Slashdot Mirror
SanDisk Releases New iPod rival
codemachine writes "SanDisk has released its new iPod rival: the new Sansa e280 music player. It has twice the capacity of the iPod nano at a similar price. Even better, it can be expanded through its mini-SD slot, and comes with an FM tuner. The device is said to work well with both Windows and Linux, without adding any drivers. Some work on reverse engineering this product line has already begun. Might this be a great alternative MP3 player for Linux users?"
... is any that is supported by Rockbox
.THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
The wax cylinders I listened to as a kid sound so much better than anything today.
Then again, it could just be my hearing is shot from all that fighting in the Great War.
There is so much to comment on here - I have no idea where to start!
First - FTFA:
Includes the Sansa Media Converter to support all picture and video formats
All video formats? (raises eyebrow?) I f#cking doubt it. How about DRMd WMV9? I doubt it can handle HD content too!
Minimum System Requirements
* Windows XP
* Windows Media Player 10+
Uh-huh. Good linux support there!
Lastly, FTFS:
Might this be a great alternative MP3 player for Linux users?
Linux users have better support for iPods than windows itunes users do - they can copy songs off the iPod to another computer (without stupid third party addons, weird hacks, or scary warnings). They can also use iPods that with HFS filesystems. All seamlessly.
I guess it could be argued that most linux users would prefer a music player from a company that doesn't push DRM heavily (but sandisk pushes DRM as much as Apple does.
Still, twice the space & lighter than the equivilant ipod. Sounds if not good, then less crap. Let's hope their rockbox strategy works - that would really make a difference.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Slashdot.... stuff that mattered.
...nothing will EVER be as cool as an ipod.
It sounds interesting but I'm still frustrated by the lack of support for Ogg format in consumer electronics. I recently had to re-rip a bunch of my CDs into MP3 format in order to take them on a one month car trip. I couldn't find an car CD players that understood Ogg.
...Interestingly, the battery is user-replacable. Apple, please take note!
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
Does it have the bright white "please rob me" earbuds?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Rather than an iPod rival, they should have released an iPod killer. Doomed to failure.
I'll leave the "no wifi, meh" quotes to others!
I don't use my iPod + iTunes because it is cheaper than anything else. I use it because it "just works". All of the media available on the Music Store don't hurt either.
I haven't read the article, but what software do you use to add songs to this player? I doubt it uses iTunes, and I doubt it is as simple as moving a directory over to it.
I don't see anything on that page about it supporting Linux (while the reverse-engineering page talks about rockbox - very cool, but not something on the basis of which you can declare this an iPod rival), nor about FLAC or OGG. Downloading the user manual, I see "The Sansa e200 enables users to play MP3, WMA, and secure WMA audio files." Not a single mention of either "vorbis", "ogg", "flac" or "linux".
Well, you know, never mind... *makes certain his Rio Karma is still secure in its silk-lined pouch*
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. ;-)
If we wanted to listen to music, we played it. Better fidelity than anything new fangled "recorded" music. Our method of recording was called the trebleclef.
To me as non-weenie-apple-hater it looks pretty nice... sry for not beeing as "/.ty" as most of you guys. ;)
alternative MP3 player for Linux
:)
Wrong placed PR on so many level... But, for once, we have arrived to a time in OS history when it's fashionable to market a product as being anything at all for Linux users
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I like my music lossless. Where's the Flac support????
It's a Zune killer! 8^)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
At least from a file support standpoint, their user guide says it only supports MP3, WMA and WMA+DRM. Who in their right mind uses linux and defaults to mp3 if they have a choice? The only thing this thing is is more storage capacity, and in a world where you can get a 60 gig player, its not really that spectacular of a product. Biggest flash player? Big deal, at least from Conwon you can get OGG support...
It's great that there is competition out there now for iPods but 95% of people who already own iPods just use iTunes to rip to AAC for their libraries and will never buy anything else that isn't compatible with all the hours they've invested in building their music libraries.
Sandisk's homepage itself says battery life is 20 hours.
Wincopy
Attn Mods: this isn't an allegory about iPods, it's an allegory about gay sex:
"And now this," said Farmer Steve, placing a specimen of Farmer Sim's shriveled fruit in the sheriff's open mouth.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I highly recommend it. :D
.:bleaked
...expansion slot. Less capacity and more expensive at the moment.
It's name is Sansa x4k-l1 weirdword e280 music player
Buyers will fall for the brand name "music player", I'm sure. By stock now!
If you buy this for your girlfriend, she'll just look at you funny. (yes, i know, its /., bear with me) If you buy her an ipod, though, she'll pretty much have to (tm).
stuff |
the COWON iAudio 6 outstrips both iPod and Scandisk products (imo). It's bound to be a bit more pricy but word has it that it's better than my iAudio X5 and the extra price there seems well worth it to me.
Notably absent are any specs on the unit at all. I was interested in the dimensions of the actual unit. The closest thing I could come up with were some figures in the user guide that appear to indicate that the device is about twice as thick as an iPod Nano. Hardly an iPod rival. Apple will be bumping up the Nano line any time now.
cat
I have a sandisk mp3 player and while it basically meets my needs the interface is crap. I've had the thing for almost 2 years and there's still functionality I can't figure out even after reading the instruction manual. The beauty of the iPod is it's ease of use, and until someone has a product that competes at that level the iPod will remain king.
Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Second: Great job on doubling the storage and making it expandable, while keeping at the same price point.
Third: My real question. How big is it? I looked all over the San Disk site, but to no avail for dimensions. I have an iPod Nano because it's small and durable. And is shaped in a way that I feel comfortable with it in my pocket.
This thing will definately compete with the Nano if it's about the same size, but even at twice the size or thickness, and people may not see the appeal.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
The Sansa e200 is MSC compliant it will work with any OS. There are plenty of users using it on Ubuntu and OSX! Here is an example of a Ubuntu user posted in the ABi Sansa Forums. So maybe you need to educate yourlesf before posting.
Pros of this player over a nano:
Cons:
- a little thicker
- not as slick (ie the mechanical scroll wheel)
- not as many accessories (just try to find an arm strap and case!)
- I'm told the video compression it uses when stored on the player isn't that good.
