of information, and great at performing rule-based actions. Managing your MP3 player manually is like editing your web site using a text editor. Sure, you have 100% control. Sure, your HTML looks exactly like you want it to. But it just doesn't scale. Have more than N pages, you need a content management system. iTunes is your content management system for music. Stop micromanaging, give up control, gain command.

You're carrying around a tiny computer with your entire music collection stored on it, but you need to rely on a second computer to manage it? This makes no sense to me. Where's the command, back at home?

I should be able to use a tiny computer containing my entire music collection like a jukebox. As I'm driving down the road with 20GB of compressed audio, my passenger should be able to scroll through my collection and queue whatever songs they want to hear, and they'll play in that sequence.

I played with a friend's iPod mini for a while, and could not figure out how to do this! I'm told that you need to set up a playlist on the desktop in advance? Dumb.

The iPod is a result of amazing marketing. People ask for it by name, and have no idea what it will or won't do for them. Without the ability to queue songs, like a jukebox, the huge capacity makes no sense to me.

Re:Maybe

[drac]

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about the iPod.

Re:Maybe

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

To me, a hard-drive based digital audio player should be able to play music copied to it via Windows Explorer or Konqueror or whatever file manager you prefer to use, on whatever operating system you prefer to use.

Most music players create a database of all of the songs stored on the device, allowing you to quickly browse by artist, album, genre, or song name (at a minimum). If you didn't have a database, browsing would be painfully slow, as it would have to scan the entire catalog. And building the database on the portable player itself would cause a huge startup delay, plus a delay anytime you added or removed a file; and keep in mind that the player itself has limited processing power and battery power.

I agree that it would be nice if the format of that database was open, but the fact is that it WAS cracked very easily; it obviously wasn't obfuscated or encrypted. There are several third-party programs that let you copy songs to an iPod and update the database, so you're certainly not forced to use iTunes.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

My beef is with the intentional restriction placed on the iPod by Apple to force users to use a proprietary app with which to load music onto the device if they want to listen to it.

I'm not against DB based players... if I am understanding the term correctly, the player I currently have maintains an internal database of metadata based on ID3 tags.

The difference is, I can load it via my file system if I don't want to use an app like MusicMatch Jukebox or WinAmp.

If iPods allowed me to do that, I probably would have bought one.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

The Archos Gmini 400 -- the player I ended up buying -- does maintain an internal database. That's how I'm able to browse music on it by genre, or by artist, or by the year it was released.

That has absolutely nothing to do with how I put songs on it.

I don't have a problem with a digital music device that maintains an internal database of such information. That would just be silly. I couldn't care less about that.

And I realize that there are 3rd party hacks one can use to load an iPod.

That isn't my point. The point is, I shouldn't have to resort to hacks to use a device such as this... it should work out of the box and not require the use of such measures in order to get it to have what I consider to be normal functionality.

There's no reason why it couldn't... but they designed it this way, and I consider that to be defective design.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

I think you've never used an Archos Gmini for a week.

Re:Maybe

[2nd Post!]

It seems to me that what Apple did was add a feature your player doesn't support:

They exported the database from the MP3 player onto the computer.

My database is on both my computer AND my mp3 player.

Your database can only be found on your mp3 player; you have to manually organize the music on your computer.

Re:Maybe

[fishbowl]

"Yeah, wtf, is this really /.?"

I don't know but I'm reading it on a laptop that I installed Ubuntu on this afternoon, got the wireless network, sound, and xfree config working, and then changed the deb sources to "testing", did apt-get update, apt-get upgrade, and everything is a-ok. The only snag in any of this was knowing that xorg.conf has to exist before the config script will write it.

I'm tired of people still claiming that linux is hard to install. I just did it on a whim. Granted I'm pretty experienced, but I think that just makes me more qualified to judge.

Re:Maybe

[CronoCloud]

Is gtkpod what you're looking for?

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

You can set up on-the-go playlists quite easily. Instead fo selecting individual items with the select button, hold the select button for a second. The item you have selected will be added/appended to the current on-the-go playlist.

I said "item" instead of "song" for reason. You can add a song, an album, an artist, a genre, another playlist - you have immense control, in a relatively simple fashion. If you couldn't figure out how to do that, you didn't try. it'e even explained wihin the iPod OS itself when you go to the "playlist" screen.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummmmm.... can you say On-The-Go playlists?

This feature has been in the iPod for *some time* now. Browse to a song, press & hold the select button for a second or two, and the song is added to a new playlist titled "On-The-Go Playlist"... it's as simple as that...

Your ignorance astounds me, sir.

Re:Maybe

[TractorBarry]

I couldn't agree with you more. The fact you have to use iTunes is the main reason I'm not interested in an iPod. Any player that requires special management software to load it is a waste of time.

My cheap and cheerful 512Mb "generic" player is, to my mind, far superior. It's simply a flash based storage device and, if you happen to put a file on it which it know how to play, it will allow you to play it. Best of all it only cost £ 30 so should it ever break I'll just get another (which will probably have 10Gb flash memory by then :)

It works on Linux, Windows, Mac or anything eith a USB slot and a file manager.

Anything else is simply overengineered !

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

No, my database is on my computer as well.

My point is, the iPod requires that. My player does not.

That is not a "feature". That is a defect.

Re:Maybe

[wootest]

The iPod database (which is actually a set of different databases, but that's an implementation detail) keeps track of a lot of metadata, including both ID3-ish data like song, artist, album, genre but also personal data like star rating, and keywords. Most filesystem-based players maintain a similar internal database, like you say, but they only maintain ID3-ish data. This is just a cache, and info will be reloaded from the files as necessary. (Either as you enter the directory if the player's UI structure is also filesystem-based, or by an indexing process that can become lengthy if you have a lot of tracks.) This is what I mean by a filesystem-based player.

The iPod's DB is not a cache - it's the real deal. (Performance-wise, it makes sense. If you're going to maintain a database and not add tracks out of nowhere, you might as well have the computer, which is several times more powerful, generate this data instead of the iPod itself.) Keeping a wider database like the iPod does allows for: a) personal data and b) deeper structures. Any of those are pains in the ass to maintain by hand in a file system. There is no doubt in my mind that Apple wants you to use iTunes to manage your iPod, but the reliance of a DB in the first place is a design decision they've chosen to make it easier to keep more personal data on each track and organizing them.

It sounds to me that claiming for example, "by keeping an internal database, Apple forces you to use their own proprietary app to add tracks onto their iPod" is no different from claiming "by restricting usage to file managers, Acme forces you to waive your preferred organization of your tracks when using the Acme Music Device". They're both real problems, there's no denying that, but they're pessimistic ways of looking at either situation because you'd obviously be happier with the opposite solution. Some people have suggested loading extra apps onto an iPod (if you're *nix-only, you could probably get by on one of those Perl/Python/shell/Ruby scripts doing the same thing) and running that every time you add stuff, but it sounds like the kind of Frankenstein solution hassle you're not willing to go through. At the end of the day, I think I'll stay happier with my iPod, and you'll stay happier with whatever filesystem-based player you have.

Re:Maybe

[2nd Post!]

I don't understand, can you enlighten me?

How does your computer have a database? iTunes generates it for me; what third party program are you using that generates it for you?

The iPod requires a database as much as your Archos does, the difference seems to be that your Archos generates it's own database; does it then copy the database back onto your computer for you to browse and search and manipulate?

I don't understand what your situation is.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

The Archos player can work with a number of different computer-based music apps, like WinAmp or MusicMatch Jukebox.

My point is, it doesn't have to.

Re:Maybe

[Big Boss]

What you want is called the "On the Go" playlist. To add tracks to it, hold the select button (center of the click/scroll wheel) for a couple seconds. Poof, there you go.

Of course, what you're asking for is a primitive as hell way of doing things, but it's there, and has been for quite a while. My third gen has it. I never use it though. Google "smart playlist" sometime and see where the real power is. Or just install iTunes and play with them. It's a DATABASE, not a collection of files. And you get all the neat stuff you can do with a database. For example: "All songs that are rated 3 stars or higher, not played in the last 24 hours, random selection". And that's just the tip of the iceburg, you can also do subqueries by including rules like "is in playlist: New songs".

Not to mention, using Explorer to load your player is like using cp instead of rsync for backing up a networked computer. Why the hell would you do that? All I have to do is plug my iPod into the USB port. ITunes automaticly finds it, figgures out what changed since last time, syncs playcounts and ratings, copies any new songs and playlists, and updates all the smart playlists all in a few seconds.

There is more to an iPod than just playing music, that's the easy part. The advanced features, quick updates, and ease of use are a big part of what makes an iPod desirable. And those are acomplished via iTunes. Apple was smart about this, and what they did was make it possible for them to sell LOTS of iPods. People here will bitch and moan about niche stuff like special apps, gapless playback and ogg support, but 99% of people couldn't care less about that stuff. Nor should they. They want it to play music, be easy to use, and have a nice interface on the computer to load it up. iPod and iTunes do this VERY well. No other player I have used comes close.

Re:Maybe

[wskellenger]

Good response, and I will try again with my buddy's iPod. I *did* try holding down the center button, and I did not get this behavior.

It's funny though, how defensive everyone gets about this device. One user, in this thread, calls it "a way of life".

1. No ogg support. My entire CD collection is encoded in ogg. (see my journal for history of this and my using the GJukebox software) iPod users all say: "You don't need it anyway." (Ironic. OGG is the open format! Most Mac guys are usually pro OSS ... But, the theme so far is, if the iPod doesn't support it, you don't need it.)

2. "Gee, I sure wish I could use it like a Jukebox." Turns out you can create an on-the-go playlist, albeit this feature was added at a later date, as indicated rudely by several people.

3. "Spoken by a person who knows nothing about an iPod." Did I claim to? I've played with it, can't see spending $300 on it, that's it. Without #1 or #2, it's no good to me. #2 seems to be solved.

4. Lots of features, great this, great that. I'm sure it is. But that's not the reason why Apple has sold LOTS of iPods. I don't buy it. Reese Witherspoon isn't spotted jogging with her iPod because she's into all of the advanced features. Wired doesn't have a sidebar called "What's on your iPod" because millions of people are using advanced features. It's marketing, plain and simple. Oakley revisited.

Also: I love the slew of AC comments -- and the way they're automatically filtered out, based on my settings, unless I specifically want to read them.

I will check out "Playlist on the Go" the first chance I get.

Re:Maybe

[Overly Critical Guy]

I've seen an "Archos Gmini." After I found out how to pronounce the damn name, I tossed it aside and went back to my 5G iPod.

You didn't address my points. Have fun manually managing your music. Try it with 85GB like I do. iTunes handles it like a champ. I couldn't live without auto-syncing. New album? Next time I plug in the iPod, iTunes will copy it over and sync my playcounts and ratings (I always rate my music on my iPod and not in iTunes).

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

Good lord. 5gb?

As in 5 gigabytes?

Heh. I think we're comaring apples to oranges here.

Re:Maybe

[mr_shifty]

Right... and that's ultimately what it comes down to. Personal preference.

To me, being able to just simply drag and drop files onto a hard-drive based player and go is important, so is being able to use it on any platform without having to go to any extreme lengths to do so. Simplicity and functionality.

For me, an iPod is simply inadequate and overpriced when I can get more functionality (and functionality closer to my expectations) with a different device.

That's not to say that I think the iPod sucks or anything... I don't. If there were no such device as the Archos Gmini 400, I probably would have settled for an iPod. But I think I'm more satisfied with what I have now. :-)

Re:Maybe

[idsofmarch]

Methinks you didn't actually read my comment because I said you did not need to use iTunes with the iPod and there are lots of other programs available, as well as the ability to drag-n-drop. As for DVDs--my iPod can't do that because mine is a 2nd Generation, but the new ones can do that, and you can download episodes of Lost and play it on an iPod, legally. The latest iPod can do everything your Archos can do, except for voice recording. It can be used on Macs, Linux, and Windows, it plays for 10+ hours, it charges quickly (?!), it has a line-out, etc. Now, I agree with you different things for different people, but the feature set is very close and the iPod has a user-interface that is arguably better and it links to the iTunes Music Store, which is a very big plus for a lot of people. So, you saved some money and I'm glad you like your DAP, but stop pretending that the Archos feature list is automagically better than the iPod's, there's some advantages and disadvantages to both.

Re:Maybe

[Bud]

You're carrying around a tiny computer with your entire music collection stored on it, but you need to rely on a second computer to manage it? This makes no sense to me. Where's the command, back at home? [...] The iPod is a result of amazing marketing. People ask for it by name, and have no idea what it will or won't do for them. Without the ability to queue songs, like a jukebox, the huge capacity makes no sense to me.

To answer your implicit question, yes, the iPod contains the ability to create on-the-go playlists. I don't know if it updates on the fly, though.

There's a certain similarity between the iPod and the Palm Pilot. Before, there were devices attempting to contain all your data and provide full control of it in an extremely cramped form factor. Then suddenly there appears on the market this device which is primarily an offline viewer with quite simplistic data synchronization and lacking justabout any kind of wholesale data management. It turns out to be just the thing people want, sparking the [INSERT NAME HERE] revolution with tremendous hype and becoming wildly successful.

In both cases, the users give up control over the details ("tactics"), and gain command over the whole data set ("strategy")... if you don't have to mind the trees, you'll find you are free to watch the forest.

The iPod is now in the spot where Palm was in 1999. It's been on the market for 3-4 years and has a huge market share. Technology- and feature-wise, it still provides less than the competition. Synchronization- and data-management-wise, it's still miles ahead of the competition.

In contrast to the floundering Palm Inc., Apple and the iPod are here to stay for a while. It took six or seven years for the Palm competitors to catch up, and they only managed to because Palm did not have a sense of direction. The key elements for Apple is Steve Jobs providing undisputed leadership and the iTunes Music Store providing the missing link in the value chain. That is, Apple knows where they are headed and they have a complete solution. Of the competitors, only Sony is (was!) in a position to do the same and they just managed to lose an immense amount of brand value with the DRM CD thing.

I believe that, when people buy an iPod, they get an "offline music listening solution" that fulfills their needs quite exactly. It doesn't really matter that the iPod is an underpowered and feature-lacking device or iTunes a draconian control-grabbing application, as long as the combination rocks. The hype is unfortunately directed towards the iPod device instead of the complete solution.

--Bud

Re:Maybe

[TeamArctic]

I agree that the iPod is well marketed, but is also a far superior product.

Sony && DRM

[Russ Nelson]

Sony will only have an XYZ killer when they abandon Digital Restrictions Management. Who wants to buy restrictions?
-russ

Re:Sony && DRM

[rjforster]

> Sony will only have an XYZ killer when they abandon Digital Restrictions Management.

I prefer the term "Digital Restrictions by the Monopolies".
It seems more correct to me.

Re:Sony && DRM

[mr_shifty]

I prefer "Draconian Usage Management". "DUM" sounds a lot better, and more accurate to me.

Re:You jest, but who is going to buy Sony gear?

[saskboy]

People who haven't heard yet will buy them, or if they get put on sale because no one's buying them.

Slashdotters have to get this story into the mainstream a lot more by getting school kids to spread the word, or write your local paper so grandparents know that Sony is making evil CDs and user agreements for their products. Tell people that "Sony CDs are infected with DRM" which means you can't use them in your computer or it breaks the computer.

Quicktime on windows

[imsabbel]

is also the pure definition of crap software.
Ressource hog, takes longer to start than an office suit even though a nagging tray process is always running, no fullscreen, shitty performance.
Not to mention stupid "register if you dont want to be nagged everytime you play a video" popups.

Even realone player is less shitty.

Re:Quicktime on windows

[Dwedit]

With the appropriate directshow filters, Quicktime content can be played by any player program. Including Windows Media Player, Realplayer, and even Winamp.

Re:Quicktime on windows

[Anonymous Coward]

close quicktime
set the date on your computer to something far in the future.
start quicktime, dismiss the nag screen
set date on your computer back to today
start quicktime. no more nag screens utnil you reach that day far in the future.

Worked at least until QT 6.

Re:Quicktime on windows

[toddestan]

Quicktime Alternative comes highly recommended. There simply is no reason to install the full blown Quicktime application in Windows.

There also exists Real Alternative.

It's iTunes

[hsoft]

I briefly looked at the list, and I didn't see any player supporting AAC format (Of course, I guess that apple don't license their format for other players). All my music collection is managed by iTunes, and most of my files are AAC. If I wanted to buy a portable player, what choices I have other than iPod?

The iPod Killer must come with an iTunes Killer!

Re:It's iTunes

[bananasfalklands]

Ive yet to buy any mp3 player, or buy an mp3 - or drm'ed 'song' from anybody. Until then I just cannot find any reason to buy one for the car.

As soon as I can find a song supplier who has the music I like (German 'music', and no they do not sell specific song mp3's/ (something format), then Im going to pass this drm mess.

This is a problem directed more at the music companies than the makers of mp3 players. Then again I don't want Britney crap on a mp3 player which is what most mp3 owners seem to want.

Ipod is cool - laughs, Ipod owners are uncool.

Re:It's iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple aren't responsible for licensing the AAC format; that format is licensed by (IIRC) Dolby.

Perhaps you're thinking of the FairPlay DRM scheme used by the iTunes store, which indeed Apple have not licensed to anyone else.

Re:It's iTunes

[legirons]

All my music collection is managed by iTunes, and most of my files are AAC. If I wanted to buy a portable player, what choices I have other than iPod?

Bad luck!

(or more harshly) remember what we've been saying for years about having your data in open formats? Consider yourself locked-in.

Re:It's iTunes

[TheRaven64]

You don't need a license from Apple to support AAC. Philips used to with some of their players (I was going to get one until Apple added AAC support to iTunes and the iPod). You do need a license from the MPEG-LA and / or Dolby, however.

Note that if you do this, you will still not be able to play tracks bought from the iTunes music store, although nothing is stopping users using HYMN to remove Apple's DRM.

Re:It's iTunes

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Apple's products are the only ones that seem to include AAC unless you use a PDA with TCPMP or similar software with AAC playback built-in or via plug-in.

I think AAC is an ISO standard, so that part is not a problem, though Apple's DRM isn't available elsewhere, though I suggest DRM be avoided, even if they are the most fair in terms of how many computers it can be played on and how many CDs can be burned.

Re:It's iTunes

[damiam]

AAC is an open format, at least to the same extent that MP3 is. Apple doesn't have any sort of exclusive license to use AAC. It's just unfortunate that no other manufacturers have chosen to support it.

Now, if we're talking about FairPlay files from the iTMS, then you have a point. But that's not what the parent said.

Re:It's iTunes

[rdoger6424]

Convert the selection to MP3. I think you can do that with any non-DRM'd songs.

Re:It's iTunes

[legirons]

AAC is an open format, at least to the same extent that MP3 is.

OK, I'm actually interested here, not taking the piss, but what Debian package do you need to install to get AAC files to play in AmaroK?

Re:It's iTunes

[at_slashdot]

That's indeed a insightful comment and it shows what closed formats do.

Closed formats are more dangerous than closed source. If people care about freedom (yeah, I know it's a term that was abused by many people) you should insist on having open formats then you can use whatever programs and hardware you want.