- can only store music on the microSD card, not pictures or movies
All the user reviews I've read seem positive on the whole and a lot of people like it better then nano's they've owned or bought for the wife/girlfriend, etc.Looks worth a look though.
It wont work- because it does one thing very wrong:
It attempts to look like an iPod, except doesn't pull it off.
The thing looks like an imitation (read knock-off).
In my eyes this only has one real competetive advantage, it can hold 8gb of tunes...but is this really going to give it an edge? Most iPod owners dont have more than a few Gb of music (logical supposition), if you're heading towards 8Gb it kinda shows you have a serious collection and know your stuff...in which case the larger iPods are going to be a far more attractive prospect.
To steal Apples' crown you need a device which shows innovation and style, Sony came very close with the style side of things, and MS has the wiFi (although the Zune looks, er, poop). Something that has the controls of LG's chocolate, even the look, without the horrible interface (or indeed phone functionality, make it 100% music player) could be viable.
Ideally the support software would be simple and system resources friendly (take note iTunes), open source (imagine!) and compatible left right and center with other devices.
But as for this...iPod competition? Not on your nelly.
At which point in the story do the fanboys drink the Kool Aid?
Seriously.. I own an iPod, but this seems a little.. Out There.
You should be able to use this with Linux by dragging and dropping your MP3s onto it. But you won't be able to do that with video files, since you must first rip them through its Sansa Media Converter Windows app to a proprietary video format which then syncs them with the player.
The Sansa is an interesting device in any case, but not quite good enough to seriously challenge the nano, imo. It needs to be able to play standard video formats directly and also play a wider variety of audio formats than just MP3 and WMA.
As previous posts mentioned, it doesn't seem to be capable of playing "open" formats. It's just another me-too product, nothing to see here... IMHO, trying to compete with the iPod purely on technical things (size, capacity, price and the like) is futile (at least for now), the iPod is just too desirable of a product. Won't stop people from trying though...
I welcome any MP3 player for Windows that doesn't (a) hijack my file associations (b) install at least two services that launch on startup (c) freeze my entire system if the device is unexpectedly unplugged (d) try to re-invent my GUI to look like another OS using non-accessible controls (e) allow me to easily access the device itself without crazy hacks and (f) uninstall cleanly.
:-)
Works better on Mac, I know
Also, the iRiver U10 is more interesting than this silly Sandisk model.
The U10 supports OGG with the default firmware, plays flash, and functions as a remote control (nice additional touch).
No one is going to kill the iPod. The iPod is the iPod.
But they can certainly put out more interesting/useful products. Sandisk's isn't one of them.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I actually today tried to buy an MP3 player that would also include support for Linux but no. All supported only Windows. So this if from my point excellent news!
iPod rival doesn't mean iPod killer, and mod me down for this if you want, but this one definitly does not look like one iPod killer.
You just got troll'd!
sigh.........
AAC is just a format. Advanced Audio Codec played by apple some Sony players and a bunch of others. Its the audio portion of h.258 mpeg4. Lots of software player can play it.
AAC+Fairplay is whay apple uses in its itunes music store.. It used to be trivial to remove and leave just an AAC file. Now you have to burn to CD and rip back, which is pretty fast, and you should backup anyway.
In all seriousness, I'm actually considering ditching my iPod mini for an iAudio
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Hmmmm, as there is no official iPod software for Linux users at all, I'd say all Linux software to use iPods would fall under "stupid third party addons" and "weird hacks", no?
I wonder how much and what quality audio you could put on a hard disk?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Good:
- looks good
- included radio
- good capacity
- expansion slot
- user replaceable and rechargeable Lithium Ion battery
- supports MP3
- support of 'Secure WMA'
Bad
- no Mac or Linux support
- no FM-tuner is available in Europe
- support of 'Secure WMA'
- does not support AAC, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALE or OGG
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I'm a geek. I tried one mp3 player long ago, the Rio PMP100? (it was the original parallel port version). It sucked. (If I have to enumerate the many ways it sucked you can be thankful you didn't own one.)
After getting that foolishness out of my system I haven't seen anything yet that tempted me. I learned from my misadventure and swore not to buy a half assed solution again. Here is what I currently want out a replacement for my rapidly aging Minidisk player:
1. Able to run rockbox well. It is the only hope of futureproofing and of getting a good feature set. Plus the UI won't suck ass. From my examination of what is out there Apple has the UI fairly solved but almost all of the others suck. Rockbox, as Free Software will continue to improve long after any vendor abandons their half finished firmware to move on to a newer model. Someone at Sandisk seems to be trying to help on this front. (see earlier stories here and at LWN)
2. It needs to have enough storage to put enough stuff for a long roadtrip. 8GB is about the bottom limit so this unit passes that test. I hate low bitrates. HATE em. I can readily hear artifacts in 128Kbps yet I want enough space for 50 or so hours. Granted, if i had enough software flexibility I could go low for roadtrip mixes, road noise will cover up a lot
3. Wide codec support. With the factory firmware it fails. All I see is MP3 and some useless DRM shit. No flac, shn or ogg/vorbis. It isn't clear whether Rockbox will be able to solve this problem, have to see if the hardware has enough cpu. I hate the idea of being forced to transcode, although as desktop CPU speeds continue to crank this is less of a problem as time goes by.
4. User replacable battery. This is the one that knocks the iPod out of consideration. Glad to see Sandisk gets this right. I don't have the cash to replace my consumer electronics every 12-18 months.
5. Color screens and video are useless wastes of money weight and battery life at the form factor of a flash based device. But I know I lost that argument. Sigh.... end users!
Democrat delenda est
"Strong alloy metal back casing provides excellent durability and scratch resistance"
- Although this may give a good advantage over the iPod nano, any company which calls that a key feature of a product really *is* just comparing themselves to Apple.
Companies which just make products to be better than existing products is doomed to failure. They should start off themselves (and this doesn't mean no research) producing their own design and features - and then the comsumers can decide if it is better or not.
I went to the additonal information and downloaded the user guide..
The player has two modes. One mode is like an external USB drive and supports MP3's. That should work just fine for Linux. Two drives will show. One is the internal memory and the other is the SD card.