Besides, it's usually easier (and more entitled) to ask for open formats or open standards than to ask somebody to reveal their code.

Re:It's iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

never used AmaroK, but vlc (www.videolan.org) plays them. note that this only applies to unprotected aac files.

Re:It's iTunes

[RustyTaco]

It looks like AmaroK uses GStreamer, so gstreamer0.8-faad from the Marillat archive of media stuff of questionable distribubility. (mplayer, dvd::rip, etc too)
  Here's my x86 source for it, amd64 might be on the same server, but PPC is on a different one.
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ sid main

- RustyTaco

Re:It's iTunes

[Ravadill]

Not really the ideal portable music player, but the PSP plays (unprotected) AAC audio files just fine. It's strange that other Sony portable players don't support AAC/MP4 while the PSP does. (I think support is mainly there to allow it to be used for movie audio and music support is just a bonus.)

Re:It's iTunes

[arkhan_jg]

None. AAC is moderately open (only patents) but nobody uses it except apple. At least with WMA you have a choice of players, even if the DRM is usually harsh for purchased tracks.

Apple's fairplay DRM restricts their DRM'd AAC files from iTMS to iPods only, and they have no intention of licensing it, so if you've bought much through iTunes, your only choice is an iPod of some description.

Welcome to lock-in.

Re:It's iTunes

[Overly Critical Guy]

AAC isn't Apple's format. AAC is MPEG-4 audio (aka MP4) and will be used on next-gen formats like Blu-ray for film audio. What is proprietary is Apple's Fairplay DRM scheme that sits on top of AAC.

Re:It's iTunes

[2nd Post!]

Isn't that exactly why Apple is using AAC and MP4, because they are open formats? Not open in the "Open Source" sense, but open in the "MP3" or "industry standard approved" sense. Much better than, say, WMA, right?

Look it up; AAC is an MPEG group standard, based on MPEG2 aac audio; implemented also in MPEG4 audio; that's why iTunes creates m4a files when you encode in AAC.

Re:It's iTunes

[at_slashdot]

In my understanding AAC is an open format, but there's Apple adds a DRM wrapper that's not open format.

So, if you buy a song you'll get it in a so called AAC or MP4 format, but you can't do anything with it if you don't have an iPod or iTunes on your machine.

There's no difference between AAC with DRM and WMA from the point of view of open standards (actually as a side remark WMA is licensed to more players).

Re:It's iTunes

[Domini]

I agree... they may be great players, but I like iTunes. The only thing I would change is to change to mp3. There is way much more mp3 support out there currently. ogg may be better, but it has trivial support in devices (at least the ones I can buy).

Yup, I still recommend iPods to people who want to buy... they must not be lured by a cheaper, better unit. The iPod can do what it sets out to do. And do it well. Play music for long periods of time. (And they still have way simpler and cleaner interfaces)

Re:It's iTunes

[donweel]

Use Itunes to burn a CD of the tunes you wish to export. Rip the cd to mp3 I believe Itunes will do this for you. Use the mp3 as you wish, drm is now gone. You could also use Apple Lossless,aiff or wav if you wish.

Re:It's iTunes

[CronoCloud]

I believe it's faad2, but a quick search of Debian package search shows no such package You might have to compile it from source.. When I compiled it, it added an I/O plugin to XMMS that let XMMS play AAC.

Re:It's iTunes

[CronoCloud]

You have to rename the file extension though.

And you can only play the music in firmware versions 2.00+ I did expect that support to be added, with the ability to play AAC encoded movie audio, I figured adding it for music would be a cinch, which it probably was.

Re:It's iTunes

[arkhan_jg]

If you transcode to mp3 (you can use hymn if you don't want to waste a CD) you decrease the sound quality and introduce artifacts. If you transcode to a lossless codec, you waste a lot of space, a big problem on a portable player. Neither solution is good.

Re:It's iTunes

[2nd Post!]

AAC you buys is DRM protected; AAC you rip with iTunes is not.

So comparing AAC to WMA, the point STILL stands that AAC is an open industry standard, like MP3, while WMA is not.

Re:It's iTunes

[at_slashdot]

I don't argue with you, but if you read my comment in the context of what the parent said you'll see that AAC is just as bad as WMA for the songs that you buy.
The songs that you rip you are free to use whatever standards you want anyway.

Re:It's iTunes

[2nd Post!]

Except for the fact the parent (no one, really) mentioned bought songs. You're the only one who's talking about it. Which means the context isn't about songs you buy, just songs "managed by iTunes", which I interpreted as "songs that you rip".

WMA is still more closed than AAC (it's a function of degrees, anyway).

Re:It's iTunes

[at_slashdot]

Have you ever heard of assumptions? AAC being a open format can be implemented by other music players very easily, I'm not that passioned by the subject so I don't know for sure if there are or not music players that play AAC. HOWEVER the problem is clear when you talk about songs that you bought (and that's why my assumption) -- in which case Apple AAC is not better than WMA.

Actually.... just a quick look and I've found a music player that plays AAC
http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=SOUNDBRID GE_M2000&partner=register

So, I guess the issue is not if you can play AAC on other players -- you can, I'm sure there are other players beside the one that I've found in 10 seconds, the issue is clearly about playing non-free AAC formats. I clearly don't support the idea that free AAC is just like WMA, what I'm saying is that AAC songs bought from iTunes are just as useless as WMA songs -- even worse actually since you can play WMA on more players than bought AAC which play only on iPod (and prepare to be surprised: there are people that don't like iPods or there are people that want something cheaper or different, or people that listen to radio and so on).

iPod Killer?

[Stupor Man]

Sony doesn't get it. I don't own any Sony products (I guess I always thought something else was better) but, after recent events, you couldn't PAY me to take a Sony product. Here's to hoping the rootkit/EULA stories make national news and STAY there.

Is anyone competing on price?

[JayBlalock]

I mean, seriously. Where is it? Why are none of the major brands seriously trying to push the price point down?

HD-based players are still too pricy for the average consumer. Yet the price of them hasn't changed significantly in years. Surely the drives in them are cheaper and easier to produce than they were in 2001 - so why has the price not come down significantly?

Instead, the consumer is forced to make ridiculous compromises like "will you pay $100 less and get 1/10 the storage?" Or, "How about $200 less, and you don't get a screen or any control over the playlist either."

I look over that list, and pretty much all of them, within their subclass, are IDENTICAL. The only difference is the brand name and the particular shape of the player. And, in fact, it seems like the entire industry is becoming LESS innovative, not more, especially with Rio leaving the market. I couldn't even tell you the difference between most of those.

And then people wonder why Apple has all the market share. It's the only brand name most people can name, the only one they've heard of, and none of the other models offer ANYTHING substantial to recommend themselves over it. And in the meantime, no one seems willing to try to open the market up a bit by making good players available at affordable prices.

It seems like, once again, an example of the music industry collectively shooting itself in the foot, and then whining about why no one else lives in the same world they do.

/uses a buggy out-of-production player he found on clearance for $50

Re:Is anyone competing on price?

[sapgau]

And it also shows that the barrier to enter into this market is getting higher and higher.

To introduce a new player AND take some of ipod's market share you need obviously to match an ipod's features but also spend the money marketing your new player. Once in a while I see an ipod add on tv during prime time, those are not cheap!

Re:Is anyone competing on price?

[2nd Post!]

My conclusion as to why no one is competing on price; no one will make money if they do.

Apple has, more or less, applied everything it knows in cutting costs, drawn from 28 years of computer manufacturing experience.

The only people who MIGHT be able to undercut an iPod on price and still make money is Dell; but good luck on that if they're using Creative to create the Dell DJs.

As per price competition, Apple also has that licked; $99 iPod shuffle, $149 iPod shuffle, $199 iPod Nano, $249 iPod nano, $299 iPod, and $399 iPod.

Try doing a price comparison, I don't think anyone has, per gigabyte, a cheaper HD mp3 player (at least that's true in the first few months of any release). By the time it's time for a refresh, other's have caught up.

Oh, there's another reason no one is competing on price.

If you can sell a Zen for $10 less than an iPod, you still get significant profit; if you sell $50 less, you lose a lot of profit.

Given two scenarios, it seems to make more sense to, you know, make a profit?

The real iPod Killer:

[Dr.Sweety]

seriously, for me there's only one true iPod Killer (tm): http://www.smashmyipod.com/ :P

Re:The real iPod Killer:

[pacc]

Hmm,
that sort of ideas should only be used
on things that are sold with heavy
subventions. Though if you started the
"smash my lexmark" movement you would
probably end up with hell of a waste problem

Is Neuros an Apple product?

[Anonymous Coward]

No? Forget it then. I want the sexyness and elite feeling of superiority that can only come with owning an Apple product.

Trojan Horse?

[jpellino]

I just upgraded Tunes on an XP box the other day, and I'm pretty sure it told me that it was going to install QuickTime and gave me chapter and verse on the progress as it did so. I believe I even agreed to it in the click-thrus.

That would pretty much mean it's not a trojan, but something I decided to install and use.

I suppose I could have just modded this troll, but I'll be posting to this thread - the rest of the comment rates insightful, but that seemed like a cheap shot.

Re:Trojan Horse?

[TheRaven64]

I believe the grandparent was using the term Trojan Horse in the classical sense, rather than the malware sense. iTunes is used to sneak in QuickTime. A lot of people now have QuickTime installed as a result of iTunes requiring it who would not have installed it as a stand-alone download. It does not imply that anything underhand or illegal was done.

Re:Trojan Horse?

[network23]

"That would pretty much mean it's not a trojan, but something I decided to install and use."

OK. What should we call it? Piggyback-riding?

Most users don't notice, care or mind that installing iTunes also installs QuickTime - resulting in a huge upswing for QuickTime compared to Real and even the always-included Windows Media.

Which I think is good. The QT7 version of H.264 is absoilutely awesome.

(I'm not sure, but I think other Apple code also piggyback-rides with iTunes, like Bonjour for easy sharing of iTunes music. Maybe more will be "included" as Apple moves to Intel binaries.)

Re:Trojan Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the grandparent was using the term Trojan Horse in the classical sense, rather than the malware sense. iTunes is used to sneak in QuickTime. A lot of people now have QuickTime installed as a result of iTunes requiring it who would not have installed it as a stand-alone download. It does not imply that anything underhand or illegal was done.

Um... but the classical sense does imply that something underhanded was done... Or were the Trojans just sneaking in to throw a surprise party?

Re:Trojan Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

ya, but when you install Itunes at least they tell you their installing QuickTime

Re:Trojan Horse?

[earthbound kid]

I believe the great-grandparent meant it in the literal sense, that the iPod is a 100 foot tall wooden horse filled with soldiers who will destroy your town.

But at $399, it's a bargin. Hiring that many soldiers usually costs at least twice as much.

Re:Trojan Horse?

[Dhalka226]

iTunes is used to sneak in QuickTime.

The worst part is that Quicktime is now used to sneak in iTunes as well.

Somebody asked me to find them a Quicktime download link a while ago. Hopped to Apple's site, clicked around for a minute, found it and pointed them to it. I was annoyed to find that it was bundled with iTunes. Oh, sure, they have a little checkbox you can toggle so iTunes is not installed with QuickTime, but you still had to download the extra trash you didn't ask for. Worst part is that the kid is still on a 56k modem, and I think he even has a download cap (Australian ISPs are bitches, it seems,) so those extra useless megabytes hurt twice as much.

Re:Trojan Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Quicktime Download page has a link for QuickTime Standalone Installer.

You're welcome.

Re:Trojan Horse?

[Artemis]

Wow, literally two seconds with google found what you wanted here. Next time try googling for 'quicktime standalone' and hit "I feel lucky". It takes you to: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone .html Amazing!

Re:Trojan Horse?

[DuranDuran]

very funny, earthbound. a good laugh this morning. :)

Screening : My First Question

[Fantasio]

Is it seen as a USB mass storage device ? If not, you have failed. I do not want to see any kind of your proprietary software on my PC to get access to your device.

Re:Screening : My First Question

[mr_shifty]

Damn skippy. I thought iPods were pretty nifty until I found out how restrictive they are. I'm not installing iTunes just to load my mp3 player. Screw that.

Re:Screening : My First Question

[osssmkatz]

Stop complaining about being *required* to use iTunes; Apple can't make it mass-storage compatible, because of the record labels*. (pure conjecture) There are lots of apps that will make your iPod show up in dev/mnt, My Computer etc.

See http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q =ipod+transfer&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Some of the more popular ones include:
www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod (Anapod Explorer) [Windows]
EphPod for Windows and Linux --open source
http://www.ephpod.com/
*and* the original iPod utility for Windows:
Xplay (http://www.macdrive.com/products/xplay/) [recommended by CNET and others]; I have a special place in my heart for these people.

Re:Screening : My First Question

[mr_shifty]

Stop complaining about being *required* to use iTunes; Apple can't make it mass-storage compatible, because of the record labels*. (pure conjecture)

Well that's their choice not to, isn't it?

They went well out of their way to basically limit the functionality of their product.

So it's my choice to go with a product that has no such limitations. Oh well.

And I'm fully aware of apps out there that can make the iPod functional without the use of iTunes.

That doesn't make me any happier. It's a workaround for an intentional crippling of their product. To me, that makes the product defective. Worse, because they designed this defect into it.

No thanks. I don't care about that, or their reasons for doing it. I would love an iPod, but until they "fix" that glaring problem with it and maybe add some features, I'll be sticking with a superior product that actually does more and isn't designed with flaws marketed to customers as "features".

Re:Screening : My First Question

[osssmkatz]

Visit ilounge.com. You can "enable disk mode", and you can probably do it with a hack. --Sam

Re:Screening : My First Question

[cdunworth]

I would suggest something from the iAudio line (can get most of them at newegg). All of their models offer USB mass storage accessibility, as well as play OGGs out of the box (my two main screening criteria). I just got the iAudio G3 two weeks ago and it's great (if you don't mind the ho-hum looks and the nipple-stick interface).

MOD PARENT UP

[fightzombies]

While I agree that the post is somewhat offtopic, fact is linked article is not only informative, but easy to read, something that's becoming rare these days.

IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[Wolfbone]

The iAudio X5L 30GB would be my choice. It's HD based so you might not like it but I've been doing a pre-xmas comparison of feature sets and reviews of DAPs and it stands out from the crowd.

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[harp2812]

I have an iAudio X5, and absolutely love it... toss in a good set of ear phones (I like Shure's E series), and the sound quality is absolutely amazing. I haven't found any other audio players yet that have as good of a frequency range or quality, especially on the low end. As far as hard drive vs. flash, I can't say it's caused me any extra concern: It's a pretty solid little unit, and has easily held up through all the abuse I've put it through. Definitely give it a look if you get a chance!

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[the_maddman]

I second that! The iAudio X5 is a great player, the sound quality is excellent, and it handles all my oggs without problems. The touch pads on the ipod's don't like me anyways, so I like the little joystick on it.

Only compliant I have about it, the playlist functionality on it is a little rough. I use winamp to make the playlists on it, but iTunes it ain't.

Oh, and one more thing, the output on the X5 is good enough I can hear every compression artifact in a 128k mp3. If you get one, start using FLAC or rip at at least 192k a sec. This one can use the extra quality.

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

I, just yesterday, ordered an iAudio X5 (no 'L'). The LOWEST review rating I could find ANYWHERE was 3 1/2 out of 5. Typical rating was 4 1/4 out of 5 with a median of EASILY 4 1/2 out of 5. Just from a random perusal of ratings (and my own personal opinion based on features alone) for the devices given in the list I'd say the X5 makes a better iPod Killer than anything suggested. Reasons why I bought the X5: - Hard Drive based (flash memory becomes corrupt and unusable MUCH faster than hard drives) - Supports OGG - FM Tuner - Ability to schedule FM recording 'Bonus' features of the X5 - (and this one is huge) The ability to plug, via USB, the X5 DIRECTLY into my Digital camera (Canon A95) and copy all the pictures off. Excuse me, I need a towel. - Supports FLAC (I'll be curious to see if it supports OGG+FLAC) - Plays most DivX, XviD and other MPEG4 formats. Only gets 15fps (considered the minimum for animation), but can we say, "keeping my sanity at the Laundromat"? - Alarm clock. Yea. I know me. I'll need this.

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

Correction: Typical rating was 4 1/2 NOT 4 1/4

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[cartoon]

Yes, now that the Rio Karma is discontinued, the iAudio X5 is the best that is out there in the stores.

It only lack one major feature for me, and that is ID3-tag based browsing. No other player got a user interface as easy to use and as powerful as the Rios, and the Karma in particular. IMO the iPod is not even close, even if it hadn't been disqualified by me as it lacks gapless playback. No, crossfading is not gapless playback.

But, I am happy with my Rio Karma for now -- and I hope to be for many years.

Re:IAudio X5 plays Vorbis and FLAC etc.

[MicahStevens]

I own an X5, and it plays OGG great, sounds as good or better than any other player out there, and also will display images, text files, video (15fps), records to MP3/WAV - Tons of really nice features.

The built in microphone does pretty good at getting clear recordings of what is going on around you, I've been using it to interview people and record events, if you're concerned about quality, you can buy a couple of microphones for stereo, a mic-pre, and send it to the X5 as line-level input.

Rockbox has an X5 port project going, when that gets closer you could tweak on it to your heart's content.. although I suspect video support is way off still..

My only complaint is that the little joystick is a bit hard to deal with sometimes, but all in all, it's the best player I found when shopping.

what, no iAudio X5?

[paulbd]

I am suprised that the iAudio X5 was not mentioned: its a superb device, marred by only 2 possible flaws that I know of:

1. silly "color sound" logo on front screen
2. audio jack is side-mounted, though it does make it more secure than a top-mounted one.

Maybe the fact that you cannot buy it in retail stores was a problem for the reviewers. Even so, video support, Ogg, USB host, full USB mass storage implementation, long battery life ... its hard not to gush.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[saldek]

3. Built-in battery which isn't user-replaceable.

Granted, the specs on that player look pretty good. However, I've had to toss out perfectly-good hardware before because the battery died after 18 months.

For nearly $500, I expect a bit more in terms of longevity.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[harp2812]

Not to mention, Cowon officially supports Linux, which was the main reason I originally bought the M3, then the X5.
Check out the feature list: http://eng.iaudio.com/product/product_X5_feature.p hp

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is a list of relatively new players. The X5 has been out for some time. Lots of players aren't mentioned on that list.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[paulbd]

US$500 ? i don't think so. I paid US$289 for the one we have, at amazon.com.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[saldek]

Sorry, you're right. I went to their online store and clicked on A2. Depending on the capacity, the X5 sells in their store for $300 - $440 + shipping.

I still think my point is valid, though. for that kind of money I'd expect more than two years of use.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[pintomp3]

that applies to the majority of hard drive based mp3 players, including the ipod.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[StrawberryFrog]

Not that long. The X5 60gb has been out for about a month, the other models for a month or two longer.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[StrawberryFrog]

You missed the biggest flaw. The "subpack" plug-on docking gizmo is definitely the number-one flaw. Side-mounted headphone? I couldn't care. Logo? I don't notice it much.

I have an X5 60Gb and a like it a lot: it carries loads of oggs, it doubles as portable USB HD, mmm.