The other mode the player supports if for subscription services and uses Windows DRM. For Linux users this is a useless feature along with the Windows requirement and anything secure WMA files.
Thought you should know.
The section in the manual covers some FAQ's including why some DRM WMA files won't play and some stuff of expiration of files by the copyright holders.. Funny these are features of the Microsoft Plays for Sure stuff.
I think I'll stick to MP3's as they play for sure.
I'm not so sure about the Microsoft's Plays for Sure content. It sounds like it might not play for sure.
The truth shall set you free!
Having double the storage is not enough to beat the ipod. Hell, its not even the looks. Does it have an AAC codec to beat the ipod? Does it have the clarity of output like the ipod earbuds? The current iPod AAC codec is the best of the breed. iPod emerges as the top AAC codec in test
fifteen jugglers, five believers
If it had an AM tuner, I might look into it.
Where were you when the voynix came?
A peek in the downloadable user manual mentions support for MP3, WMA, and secure WMA audio formats.
As much as I like Ogg. I still rip to MP3 because everything plays it including my DVD player.
The truth shall set you free!
What? are you telling me the term ipod killer is getting replaced by ipod rival?
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Maybe not as sexy as an iPod, but surely more surely more open. It does support OGG Vorbis! You can download new firmware or do it yourself, you got the spec.
Hack your devices people, ask for openness!
I own an iPod video, I enjoy being on the T late at night and watching a South Park episode while sobering up and/or trying to stay awake. So whatever portable media player that I get in the future must have decent capacity and video support. I do not like the bulky hard drive and would love to see a competitive flash drive to replace it. I run Linux, so I generally need to boot up OSx86 to transfer things to the iPod. After the first time I tried with Amarok, I killed a video that I had on there (one that I had purchased), which as you can imagine made me a bit weary of using Linux for getting music on to the device.
For me, something along these lines is a step in the right direction. Moving to flash drives and Linux support. However, I didn't see anywhere in that little blurb about it being compatable with Linux. And I wonder why it requires Windows Media Player 10, my guess is that that's what it uses as its file transfer client. So, my question, is does it really play nice with Linux?
From the user manual shortened and condensed;
The player has two modes. One is like a USB drive. Non DRM MP3 and WMA files can be dragged and dropped.
The other supports Microsoft DRM Plays for Sure. In that mode Windows Media Player on Windows XP is used to transfer secure WMA files.
The truth shall set you free!
I have had a 6GB Sansa e260 for a month+ and really really like it.
i ew.aspx
I think it blows the ipod away
Here is a short review I wrote up last month:
http://www.chrismay.org/2006/07/15/MySansaE200Rev
Not exactly on topic, but I've got an extra 4GB SD card (not mini) lying around and I've been looking all over for a SD card MP3 player that supports 4GB SD. Anyone have or seen anything? Thanks!
Amarok 1.4.2 released today supports the MTP standard giving it the same capabilities as the iPod.
There is no place like 127.0.0.1
Video review of its immeadiate predecessor
:-P
DISCLAIMER : I will not claim at any point that this is the best player out there. I do wish to point out some of its features though to people who criticize players that have interfaces that aren't the same as the iPod.
Nice iPodish menu, yes it has software hich is as simple as drag and drop. You cant complain about the player interface. What about the software? My karma has gone through the wringer before because of Apple fanboys who complain that players don't work with iTunes.
No it doesn't work with iTunes because iTMS is DRMed so nothing is going to work with iTMS except iPod unless Apple gets bashed for anti-competetive practices. Seriously people how do you expect anything to work with iTunes when Apple prevents anything from working with iTMS. if you are going to compare electronics compare them on features that both devices can reasonably implement. You might as well complain that square pegs do not fit in round holes. You are entirely allowed to have iTunes compatability be your killer feature. Just recognize that this does lock you into Apple. And that you'd whine if it was Microsoft instead of Apple.
Yes it has pretty decent video - Nano does not have video and its screen is smaller. No it doesn't support every video/audio codec out there but it gives you good variety. Other things it beats the Nano at, user replaceable battery, FM and voice recording, plus the micro SD card to take the e280 from 8 to 10 gb. No rob me headphones but you can buy some lovely white headphones to work with it if you really want. So if you want a player that has a lot more features and you happen a non-DRMed music library then this is easily as good as the iPod.
If you don't mind the interface and I for one don't mind a slightly more clunky interface for more features then there are several other players out there. Might I recommend the Cowon iAudio line. I've already lost some karma arguing that the interface isn't the be all and end all so I'm not claiming that these features will make something an iPod killer. If the iTMS compatability is that important to you stick with iPod. Your call and you are entirely entitled to it. Good for you. I'll chuckle as I record my next semesters lectures and recall that I paid less for a player for a player with more storage, and a bigger battery that has already lasted longer than a couple of my friends iPods
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
> Does it have an AAC codec to beat the ipod?
Then again, people like me couldn't give a rat's ass about AAC support at any quality. I don't have a single file in that format and aren't even sure if I could play one on my desktop, my xmms certainly doesn't have the plugin installed. Almost certain I couldn't encode one. As for the iTunes store, not only would I never buy DRM, I wouldn't buy lossy encodings at the prices they ask even if they were unencumbered.
So tell me again why I care? For that matter tell me why ANYONE who does not already own an iPod or use iTunes should care? If a player supports it, fine. If it doesn't, fine by me. Flac or Ogg support on the other hand would be a major point in a product's favor from my position since I do have a fair number of files in Flac currently and Ogg does sound better than mp3 at most bitrates.
Democrat delenda est
I tried Rockbox on my 60 GB video iPod and soon enough removed it. I'm all for open source iPod software, but rockbox, at least on a video iPod, is no where near ready for prime time. I'm not even going to get into just how amazingly awful the UI and overall design is (so bad it makes you yearn for proprietary software), I'm just going to talk about playing music. Almost every song I played played back with periodic hiccups throughout. Perhaps it's gapless between tracks, but in the middle of them it likes to put in a whole bunch of its own gaps! It's completely unusable as a result. I was playing standard VBR MP3 files. No, I didn't have some fancy skin installed (yes, I read the FAQ). I had the stock skin. If it works on the nano that's cool, but it sure didn't work well on my video iPod. There's hope for the future, but for right now? Rockbox sure isn't an improvement.