But the subpack will be easy to lose, and the connector on the X5 looks fragile - not to mention the silly little rubber cover for the X5's port, which I have nearly lost a dozen times already. Why couldn't it have been attached like the USB host port's cover?? The whole subpack thing seems a poorly done afterthought.

In other news...

[Queer Boy]

Pepsi crows about how their new cola is a "Coke killer".

See, that's just as funny, right?

one they missed

[Eil]

I noticed that iRiver's line of MP3 players is (mostly) absent from this listing.

I recently got an iRiver IFP-899 and absolutely love it. I don't have any particularly overwhelming urge to store my entire music collection on a portable MP3 player, so a very expensive iPod or any of its very expensive clones are pretty much overkill for me.

Simply put, the iRiver is a great middle-of-the-road MP3 player. Rather than copying and pasting the specs from the corporate web page, I'll just list a few things that I particularly like about it.

• It's very small
  
• Receives FM radio
  
• Can record from the built-in mic, the line-in jack, or the FM radio (sheduled too, if you like)
  
• Plays MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG
  
• Built-in EQ
  
• Some Linux support
  
• Can be connected as a USB mass storage device (with a firmware upgrade)
  
• Runs for 40 hours on a single AA battery
  
• 4-line backlit LCD

With prices on the unit dropping to almost $150, even Apple would have a hard time beating that. At $50 more, the iPod nano has double the storage but still only half the features.

Re:one they missed

[krelian]

Check out their new U10 model for some sweet design. It is expensive though.

Re:one they missed

[Llywelyn]

The question is "are they features I care about more than having twice the storage."

Receives FM? Not useful to me.

Records? Nice in the abstract, but honestly I'd never use it.

Plays MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG? All of my songs are in AAC or mpeg 1 layer 3.

etc.

I think a lot of people fall in the same kind of boat.

Re:one they missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Can be connected as a USB mass storage device (with a firmware upgrade)

Wow, thank you so much for pointing that out. I have an iFP-795 and this was the thing that annoyed me the most about it. After reading this, I checked their web site and there's a firmware update that enables it. :D

Re:one they missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, think about the average consumer for a moment. Now how many of these average consumers use Linux? Have their music collection in OGG format? Care about features like line-in or voice recorder?

And even the batteries. If you're using a removeable battery, you have to constantly buy new batteries as you continue to use the device, or swap and charge if you're using rechargables. People go for hassle free stuff. You know, like when people get home from a long day, they plug it in and it's good to go the next morning.

Features means nothing. The iPod has proved that, over and over again.

Re:one they missed

[shadowbearer]

If you're using a removeable battery, you have to constantly buy new batteries as you continue to use the device, or swap and charge if you're using rechargables.

  I do a lot of photography (hobby, not biz).

  I prefer swappable rechargeable batteries. That way, I get to choose what brand I use. (I've noticed that some brands of rechargeables aren't as tolerant of hot weather as others are, for example).

  I realize that built-in rechargeable batteries for a lot of equipment can be had third party, but that's not the same as being able to go to a local store and buy the brand that works...

SB

Re:one they missed

[steevc]

My wife wants a player that can do timed radio recordings so she can listen to shows at her convenience. The iRiver iFP range seemed to be one of the few to do this, but has been phased out. However, in part II of the list is the iRiver N11 which looks like the successor to the iFP. I may still go for one of the old models if I can find it at a good price. I can't bring myself to pay over £100 for a flash player these days, even if it does do OGG.

Re:one they missed

[Anonymous Coward]

Features means nothing. The iPod has proved that, over and over again.

That is right, who wants a device that plays music, as well as photos and movies? Movies and photos are extra fluff that the average consumers don't want. People love shilling $300+ of their own money and sending their devices back to the companies to replace their batteries. It is also good just to dump them the second when product version 1.01alpha gets released with new feature(but none like photo or video crap, that consumers obviously don't want or demand) and gets tweaked(because things like 8 hour lasting charges and declining battery life are 100% perfect the way they are, and only need to be tweaked).

Forget making the device a easy drag & drop hard-drive, the user is too stupid to even do that and you should only be able to move/access/update stuff using the bundled software. And consumers also love having gaps between their non-stop techno mix cds and shoving their stuff into one big & continues file. Who needs any other audio formats since Apple branded DRM and ACC are the only ones you should ever need!

Thank goodness Apple doesn't listen to what their consumers want or suggest, why it might lead to more sales and a more consumer friendly product! And if Apple can't make a device with feature XYZ, then no one obviously wants it or can do it!

also a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

.....I bet most don't scratch up as bad as iPods do."

It seems the nano really isn't that fragile after all, and the scratch concern is also a running gag about people treating nanos as car keys.

Re:also a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

The ability to absorb impacts (as seen in your linked review) isn't really related to the ability of the materials to resist scratching. It's pretty much been established that the iPod nano scratches easy.

Not Creative anyways

[edxwelch]

Creative are basically a 100% Microsoft shop. In general they are hostile towards open source. Their players seem to be all going the "PlayForSure" (i.e. DRM) route. Little Mac support. No Linux support whatsoever (there is a Linux driver, but the development group get 0% support from Creative). They had a SDK to allow 3rd party software to work with their software, but no update for the PlayForSure enabled players. It's looking like in the future all their players will be PlayForSure, effectively locking out all non-commerical software support.

Re:Not Creative anyways

[Jesselnz]

PlaysForSure just means it has the ability to play DRM files. Cowon, iRiver, etc are labeled as PlayForSure, but they work fine in Linux and play ogg and mp3 files.

Re:Not Creative anyways

[edxwelch]

Maybe, but the PlayForSure versions of Creative players definately don't work on Linux. Creative players use a propriety file system, which means you can't just mount it to the file system, you need special drivers

Re:Not Creative anyways

[Anonymous Coward]

My Creative MuVo N200 works fine on Fedora Core 3.

Re:Not Creative anyways

[edxwelch]

The MuVo range works like normal mp3 players ie. you can mount it, but the Zen range - which appeared in the review - doesn't

AAA Batteries

[Hangeron]

I really dislike AAA batteries that almost all portable mp3 players require. I can see it's a design choice to make the player smaller, but you'll have to keep buying the batteries to use it. My old mp3 player wouldn't work with rechargeable AAA batteries because they have lower voltage. I had to make a hack to have it use external AA rechargeable batteries, and it wasn't pretty. Only one player in the review is mentioned being capable of using AA batteries, Panasonic D-snap.

Does anyone know a nice flash memory based player that works with rechargeable AA batteries?

Re:AAA Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod Shuffles and Nanos are flash-based players that work with rechargeable batteries -- but the batteries are built-in.

Re:AAA Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPod shuffle battery last longer than a triple A battery - I just flew from NYC to New Zealand without recharging (and without listening to the same song twice).

Re:AAA Batteries

[-kertrats-]

My Creative Zen Micro (5 GB) uses a rechargeable battery just fine, and it can be replaced (unlike an iPod battery). Plays a good 15 hours on a charge. Smaller than an iPod Mini. I even prefer the interface and the vertical scroll to the scrollwheel on an iPod. Plus, it's cheaper at 5 GB than the 4 GB Nano.

Re:AAA Batteries

[erasmus42]

I bought a Rio 500 years ago. It has an internal 64MB card and can take an additional card up to 64MB.
128MB isn't much, but one of the reasons I bought it was that it runs for about 8-10 hours on
a single AA battery. You can probably find one on EBay for cheap. I used mine for years, and I
had to crack it open to dust it out, but it still keeps on ticking.

Re:AAA Batteries

[gerardrj]

The iPod batteries ARE replaceable! The fact that most people lack the intelligence or skills to replace the battery does not change that fact.
By your logic the battery in your electronic wristwatch isn't replaceable either because you need a tool to open it properly.

Re:AAA Batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Rio 500 years ago.

They had mp3 players 500 years ago?

Re:AAA Batteries

[-kertrats-]

I can do it on my Zen without voiding my warranty. Satisfied?

Re:AAA Batteries

[gerardrj]

You can also change the battery in the iPod without voiding the warranty. IF the battery should fail under warranty it is literally a 3 day turnaround to have Apple replace the battery for free.
Granted, that's several days longer than it takes to change the batts in your Zen, but then I only have to worry about my battery every few years.

Bad Serivces and Software

[williampiv]

Sony has done a great job of isolating people from the openess of music. This MP3 Player is small, and holds a lot. Unfortunatly, it requires you to use Sony's software, SonicStage. Because of this, Sony has made sure that you can't get any online songs from anyone else.

"At this time, online music services such as the Roxio Napster, Listen.com Rhapsody, or Apple iTunes Music Store are not directly compatible with the Net MD Walkman recorder or Network Walkman player."

This means your using Sony's CONNECT music store to get music online. Not only is this music store hard to navigate, it doesn't seem to have a lot in it.

If that doesn't seem bad enough, you'd better keep your installation disc in a safe place. Sony will charge you $20.00 to get another copy from them.

Although the MP3 player might work fine, the software and services required to use with it are terrible.

Re:Bad Serivces and Software

[CronoCloud]

it doesn't seem to have a lot in it.

You're right on that, though personally I think the interface is not too bad.

If that doesn't seem bad enough, you'd better keep your installation disc in a safe place. Sony will charge you $20.00 to get another copy from them.

What? Why buy a replacement version of SonicStage when you can download it for free from the Connect website.

iPod killer

[evilviper]

I've got an iPod killer for you...

MP3 player, that runs Linux, plays back Vorbis, Flac, Speex, and of course Vinyl...

Add in a 3D 16:9 ELED screen for playing back Divx, Theora and Tarkin videos.