--- What?
"The device is said to work well with both Windows and Linux, without adding any drivers. ... Might this be a great alternative MP3 player for Linux users?"
Don't go thinking it's just you linux guys that want stuff that doesn't require special software. Stuff that requires special software is a pain in the butt for many reasons.
Generally, the only way for me to find good hardware for my Windows box - hardware that uses reasonably generic formats, connnectors, and software - is to look for the stuff that the Linux people like.
It seems their entire line of MP3 players don't have progressive fast forward. It means if you want to fast forward 10 minutes into a long audio file you'll have to hold the button down for a minute because it only fast forward at a set rate. On most mp3 players you hold down the button and it gradually speeds up so even on long files you don't have to wait forever to get to the middle. Nope, not for sandisk, apparently they think it's evil so they don't allow their players to do it. Its ok for 3 minute songs but would piss you off in a major way when you're trying to get to the middle of a hour long audiobook file and accidentally skip to the next audio file and have to go back and spend another 3 minutes fast forwarding. Stay away if you listen to any song or audio longer than 5 minutes.
is called Amarok.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I believe it's called a "USB Mass Storage Device".
Know what the problem is with these "iPod Rivals" or "iPod Killers"? The people who make them dont get it!
Let me explain: You can make an iPod rival/killer/whatever but it'll be missing something every iPod has: ease of use and sex appeal. Look an iPod; it makes you think of sleek lines, feminine forms, sleek muscle cars. And its easy to use: Just turn it on and go. Like a car: Turn the key, it works. No trying to find the right combination of keys or a door lock code.
Until manufacturers realize this and start thinking that way, they can make an iPod rival that has a built in fusion reactor and it still wont take a dent out of Apple's market share and mind set.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I'm one of those odd folks who uses a portable audio device almost solely for listening to podcasts and audiobooks. And it's clear that SanDisk has basically written us off.
I've owned two versions of SanDisk's Digital Audio Player, the original 256MB version and the version 2 1GB model. Ironically, audiobook support decreased between the two versions. Version 1 supported Audible formats 2 through 4 (4 being the highest quality), Version 2 supports only 2 and 3. Version 1 would save your place in a file when you switched to the radio and back, Version 2 doesn't. Version 1 let you increase playback speed up to 130%, version 2 has no speed options. In other words, all of the spoken-word-friendly features were dropped.
Now the e280 appears to have no support for Audible format (though it may be undocumented; I did check the full PDF User's Manual), no bookmarking or other features designed for long spoken-word files.
My next MP3 device purchase is going to be an iPod Nano. Sorry, SanDisk, you've lost me.
>I don't use my iPod + iTunes because it is cheaper
;)
;)
>than anything else. I use it because it "just works".
My Creative Zen nano "just works" too. It uses
this arcane file format called "mp3" with no DRM!
I use this crazy thing called "Windows Explorer"
to manage the files on it.
It even comes with super cool white earbud headphones
But I guess I'm just doomed to eternal uncoolness, since
it's not an ipod. And paying 1/3 of the price (or whatever).
You made fun of kids who wore Tuffskins jeans too,
didn't you?
That's what you think. But there are better players out there than the iPod. My gigabeat cost me far less than a similar capacity ipod, measures a few mm less, and capacity is similar. Even battery life is better (16h claimed but easily gets 19h without even having backlight auto-off). Plays everything I need. Good interface (better than the clickwheel IMHO). You can watch pictures on it. It can transfer (empty) your cameras' memory card onto its HD (better than having to lug a laptop around, or buy and lug around an expensive memory "tank" just for that). Great set of EQ's and DSPs (SRS WOW). It runs linux, and it can run other stuff, including rockbox. Comes with a handy and functional remote *and* a dock standard - no need to buy overpriced accessories. Doesn't need itunes (and all the bloat and unecessary services that make windows needlessly sluggish) to work. Just add Sennheiser CX300 earphones and you're set!
As I'm not a "me too" buyer (sheep) and didn't want the usual white player and didn't want to play DRM'ed AAC files (much less buy any) that won't play on any of my players (winamp/xmms/foobar2k/dvd player/xbmc on xbox/and 2 other "hardware" mp3 players - NONE of them!), then the choice was pretty easy. And no, burning low bitrate AAC files onto CD and re-ripping them does *NOT* give good enough quality (stuff compressed twice at low bitrates in a lossy format? eww!), so don't give me that line (and it's an unecessary waste of time and of media).
It *IS* an iPod killer. And I'm sure there's many other great players out there - some FAR better than the iPod. But everybody's a sheep and wants the same as their friends just to be "cool" like them - it doesn't matter if it's ugly, cost more, has less capacity, lower battery life, less features and doesn't work quite as good.
Combine that with brand recognition (who hasn't heard of iPods before?) and Apple's PR/hype tactics... (Actually, I've seen job listings by Apple that were exactly that - "promote" *cought*hype*cough* their products in public - right on monster! And also all the TV ads, and times we've seen their stuff in movies with either a VERY apparent apple logo or [shitty] white earbuds... Quite annoying really.)
It doesn't matter how good they ever make 'em, people will keep buying iPods regardless.
Supports Vorbis and flacc, mounts as mass storage, Fm tuner, built in enconder, man just buy one now.
I wonder if this will be a good replacement for my aging Rio Carbon. I love my Carbon - works perfectly w/ Linux. Just plug it in and it is seen as a removable HD and you just copy mp3s to it. Hell, you can use it to store other files as well - it doesn't care. But the battery is wearing down. Only like 10 hours per charge (Used to get 18...). Not bad for something almost 2 years old.
I could care less about video, fm, blah. I just want a good 5+ gig player w/ loooooong battery life (at least 15 hours thanks) that will just act like a removable HD when I plug it into my Linux box/iBook. Keep it simple.
If not this, anyone know of other MP3 players like this? (oh, and ones that Best Buy sells, because I'm planning on using my 'warranty' on my Carbon for the new one).
I've been eyeing this audio player for a while now. 30GiB HDD, MP3/FLAC/OGG/ playback, TXT/JPG display, works as a mass storage device under Linux. Also as an FM tuner and a voice recorder. X5 is 20GiB big, with a 14h battery, while the X5L is 30 or 40 (can't remember) GiB big with a 35h battery. Has had some firmware updates based on user input/requests. It's pretty cool, it also advertises some linux love on its tech specs' section. The problem is the price: 400Euros. Less know, yes, but it still got 3rd place (a couple of months ago) on the c|net reviews.
I like some parts of it: replaceable battery; backlit button bits (less battery, I know, but neat nonetheless); a card slot.
Kill the iPod? No, not really, no. Compete with the iPod? Perhaps... But, competition is generally good, so maybe we'll see some envelope-pushing at Apple...
Point of perspective: I do enjoy my 5G 30GB iPod. Lots of room for my aiffs (I keep my own music in AIFFs while I study the engineering, eq, and mixture)... Got my 'pod here Apple refurb stuff for $199.
A Passionate Independent Musician
And if there were a charger for the battery other than the player itself, that'd mean something.
"Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid! I touched the hot wire right there - I'm an idiot!"
I discovered Sansa MP3 players by ways of its entry level e140. Nothing spectacular besides small factor and SD support and YES it connects to Windows File Explorer directly, no additional software, nothing, streight from the package.
I owned a Nomad before and that needed a software, but in the case of the Sansa, you can copy the whole folder structure into the device and it adds the songs and keeps the structure as well, so you can browse by artist from the metadata or by the structure you have created (Great for fav lists)
If you decide to use WMP, the software is most likely to auto detect the device ( as it did with the e140) cna start adding files. The only issue with this is that if you have MP3s, WMP will start adding the files as WMA so it converts each file before transfer, which is somewhat slow.
I saw the device working and it's a very good built, nice design and yes, that round blue thing does work (better than the Ipod, IMO, since it has texture so you know where your finger are for blind operation).
I still can't understand what you do with the add pictures functionality though, I guess I am too old for that, but the rest, worth the cash.
This is not a killer or rival of the Ipod, basically an alternative and much of its success its from the environments and compatibility of the device than the device itself.
...at least it exlpains why I woke up with the impression of an altoids tin in the middle of my forehead!
"The two most important things in life are comedy and love."
To steal Apples' crown you need a device which shows innovation and style
Yes and it needs to be clueful innovation.
MicroSD cards...? Why? SD cards are cheap, huge, and ubiquitous. They're also pretty tiny. Why support the idiotic, small, expensive MicroSD cards? Heck you could just put two SD slots in your player and not have any internal RAM. Photographers would buy the damn things.
Interface -- support the iPod hardware interface, or develop something better, and STICK TO IT. Sony "innovates" by producing dozens of ugly designs with mutually incompatible hardware interfaces. No-one is going to build random MP3 player hookups into cars... Frankly, all of Apple's rivals should settle on a single hardware interface give car and other accessory makes a single plug they can provide for every MP3 player. Then a simple adapter will let all their players hook up to iPod interfaces and new cars can easily accommodate both iPods and everyone else. Soon Apple's connector will be old news.
The fact that this hasn't happened shows that Apple's rivals are just as greedy as Apple and a lot more stupid.
from TFA " * Shipping in first half of Sept '06 " By then Apple might announce and make available a new iPod nano. It is possible but it still wouldn't compete in features. Or would it? It is about time the nano got video capability. Either way 8GB nanos must be around the corner. I am gonna hold out for a 64GB nano whenever that happens.
And someone has produced a pretty credible knockoff with a couple of bonus features 99% of users won't use or care about.
1) It looks quite nice.
2) It probably won't sell very well anyway.
3) Apple's replacement for the Nano will quite likely be nicer in ways Sandisk hasn't anticipated.
Oh well, let's see what they produce 18 months from now.
I own a Sansa e250, which is the 2GB version of this player. The only major problem I have with it is that I didn't get the 4gb or 6gb version that were out at the time!
I can mount it as a drive in Linux, drag and drop music to it, viola!
The video playback may be a gimmick, but it isn't bad. Also, the FM reception leaves much to be desired... the sound is decent, but the range isn't very good.
All in all, this is a great line of players. The design was well thought out, menus are very attractive, the wheel is somewhat clunky but I think it is easier to use than the "touch" wheel that everyone goes ga-ga over (including my fiance, she loves her iPod). It's mechanical, and I feel like I have more control over it.
Hope my own testimonial can help someone decide if they like this player.
Starmen.net
trebleclef ? Back in the days we only had pythagorean tuning, and we were happy. You kids had it way too easy.
Rather than an iPod rival, they should have released an iPod killer.
You didn't understand. I didn't either at first. We're not economists.
But think about it.
First, there was an "MP3 players" market. With many competitors.
Then came Apple, that innovated by creating an "iPod" market. That proved to be a successful move, and Apple currently keeps a monopoly on that market. 100% marketshare, wow!
Then came others, stealing the idea and also creating a new market, the "iPod-killer" market. Sadly it didn't took too well. There are many competitors and it appears the whole "iPod-killer" market is smaller than the "iPod" market.
Therefore it would have been a bad move from SanDisk to come late in a small market with plenty of competitors.
By creating an "iPod-rival" market, we don't know what the size of the market will be, but they're first on that market and currently have a monopoly on it!
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Any idea if one of these transflash jobs would work on the SanDisk? Someone mentioned earlier that only music could be stored in removable memory. Even so, 8 extra GB dedicated to music would make this device expensive but all the more worthwhile.
Pythagorean tuning??? We had a _drum_....
I reserve the right to be wrong.
I have wanted to use other formats, but in the end I am back to encoding everything in mp3. You know why. It is the same reason many linux users eventually cave and just run [a] windows somewhere. You need compatibility and everything plays mp3. I like to stream my music over the Internet and most of my friends do not have ogg/flac/etc. players installed on thier system. Also, I don't have the same volume of tools available for other formats; ex: mp3GAIN is a must but does not allow ogg track editing. Plus ogg doesn't have Id3V2! I have a Rio Karma but it doesn't matter. I might as well get one of these suckers now, since all I need is mp3. And I want removable media storage only (fuck your stupid transfer wizards)[although the ethernet on the rio is nice but too slow], no drm bs, better playlist control and gapless playback. There that's all.