For navigate, throw-in a "buckling spring" scroll-wheel.

That'll be an iPod killer... at least on /.

Audio Pills

[SuperKendall]

You can bet that when the musc player industry comes up with Audio Pills, Apple will have a cherry flavored chewable version while everyone else will go with suppositories.

Re:Audio Pills

[PCeye]

Great analogy! Two thumbs up

Re:Audio Pills

[nrc]

I would bet on it to be the other way around. But the iPodd Ano will look so damn cool hanging out your ass that all your cool friends will want one. Absolutely everyone who is anyone will be walking around in assless pants to show how hip they are with their rectums stuffed full of 20 gig worth of DRM'd dreck.

Re:Audio Pills

[DWIM]

Yes, but then when Apple comes out with their own iSuppository, you can damn well bet everyone will think it the best thing yet and an Apple innovation!

Re:Audio Pills

[ToasterofDOOM]

Brings new meaning to talking out of your ass.

Re:Audio Pills

[Anonymous Coward]

Ewwww, that's disgusting!

I hate cherry flavor.

Re:You jest, but who is going to buy Sony gear?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done that.

My whole class at college knows what's going on, and I know quite a few of them buy a lot of CDs.

Support

[halo8]

I'm on my 3rd MP3 player now
The other two ive junked because of shitty support
Tip: When buying something like this, BUY BRAND NAME, or accept the fact that it could be junk in 3 months
I'm currently using the Creative Nuvo, it has a display, custom equalizer, FM, it rips/encodes from a line in (ie. the analog hole) and best of all it has great north american support and a company name to back it up.
the other 2 players had no name companies that just re-directed you to the korean company that made the chipset, and all the korean company had was a flash update and a japanese word document for windows 98/ME

Sony

[provid]

Sony in all is a pretty good company for me when it comes to, t.v.'s, cameras,speakers, and audio recievers... there's really not much more than that....I have them to thank for the thousands (exageration) of different types of useless media on the market today with the excepetion of some....I like apple for its hardware and software because they make the right choices for me and I don't have to feel like I need to look around for something better. We have to remember that most of the general consumers of technology are not up to date with ogg, atrac, aac, etc. Apple makes it easy...pop your cd in, find it in a file, load it into itunes, sync with ipod...it sounds good enough to them that they feel they don't need to go to anything else....

MobiBlu

[Solder Fumes]

No mention of the MobiBlu cube player? I got one and I love it, has FM and voice recording and equalizer, not to mention SRS WOW and an OLED screen. It's tiny and and the only clue people have that it's some kind of player is the headphones, and they come over and ask about it. Everyone is amazed by how small it is.

Re:MobiBlu

[apflwr]

I haven't seen one yet in person (they're only available for sale at Wal-Mart online, right?) but I considered the MobiBlue, and my impression is that the cube isn't a very good shape for carrying around-- 1" by 1" by 1" may not seem big, but in a jacket or jeans pocket I would guess it would get annoying fast. The "stick" style of the Shuffle and many others seem a lot more appropriate for portability.

BTW I bought a Shuffle-- not that it's the best or has the most features, but the refurb 1 gig models going for $99 on the Apple site were hard to pass up.

Re:MobiBlu

[MustardMan]

Yeah I got a free shuffle through the pyramid scheme sites - I love it.

None have AM radio

[magarity]

Plenty of models have FM radio but what's so hard about AM? I want to listen to talk radio and have MP3 as a backup for when hosts I don't like come on. And I'm sure there are plenty of people who want to listen to sports broadcasts.

Re:None have AM radio

[EggyToast]

I believe it has to do with the antenna requirements for the format.

Re:None have AM radio

[fiori]

Plenty of models have FM radio but what's so hard about AM?

It the antenna requirements for AM that prevent it. For the FM band it is possible to use the headset wires as an antenna. That isn't possible for the AM bands. What's the smallest AM/FM portable radio you've seen without an external antenna? AM requires a bulky ferrite antenna that isn't size friendly for this small players. This is the same reason that cell phones have FM, but not AM radio reception.

Re:None have AM radio

[magarity]

My original Walkman, about 1.5 inches thick by an inch wider and taller than a cassette tape had an AM tuner. It had no external antenna. So it can't be all that hard given the size of some of these devices.

Re:None have AM radio

[evilviper]

AM requires a bulky ferrite antenna that isn't size friendly for this small players.

Nonsense. Open up any CD player with AM radio. You'll find a ferrite antenna about an inch and a half long, and about as skinny as a couple toothpicks. Still gets very good AM reception.

Neuros? Who cares.

[Damek]

Shouldn't we all be supporting a company like this? Or has someone here had bad experience with Neuros?

No, people just don't care. Recording? Most people don't care. Most walkmans couldn't record, and portable CD players sure couldn't. Didn't stop them being sold. Open source? Who care, most people aren't interested in futzing with the internals. I suppose it's a good product for people who like Linux, though. So would have been an open source (open firmware?) walkman back in the 1980s. Most people wouldn't have cared to buy one, though.

iaudio x5

[greeen]

why isn't the iaudio there? the iaudio mp3 players beat out all of those they have listed. well check out http://www.cowonusa.com/ see for yourselves.

innovative, but won't matter

[idlake]

Several of these players are quite innovative, and in a useful way. But it won't matter in the grand scheme of things: the iPod is succeeding because of brand recognition and its tie-in with the Apple music store. Whatever the iPod lacks in built-in functionality, companies like Belkin provide as an add-on.

Almost a killer - Soniqcast Aireo

[darkone]

My wife has had a Soniqcast Aireo 1Gig for 10 months. She (and I) LOVE it.
It has an FM tuner, as WELL as a built in FM transmitter, adjustable to ANY FM Freq (not just 5 or so).
  Think that is neat, that is nothing compared to the built in 802.11b wireless! you can leave your Aireo in the car, and have it sync up with your PC in your house late at night. Or, if you're sitting near a WAP out and about, you can connect up to your audible.com account and download books, or newspapers over the internet!
  Sonicast is now selling a 20Gig model with similar features. (or will be soon)
  The only 2 donwfalls are that the interface on the player is so-so, and you need MS Windows to Sync playlists.
http://www.soniqcast.com/

  I personaly enjoy my Archos AV480, no wireless or FM, but It can store/play/record video, and works well with Linux, MacOSX, or Windows.

Goddamn it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you made me RTFA!

FM Radios?!

[robathome]

I fail to see why including an FM tuner in a personal digital audio player is some great "feature." I use a personal MP3 player precisely because commercial FM radio sucks the sweat from a syphillitic donkey's testicles. WhyTF do Creative and iRiver think that's a killer addition to the capabilities of their products? Now, a digital audio player with integrated XM/Sirius real-time receiver (not recorded from a base-station), and a user-replaceable Li-ion battery pack - that'd be an iPod "killer."

Re:FM Radios?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever been through a Hurricane (Wilma?) and had your power out for 2 weeks?

AM/FM does have it's uses, and a small AA powered one can be really nice during certain times. Since it's with your other music, you don't need that extra portable radio.

Re:FM Radios?!

[Mad Leper]

Integrated FM radio is a "great feature" because many of us are fortunate to live in an area where FM radio doesn't suck. I had a choice between buying an iPod and an iRiver H120. One had FM radio the other didn't, so I bought the H120.

Re:FM Radios?!

[Teun]

I use a personal MP3 player precisely because commercial FM radio sucks the sweat from a syphillitic donkey's testicles.

That's only where Rob is at home.

Over here in Europe there are plenty of fine FM radio stations for all tastes.
And I find it almost essential to have a radio receiver included, after all it's rather simple technology.

Re:FM Radios?!

[pintomp3]

you must really hate FM if you don't want to even have the choice.

Re:FM Radios?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned the value of having a radio near me a couple years ago when the big blackout hit NYC and I was on my commute back home via public transportation (e.g., bus & train). Nobody knew what was going on; (non-portable) radios and TVs were out, the cell-phone networks were overloaded. Very few people had any portable radios with them, and so very few people had any real facts about the blackout. Fortunately, I was carrying a CD walkman with me, so I was not one of these unfortunates. Not only was I able to learn the situation, but I passed along I learned to everyone else in the vicinity, much to their appreciation.

Yeah, I know it seems a silly reason; it's not as if there's a big emergency like that every day, right? But still, it's great to have when you need it, so -especially if it doesn't add much to the price- having an integral tuner is a plus for a portable music device.

or connect to client drives

[amcdiarmid]

I have an old iRiver H-120. (It's about three years old). My wife hates the interface,butIlove the unit.

1) Connects to CLIENT Win2K; XP boxes via USB as a external HD WITHOUT any drivers
2) FM radio
3) 20GB storage
4) Battery,so I don't have to worry about getting power to "a self powered external case" when I use laptops, or older machines
5) Internal Microphone & recording capability, for when I need to verify details / have a cranky and difficult customer.
6) Marginally larger than an old iPod

Too expensive

[badzilla]

These things are just too expensive.

I travel by foot/bus/train a lot and really depend upon personal audio to make the journeys bearable. So my mobile phone (which I need to carry around anyway) has an MP3 player and I spent a few extra quid on a 1GB MMC for it. End of story - maybe I'm not living the correct cool lifestyle but hey the music still comes out the headphones just fine.

That's not an iPod killer

[commodoresloat]

Don't get me wrong, it's impressive, but what an iPod killer really needs is a built-in M-60 machine gun so that it can actually, umm, kill iPods.

Re:That's not an iPod killer

[shadowbearer]

  Overkill. A sufficiently hard fingernail apparently suffices :)

SB

hymn doesn't work with iTunes 6!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you install and buy anything with iTunes 6, hymn can no longer snag the keys to unlock anything you bought previously, and can't crack the new stuff, yet. So you're screwed once again.

Read the warning here.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, AAC is an ISO standard!

UMS

[pintomp3]

i am probably in the minority, but not having UMS is a dealbreaker for me. i like being able to plug my player into any computer running any recent OS and not have to install software/drivers to copy music band and forth (having a standard mini-usb port is also a must). screw p2p, i've got sneakernet! i've been managing my mp3 collection since '97, i don't need the assistance of some software that takes over. i miss out on some nice playlisting features, but i retain control over my music. i also don't become dependant and married to any software. gapless is also important, but not a dealbreaker (most current popular music doesn't need this but i do need my dark side of the moon intact). again, this is probably too much work for novices. but it's nice to know there are players out there for different preferences and priorities. choice..

The Crusade

[Eideteker]

Hmm... in my browser tab, the title displayed as "iPod Killers for Christ..." which made me think.

...Nah.

Re:The Crusade

[R3d M3rcury]

"iPod Killers for Christ..."

Oh man! I just found a new name for my punk rock band!

Thanks!

Buy rechargeable AAA batteries?

[everphilski]

Why not buy rechargable AAA batteries? Thats what my TI-89 calculator is running on ...

-everphilski-

Re:Buy rechargeable AAA batteries?

[the_proton]

Why not buy rechargable AAA batteries? Thats what my TI-89 calculator is running on ...

I know reading comments you're replying to can be hard, but....

My old mp3 player wouldn't work with rechargeable AAA batteries because they have lower voltage.

- proton

Standards

[Chris Daniel]

"The layout is nice and clean, and is pretty much guarenteed to load in any browser. If we had more websites like this, the web would be so much more tolerable."

You mean, if we had more accessible and standards-compliant websites (and browsers, heh). Standards-compliant markup and style allow the user to decide.

Philips owns RCA?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Philips GoGear HDD1630 and HDD6330

Philips owns RCA (inventor of the MP3 format) and build Nike's MP3 portables so they have been at this for a long time. That said, they have never been a big player in this market under their own name, even in the pre-iPod days. Will these players change that? Without anything unique to them probably not.

The GoGear HDD1630 ($199) and HDD6330 ($299) offer 6GB and 30GB of capacity respectively. Both players offer color screens, FM tuners and several dock options. The units handle MP3 and PlaysForSure WMA. They will be in stores sometime in October.

Err, okay, so I thought Thompson owned RCA as far as electronics went (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA ) and Sony owned the label as far as music went.

Since when does Philips own anything about the RCA brand?

~ kylu

Criminal Enabler

[nurb432]

Best watch how you pay for those shiny new MP3 players, as the government may come knocking on your door after the holidays to verify you arent doing anything illegal. "You purchased one of these devices, so we have just cause to search"

Remember, only pirates own mp3 players..

Kitchen Sink..

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Adding video or a color screen (album artwork, hello) to a portable digital media player is hardly adding the "kitchen sink."

Wow! They were kitchen sink ideas when the competitors offered them. Now that Apple offers the SAME, they are valueable!!

Apple whoring at its best!

Re:Kitchen Sink..

[Anonymous Coward]

That pretty much sums up the attitude I have seen from the Apple fanboys, it is a kitchen sink feature that nobody wants or uses when Apple doesn't do or makes it.

But the second Steve Jobs shits those features out his ass, they all line up to eat it and comment how it is the greatest thing ever.

Not surprising, just about every time something like this happens they have to do some backpedaling and rationalizing.

Considering how much coverage it gets, it is funny how things have changed from "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." to "It isn't a iProduct. Lame."

People really don't understand gapless' appeal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell no, I don't want to have several track in one big file, nor do I want to fast forward and back to get to stuff. I also enjoy having the current track info, even more so for stuff like my techno CDs with different artists on each track.

Another nice thing is to easily skip a track you don't like, or just go straight to the part you want.

Besides, just how well do these devices support huge files like this anyway? People suggest stuff like this, but does it actually work?

Seems like every time this comes up people don't really understand why people want real gapless and not "solutions" like the above, and are quick to dismiss it. Yes I hear the gaps, and that is why people like me want gapless support. While some stuff like live performances are padded with clapping and you really wouldn't miss the gap, with stuff like techno it really disrupt the flow.

You keep seeing gapless come up often because very few players support it. If Apple's iPod had gapless MP3 support I would get one. The Rio Karma supports it, but it doesn't fit the configuration I would like(more then 20 gigs and Rio hasn't touched it for a while).

Viliv P1

[Anonymous Coward]

http://video.craveonline.com/gear/stories.php?surv ey=vote&sid=2828&id=33&option=3&submit.x=59&submit .y=8&submit=Vote

Disks vs. memory sticks - 8cm DVD MP3 player?

[msbsod]

I find all players with memory sticks, memory cards and harddisks way too expensive. The good old portable 12cm CD players are much more affordable. They start at $30 including shipping (see for example pricewatch). CD-R's at a price of $11/100 disks incl. shipping are almost for free. I would also not like to constantly upload music onto the memory or harddisk every time I am in the mood for something else. But, over time I got a bit tired of the bulky disks. So I decided to go for 8cm instead of 12cm. The 8cm disks are handy, the player is not much larger, both fit into a pocket and they occupy almost no space on the desk. There are cute little wallets for the mini CD available, too. The only thing that bothers me a bit is the limited capacity of 8cm CD's. 200+ MB (units) is barely enough for two albums compressed as MP3's with variable bit rate (EAC+Lame). For a long, good concerto the capacity is sometimes only sufficient for one Audio-CD. So, what I really like to see is a tiny MP3-player for 8cm DVD's. Those little 8cm DVD's have a capacity of about 1.5 GB and their price beats any memory stick and harddisk. Unfortunately most regular (12cm) DVD players would not play MP3 files from an ISO 9660/UDF formatted hybrid, thus I expect this could be a problem for the little players, too. But, I think a little bit of good will and better firmware can make all the difference. If someone knows about such a portable 8cm DVD MP3-player, then please let us know. IMHO that would be a great alternative to all those hundred+ dollar gadgets. Anything is fine with me, except SONY. Otherwise I think that would be a great new product for the market and hope someone picks up the idea, wouldn't it?

Almost Worthless

[argStyopa]

I like the comments, but a 'review' that doesn't even give generalize prices for most of the units surveyed?

I don't know a lot of people for whom price is no object at all when buying an MP3 player, do you?

This AM radio fits in your ear

[Jason69]

http://www.sinclair-research.co.uk/products.php?p= 74c527 is self proclaimed "Worlds smallest AM radio". Takes the wind out of the antenna size problem in my opinion. I would buy almost any DAP that included an AM reciever.

Re:This AM radio fits in your ear

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you didn't notice the 3-inch antenna sticking out of that thing?

Re:This AM radio fits in your ear

[Jason69]

Sure I did. I also read how that is one of 3 antenna options. I also made the assumption that any DAP I purchase would be at least 3 inches long and the antenna could be contained in the unit.

Ogg Vorbis

[k31bang]

I use a Cowon iAudio 5 with 1 gig flash memory to play back my ogg vorbis files. They also have 2 gig models. (as well a hard drive models)

Because MP3 players are fully evolved

[tentimestwenty]

The reason there are no competitors to the iPod is because the iPod got it right way before anyone else. Like with any technology, a competitor has to be twice as good or half the price to really make any headway. The fact is that no competitor will EVER be twice as good or half the price because the iPod has already maximized both.

Video iPod much more scratch resistant

[wishlish]

In my experience, the video iPod is much tougher to scratch. Maybe it's the soft case that it comes in, maybe it's a tougher case, but after a few weeks with this thing in my shirt pocket, it's virtually scratch-free except for a few small scratches on its back. In comparison, my 4G iPod was badly scratched after only a few days. Maybe Apple is getting its act together.

Even if you're never going to use the video features, the extended battery life, bigger capacity, clearer screen, and tougher housing make it an easy choice for those who use their iPods frequently over the nano and photo models.

Yes I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one Samsung/Yepp YP-MT6Z (1gb version) that runs fine on recharchable AA's. It plays approx. 40 hours on 1 battery. Absolutely superb quality.

Am I the only one?

[SheldonW]

This article is about the iPod killers. While the entire layout and information is excellent, does anyone else see the humor in the fact that none of the photos or links take you to a product or store. That is until you get to the iPod Nano and iPod 5g links at the bottom of each page which link to Amazon.com? It's almost as if they're saying, "here's what else there is - now you can go buy your Nano." This article isn't about the iPod Killers - it's about how the iPod as a killer and it's prey. Rio is dead, Olympus is dead, Sony is screwed and Creative has changed focus - they all either directly or indirectly pointed back to the iPod as the reason for their demise. As a note: For those locked to iTunes... I was once locked to vinyl, 8-tracks, and cassettes. I had to transfer the music I wanted off each format to the next - just as I can still do with iTunes to compact disc. Nobody's locked, you're just lazy.

Ah.

[jpellino]

It's a "sneak" but it's not underhanded?

iTunes is used to play music and now video. iTunes requires Quicktime. What would be the benefit to Apple of "sneaking" it in when it's already breaking download records with each release?

"in the classical sense"? you mean then that attackers are going to hide in a gift and later emerge to do bad things?

And that's different from the malware connotation how?

Re:Ah.

[Anonymous Coward]

fark! the way you fanboi's redefine meanings of words to suit whatever you're babbling is pathetic!

http://opera.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=j 83qissb56fa?method=4&dsid=502&deid=948846596&gwp=8 &curtab=502_1&sbid=lc02b

NB: UNDERHANDED == SNEAKY!!!

iTunes is a player. On windows players can use any installed codec (when called through the API). Realistically iTunes should only install the codecs and leave the rest of QT as an option. Trojan does apply in the classical sense in so much as it hijacks all your media associations without asking. The Benefit? How about if the "free" QT didn't have the infuriating "wanna go Pro" popup nagg-ware? Of course that doesn't count coz it's apple and you're a fanboi.