Just everyone use mp3. It sounds great at high bit rate and we'll have no more problems with the music.
where do you get 18 months from? ipod came out last september.
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
> flac ?.. try selling that idea to your pointy haired boss.
.WAV is right out on any flash based device likely to ship this decade. In case you are so cocooned in Steve's World (tm) to know it, Flac isn't just a Linux thing ya know. Everyone who cares about audio quality is using either Flac or Shorten for their primary copy of a track and plugins for both formats are available for all major desktop platforms. Having to transcode every time would be a major PITA. Yes I'd do it for a roadtrip mix to get more tracks but for most use I'd like to be able to just dump a couple of albums of flacs and be able to really enjoy my music.
It is called lossless encoding. Some of us have more diverse tastes in music than just marginal talent/sluts like Britney Spears and the primitive ravings of some two cent rap 'artist.'
Democrat delenda est
where do you get 18 months from? ipod NANO came out last september. i forgot to ad the 'nano' in the previous post
/ http://suffocate.us
/ http://johngrayson.com
Darn- I was hoping to find an MP3 player that used the same format as my new cell phone. But microSD and miniSD are different card sizes. When will we standardize on a single USB interface memory card type? What's so hard about putting a miniUSB connector in instead of a card slot?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I've always wanted an IPod...but my wife has been talking about satellite radio - so I took a look at what was available.
Not only do they provide a satellite reciever, but the units also come with USB connectivity and an MP3 player capability - in additiona to docking stations for automobiles. You can upload your music to the machine and listen to it, and you can save satellite programming as MP3 for later download (reverse pod-cast?).
She is particularly interested in satellite radio because she doesn't care to sit down and find pod-casts, or music online --- she just wants to spin a dial and get a selection of music and talk radio on the fly. She also saw the benefit of being able to save what was currently playing to share with me - so she doesn't have to remember all the details to harange me by word-of-mouth later on - she can just put it on my multimedia server on my upload directory - so my player can automagically slirp it up (oh joy...).
At least I know what to get her for her birthday this year. I think I'll stick with an MP3 player myself - when I save enough money to get one.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Seems all the white headphones are off about halfway thru the flight.
There are several players that take AA batteries so you don't have to lug chargers, wires and converters (and Jesus H Christ, a solar panel like you suggest) along also. Just change the battery, no charging downtime, unless the essence of "style" is the thing plugged into the wall.
I use a Rio player (discontinued) that runs 14 hours on a single aa battery and uses SD cards, there are others that do the same. The player cost $50 and while it won't get me laid, neither will an Ipod.
I have a SanDisk Sansa e250 2GB. I love the style and the battery life, but it's too small (physically), doesn't show up as a disk when USB-connected (it's a Windows Media device) and the screen is a little bit too small for viewing movies (that need to be converted, but that's pretty straightforward). Haven't tried hooking it up to any of the Linux boxes yet to see if it works.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Seriously, if I have 8 gigs of music on my player, I'm not going to bother listening to the crap that is FM. I know it's probabably something some people would like, but I'd rather save the space/money and get one without an FM tuner.
Adding ogg support would cost nothing. Nothing at all. There already exists completely free code (no viral GPL bullshit) to decode ogg effeciently in software, without an FPU. Adding that code to their firmware would take maybe an hour tops, for one programmer.
It is exactly what I want... Except:
-Proprietary USB interface
-No way to browse by folder.
I have been waiting to upgrade my current mp3 player to something flash based with 8 gigs that works well with linux... Guess I'll have to wait a little bit longer.
I bought my wife the e250 model, and I gotta say - overall, it is one nice, durable tight little unit. No problems, easy interface, brain dead easy usage, converted both MPG and AVI (various codecs) to the unit flawlessly without sync loss. The microSD expansion is a real bonus too.
For what it's worth, I have a SanDisk SDMX1 MP3/WMA player (256M version) and it's really pretty nice. The physical design is no marvel of engineering, but it worked flawlessly with Linux with no effort. It appears as a standard USB mass storage device. It's got an FM tuner and voice recorder (only records WAV format, though), too. The best part is that I paid $15 (yes, fifteen dollars) for it on Woot a couple weeks ago. Hell of a deal. I bought one for my girlfriend, too (and only paid $5 shipping for the whole order).
And yet more proof the Ipod sucks as it's competition is able to squeeze out twice the space for the same price AND you don't need special hardware.
I've always been amazed at how badly designed mp3 players are instead of just some simple approach like say, dropping the MP3s into a drive that appears when you plug in your mp3 player you have to update Itunes or media player and install special software then figure out how to import files over to the portable media player.
As far as music and video format hopefully they only support unlicensed formats, but I'm sure with all the idiots these days putting their music into lockable formats they will need to support some of them. The good old days of mp3 and mpeg were so much better than todays world of free media.
It certainly will take no great work of eningeering to make a better product than the Ipod, however getting the same sales numbers may prove a challange since most consumers are entirely narrow minded and want to buy what their friend has instead of taking the time to review the products on the market. review what.. this is what the best buy salesman told me to get.
Check out the Meizu M6: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2006/07/me izu-m6-miniplayer-review.php
I've been looking at players for the last few weeks and that one looks amazing. Check out the video demo and screenshots.
A drum? Luxury! We had to beat each other over the head with a pointed stick!
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
When everything else isn't an "mp3 player", it's an "iPod rival".
A pointed stick? Luxury. We only had to make do with our pseudopods. And those only made little squishing sounds...
I am not a resource! I am a free man!
Players from iAudio support FLAC files. I have an M5L here, works very well for me so far. Plays MP3, Ogg, FLAC and even WMA (which can be useful because this support includes output from mplayer -dumpstream, so I sometimes use it to listen to recordings from Internet radio) at a pretty good quality.
See:e ature.php
http://global.cowon.com/product/product_iAUDIO6_f
Reasons for wanting Iaudio 6
0. Advertises Linux support.
1. Supports Free software codecs. Ogg Vorbis and even Flac.
2. Best audio quality of any DAP in this price range time and time again. Better then any Ipod.
3. Advertises Linux support.
4. Small with good battery life.
5. Has USB Host support. This is so you can do things like have usb-based storage devices if you want, or you can hook up your camera and stuff like that.
6. Plays small videos, has good picture viewer.
7. Does recording (unfortunately in wma format)
8. Neat looking.
9. Advertises Linux support.
It's supports ID3 tags also, which is new for iaudio products. No special software is required like for ipods and such. You just copy over music files and they are accessable via the player immediately.
For a person who cares about audio quality a pair of high quality headphones with this player and flac format will provide the best audio quality currently attainable for a mobile player device without breaking the bank.
I don't know, but I think the RoverTv is ultimately more compelling than getting this...
http://www.rovertv.net/
Granted, it only has a 2gb card included, but it's small form factor (almost all just screen) make up for that to me... If you haven't seen this device, you should definitely take a look.
"Note: 1 megabyte (MB) = 1 million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes."
So, as usual, they use the "marketing" term for MB and GB.
I have a 4Mg 160Bit rate 3min 28 sec song.
8000M/4M = 2000 Songs
2000 * 3.5 = 7000 min (rounded to 3.5 for simplicity.)
7000/60 = 116.6 hours of music.
116.6 > 50
" I can readily hear artifacts in 128Kbps "
well, hello there superman.
Sheesh, on a trip there is no way you can hear the difference. Not. Humanly. Possible. Maybe you could tell the difference in a quite room. Of course this assume you are on a road trip in a vehical that has road noise. Maybe your magical ears has allowed you to create a magic hover car?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's a clever troll - you're being deliberately obtuse and ignoring the fact that (typical) Linux distros ship with a wide range of tools and applications."
What I tried to bring across was: For every platform there are tools to circumvent Apples DRM or copy songs on and off iPods as the users wish. Those programs are mainstream and sold in stores. What I don't understand is why people call them "stupid third party addons" and "weird hacks" on Windos (or Mac OS X) and refer to them as "a wide range of tools and applications" on Linux.
RTFS: Features microSD(TM) expansion slot for additional memory capacity
There is no point in having a discussion about the next iPod killer if we're only going to talk in technical terms. The iPod is not the most popular device out there because of its features. In fact, when you factor in the price of the accessories, the iPod is one of the worst devices that exists IMHO. The reason the iPod is so popular and so common has nothing to do with its hardware specs.
:).
iPod
- had (and contiues to have) a large marketing machine behind it
- had great Unix style KISS design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
- had iTunes as a service to enable the non-techies to create and manage their libraries
- was available when most people decided they wanted an mp3 player
- was available when the consumer market for mp3 players was created
- has dominated the market and become synonymous with the term mp3 player in many peoples minds and conversations
- enjoys the inertia it has created
When a product gets to that point, it's very difficult to move it. The only thing that makes this different from Microsoft's dominance of the operating system market is that this is a hardware device and will eventually fail. Well... that and there no KISS design in Windows
Not really. for any kind of serious money, 100 bucks and up, I would want full multiband capability. I listen to some AM, some FM,and some shortwave. Pre recorded is lower on my list of priorities. I don't want to be entertained or amused as much as I want to be informed and have the ability to get breaking news and emergency weather broadcasts. So really none of these iPods or ipod wannabes fit the bill yet. And most of the ones I have seen look too delicate and not able to withstand a little inclement weather, another drawback. I'll stick with my portable radios for now, no real need for an iPod thing. I'll hold out for a full fledged good quality PDA thing that does it all, most likely eventually the smart phones will get there.
Sandisk released this line like four months ago. I've seen them in stores for some time now. Nice. Still to pricey. At least it's not an ipod. I'll stick with my H320 (w/rockbox) thank you.
Squishing sounds? Squishing sounds? Our idea of heaven was to have pseudopods that made squishing sounds! We had to make do with flagellae that didn't work half the time, and our only sense of perception was the ability to react to chemical gradients in the concentration of nutrients.
But we were happy...
does anyone else think it's funny that "SanDisk Releases New iPod rival" - I read the article - looks like to me more like "SanDisk Releases New MP3 Player" but what do I know - I'm just an apple fanboy
calling all destroyers
Obviously it would entail a slower transferring process than a straight copy, but maybe someone could fix one of the open-source audio tools (Amarok, etc.) to allow you to archive your music in a different format than what you keep on your player?
Basically, keep it losslessly on your computer, but transcode it on-the-fly into a lossy format as you syncronize your player. Keep all the metadata intact (and sync the metadata bidirectionally -- keep playcounts and stuff from the player), but whenever you add new music to your computer from a CD, rip it to FLAC, and then downconvert to MP3 or Ogg as you put it onto the portable device.
I really think this wuld be the best way to do it -- computers are fast enough to make this kind of transcoding practical (reasonably so), and you don't really need the lossless files on your portable device because the playback circuitry and the output device (unless you're using Grados or other very high-quality low-impedence cans) probably aren't good enough to let you tell the difference between a high-bitrate lossy file and the lossless one.
Anyone know if this has been implemented?
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Does this thing have seamless integration with iTunes -- e.g. can I use iTunes to load (non DRM) music on the player?
If not, then NO SALE.
I'm not particularly in love with iTunes, but I'll be damned if I'm going to futz around moving all my music to some other player.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
As far as I know, SanDisk doens't support Ogg Vorbis. :(
Its good to know that SanDisk still supports SD cards on their mp3 players. sure I could go get the stylish iPod Nano, or any 1gig built-in flash memory player - but I indescribedly hate the thought of being limited to a gig of music, and to have to delete half my song library to add a new album or discography. With SD card players, at least I still have the option open of going and buying more cards and swapping them out. The bad thing about SD card mp3 players is every time I look at Fry's Electronics or on Newegg and TigerDirect, there are only a few to choose from, and most of them are at least as bad or worse than the cheap $20 builtin flash memory players...
BTW: if anybody knows of any good sd card mp3 players, please drop a reply with a link... my current model is an RCA/Thompson Lyra M200, so like I said, if you know any better that are easy to find...
Unless somebody gives you a player that partitions the drive into two segments, one that uses USB Mass Storage protocol and one that uses the proprietary Media Transfer Protocol, and plays music only from the latter. Apple's iPod players use a similar scheme.