The only reason I can see for "breaking download records" is the RDF. You can't attribute a DL of iTunes as a QT DL if you have no choice in the matter. Wait OK, _you_ can, you're a fanboi. Remember MOVs on windows look like tripe - but look sweet on a mac. The only people who I have seen install QuickTime on windows, on purpose, were mac users who "needed" it.

Re:Ah.

[jpellino]

dear coward,

It tells you it's installing and asks your permission and asks you what to do about media types. it's pretty explicit. The original post called it a trojan, which in the world of SW means disguising intentionally damaging software as useful data. It does not.

This is largely a result of an offhanded comment in a place with strong prejudices on OS. So please.

Re:Ah.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I said - you're a pathetic self deluded fanboi.

It only tells you if you look in "advanced" install options.

I notice that you spend all your time splitting hairs over the implied extended definition of trojan and none addressing your re-defining words.

My 2nd point - which you also ignored - is that Apple needed to only include the codecs, not the QT player (with the nag - GO PRO!!)

It's a trojan because it UNDERHANDEDLY installs other UNNEEDED software which NAGS YOU TO PAY FOR CRAP YOU DON'T NEED!!!

Re:Ah.

[jpellino]

Dear Coward,

Thanks for the ad hominem argument.
I understand it all so much better now.

Regards,

Re:Ah.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought you would have given up using big words that end up making you look ignorant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

My arguments (still un-addressed by you) refer to the nature of Apples actions etc.

Calling you a fanboi stands on it's own - dickhead. If I had used the fact that you are a deluded fool as an argument as to why apple is UNDERHANDED here, then yes that would be "ad hominem", but I didn't.

see how that makes you look like a foolish child? no? try: "Mum he's picking on me!!!" (in your everyday *cough*whiniest*cough* voice)

A trojan (in the context) is merely a program which UNDERHANDEDLY installs UNNEEDED software (it is implied, but not required, that the UNNEEDED software is malicious). In the example iTunes is the trojan and QT is the payload. Since, as I have explained before, the only part of QT needed is the codecs. Because QT associates itself to all filetypes it can handle (the default action) AND nags you to Go PRO! it firmly makes it a trojan, just not a particularly malicious one.

Perhaps you would care to explain why it's not?

Re:Ah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is a passive-aggressive ad hominen argument which makes you willfully ignorant or a troll.

The AC is right.

After reading your other posts and then your sig, here's another word for you to look up:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hubris

How is being an "Evangelist" actually "Help[ing] Others"? You are trying to impose your ignorance.

Oh noes! An app!! It suxors!

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you need to use an app (like iTunes) to load music onto it that you want to listen to.

Let me guess... instead of a web browser, you telnet, right? Same argument. I'm sure you'd rather arrange folders full of .html rather than bother with a web browser and a cache. If the app sucked, you might have a point.

Bookmarks?

[kmand]

Has anyone seen a flashdrive mp3 player in a pack of gum format that can do bookmarks on arbitrary mp3 files? The shuffle doesn't count since it only does bookmarks on files in special format.

It isn't lock-in. It's poor competitive strategy.

[MacDork]

(or more harshly) remember what we've been saying for years about having your data in open formats? Consider yourself locked-in.

Did GP poster say Fairplay DRMed AAC? No? Well then, isn't AAC an open format? At least as open as MP3 or anything a Sony 'iPod Killer' is going to support. I know I rip all my CDs to AAC. It isn't lock-in. It's lack of support from vendors. And if those vendors want to steal iPod marketshare, they'd better make switching as painless as possible. Re-ripping an entire CD collection will not be painless. They'd better get on the ball as far as importing from an iTunes library goes too, otherwise, they're going nowhere. And it isn't like reading a simple "iTunes Music Library.xml" file is hard. They're selling half the product you get with an iPod. All they've got is hardware. It's no wonder they all fail.

iPaq Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who got sick of the whole mess of features and bought an iPaq (or other PDA)?

CF/SD cards have come down a lot...

Music, photos, video (even DivX), Games, Email, Wifi, Bluetooth... all on one device. Am I the only one to work this out, or does everyone actually like having a seperate gadget for everything?

Re:AAC is open....

[Anonymous Coward]

AAC is an OPEN format--part of the MP4 specification. Apple DRM is closed. If players don't support AAC that's not Apple's fault. That they can't support Apple's DRM, that's Apple's fault. Keep it straight, people.

Previous Poster wrote: Bad luck!

(or more harshly) remember what we've been saying for years about having your data in open formats? Consider yourself locked-in.

Re:Oh noes! An app!! It suxors!

[mr_shifty]

Whether it sucks or not is irrelevent. That is nowhere near my point.

Re:It isn't lock-in. It's poor competitive strateg

[CronoCloud]

At least as open as MP3 or anything a Sony 'iPod Killer' is going to support. I know I rip all my CDs to AAC

Well there are two Sony devices that will play those songs (not counting the Vaios), one being the PSP of course. If it only had a hard drive. It NEEDS a hard drive. The other Sony device that could play them is the PS2 (with Linux kit) Sony isn't entirely evil, only the "Media" part.

It's like, yuh, hello.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Hello, Mr Guy. Hello!

Hello then.

Class

[mcrbids]

I bought a Rave MP 5 GB MP3 player at costco. It came with nice headphones, accessories, cables, power brick, etc, stored 5 GB, and cost just $129 at Costco.

Later, I bought a 2 GB iPod nano. Comparing the two, I find:

Rave:
1) Easy to load songs, but very slow to process them when done. I copied in about 1 GB of music, and it took some 15 minutes processing the songs before I could play music.

2) Lots of space.

3) Lots of accessories.

4) Ugly as the back end of a dog. Nobody would look at me carrying one and think: "Oh, how cool!"

5) No idea what the included software needs, I never needed it. I just plugged in the Rave into my LINUX laptop, copied the MP3s over, and then waited for it it to process the songs.

1) The iPod is slick. I don't notice it, I just notice that I'm listening to the song or music I want.

2) Freaking tiny!

3) Decent (but not large) disk space.

4) Sexy as a spouse in heat. Reaow!

5) iTunes software is about as intuitive as a window that says "Check Please to format (erase) ALL DATA ON DISK?" with one button that says "OK". It sucks. No way around it. How could an iPod so slick have software to run it that sucks so bad?

To match the accessories that came with the Rave, I had to spend almost twice as much. And, I think I probably would recommend to do so. The iPod works with my large MP3 collection, it lets you go right to the song you want, and it's FAST. I spent too much time settling for the Rave to recommend it at the lower pricepoint, unless cost is a very large concern.

What does this have to do with the Neruos? Well, the iPod nano has the interface DOWN. It's what you want, it generally works well (once you decipher the software), and has the style to pull it off for just about anybody.

Why waste your time on something else?

what a list

[2ms]

What an amazingly lousy and 2nd rate bunch of equipment that is. I dont own an iPod or any other Apple product but just looking at these things you're amazed at how poor job after all these years now the competition has been doing at catching up with the iPod. Is it really that hard?

Ipod? Ipod Nano? Ipod Photo? Ipod Video?

[allcam]

I have been in this business in the past 5 years when MP3/DVD/MP4 players just started to boom. Apple's product was neither the first in the martket (for example Creative, Archos has same product much earlier, even some small Chinese companies like Sonken and Aigo had similiar products earlier), nor were they the best in the market (My courier tells me that he is keeping collecting 4-5 faulty iPod every day!). It still puzzle me why they can achieve such a huge market success worldwide!

Re:Ipod? Ipod Nano? Ipod Photo? Ipod Video?

[BenjyD]

I think your have the same mindset as all the companies that are losing to Apple. Reasons for the iPod's success:

1. Appearance
2. Simplicity & ease-of-use
3. Software interface
4. Itunes music store
5. Marketing

Moving parts ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I dislike moving parts

I guess you're not a fan of strippers then ?

Killer

[LordVader717]

For a player to really make an impact on ipod market shares, and many people forget this, a product has to actually be better than the ipod.

Sure, some support OGG, you can transfer this and that, and might have an FM tuner, but the main purpose is as a portable music player. That's what the mass market is interested in, and that's what they want, nothing more.

I suppose you might get sick of them if you see them everywhere, but where I live, in Germany, most people do own non-ipod music players.

Even when looking at it from a neutral view, the ipod does pretty well compared with the players I saw. Support for practicaly every used format, easy to use, a superb management software.

And the online music store rocks, despite the bit of DRM.

It's not like people are buying an awful product, or as if there were clearly better options.

Nano?

[bakreule]

On the subject of iPod nano killers, have they fixed the problem with the scratchy screens yet? I've heard they've quietly started including soft covers with new nanos, but is the screen still the same crap?

LiOh not NiCad.

[everphilski]

Guess I should have been clearer. Don't buy cheap NiCad's. But LiOh's (Lithium Ion). As much or more power than alkalines. Problem solved.

I don't think they want to listen...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you will convince them; until his holyness Lord Steve Jobs introduces said feature or concept, it is useless and pointless feature to them.

A drag & drop ipod with an update option for those of us who want to use that feature would be nice, but I doubt Apple would do that. I don't think their friends the RIAA, and now the MPAA, would like the ipod to be an easy to access protable harddrive device.

Then again, by now the current ipod "security" is pointless since there are lots of utilites to move stuff on and off the device. Just open it and give those of us who want to do this an option to update it from the ipod itself. If there needs to be limites (i.e. the number of sub-folders), just tell us.