The name is horrible. Sansa e280 doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as iPod.
O RLY? Google is my friend and finds WAFT.
Might be nice for Linux users... but if that's their market then good luck to them
Well, since you asked; actually I like the Neuros products as well. (I was going to call them "Neuroses"...) The problem that I have with them, which isn't limited just to them but also to many of the other non-iPod MP3 players, is that they don't have good hardware/software integration.
I had a MP3 player, pre-iPod. It was called a Pontis. For its day, it was pretty innovative, and if they hadn't killed MMC cards in favor of SD, it would probably still be usable. (Okay, the RS-232 interface would be pretty painful, but that's what card readers are for.) However, the reason I never used it much wasn't because of the hardware, but because it didn't have a particularly good or well-integrated software package.
The Neuros is almost clearly better than the iPod as a player, but because it doesn't exist as part of a vertically integrated hardware/software stack, I'm not sure it's a compelling solution. The reason that the iPod blew away a lot of other players initially wasn't solely because if its looks, it was because it offered a workflow: Rip, Mix, Burn. iTunes would rip your CDs, let you mix up playlists and organize your library; then it would let you burn the results to a CD-R, or sync your whole collection to an iPod. This was in pretty dire contrast to other manufacturers at the time, who saw "music player" programs as a separate software niche from synchronization software, which was itself separate from CD burning software. While this component model may appeal conceptually to geeks and other lovers of the "UNIX way," it was obnoxious from a user's perspective: what people want and wanted is a single massive program to do it all.
When the iPod was initially being marketed, it was billed on Apple's website as a hardware and software combination. iTunes was prominently featured. Unfortunately, most of the other manufacturers of MP3 players are doing the all-too-typical hardware-manufacturer failing of making innovative hardware and combining it with crappy software and hoping it will sell. They see software development as a cost to be cut, rather than value to be added, and are thus content shipping their device with nothing but a sync program, and depending on third-parties to provide the rest.
The Neuros player is neat, and perhaps on Linux (where there exists, due to necessity, alternatives to iTunes that users could modify to work with the device), it could be handy. But on other platforms, where people are already committed to using iTunes (or Napster, or WMP), I don't see it having much future, unless Neuros develops their own iTunes alternative.
In short, I think everyone is looking too hard for an 'iPod alternative' (or killer), when really in order to have any chance of doing that, they need to replace the entire integrated "music stack" that Apple has developed: the iPod accessory market, the iPod itself, iTunes itself, and the iTunes Music store. Simply replacing one of these components -- unless it can function as a drop-in replacement for an Apple component within that 'stack' -- is probably doomed to failure for the foreseeable future.
The exception would be Microsoft, since they could potentially develop a competing integrated solution that wouldn't suck (I said could!), but it's really too early to tell. I think they may drive Zune into the ground for other unrelated reasons, more having to do with politics than architecture.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
It's "gymnastic" to use a car charger with your digital music player because now you have to unplug your cell phone, radar detectors, or satellite radio unit.
So what do you do with whatever else is plugged into your car's 12V socket(s)? And what if "road trip" means a bus, where only the driver has access to the vehicle's 12V socket(s)?
Too many network operators, especially in North America, lock down their phones such that you can't use a data cable or a memory card to copy music from your computer to your phone. This way they can charge for more airtime.
Compact Disc Digital Audio has been out for over two decades. Buying 12 CDs a year for 20 years gives a collection of 240 CDs. Assume 2880 seconds (48 minutes) per CD and 0.16 megabyte per second (128 kbps ABR) to give roughly 110 GB.
You fail it. 0.16 megabyte per second is 1280 kbps, which is closer to the .wav data rate than to the .mp3 or .m4a data rate. Running through your calculations with the correct 0.016 megabyte per second results in 11 GB.
Why not support standard MPEG-4 advanced simple profile video and MP3 or AAC audio in an MPEG-4 or AVI container? This would allow use on any platform capable of running a DivX or XviD toolchain, as long as the PC shrinks the video to what DivX software calls the "portable profile" (up to 30 fps at 320x240 pixels) before sending it.
Boot RockBox, press the menu button while plugging in your power/USB cable, and your iPod will not boot into disk mode. Then you can play and charge all you want.
1- All the iPods have dual ARM cores.
2- Sandisk has been milking rockbox for good press. They haven't delivered half of what they promised to the developers. Reverse engineering the bootloader (for starters) would not be needed if Sandisk wanted anything more than good press from rockbox.
From Daniel Stenberg's own site:
"We didn't get anything to help us actually make Rockbox to these players. We got two players, yes, but we got no info, no docs. No help at all."
I dub thee... Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, Beater of Ass.
"Strong alloy metal back casing provides excellent durability and scratch resistance".
Now why didn't Apple think of that one with their Nano... If it is of similar quality to Motorola's V3 RAZR (thin model, not the G3 one), it could be really great. My wife's had her phone for much longer than her Nano, and the latter looks like something the cat dragged in when compared.
ISO certified == THX certified
The correct term is Killer! Geez, what happened to good editorialism?
"Words of wisdom: drop that zero and get with the hero" -- Vanilla Ice
And you say that to the kids today, and they won't believe you...
But you know, history repeats itself: "iPods" and "pseudopods" act and sound suspiciously the same...
- lots of books from gutenberg's library are now appearing in .mp3 format!
I guess you got your ass handed to ya in THIS thread.
Now where is this $300 lifetime-subscribed DVR that doesn't infringe TiVo's patents in at least one major developed country?
I bought one of these for my son for his 10th birthday. While I do not care about adding pictures or video, I am very pleased with the ability to plug this thing into a USB port and drag & drop MP3 files onto it. It worked for me without installing ANY software. SWEET! I am also pleased that it has a built in microphone and saves anything you record as a plain old WAV file. You can drag & drop that WAV file to the hard drive. Another great tool for musicians like me who come up with cool riffs for songs we're writing and want to record it real quick (and save it for our boxs set after we've been around for a few decades) and put it on a CD or edit it in your favorite sound editor.
IMHO, IANAL, TINLA, etc...
So before I drop a wad of cash on an iPod, given that there are alternatives with more storage per dollar, is there something else I should be considering?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?