portable digital music players

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

On Wednesday 07 April 2004 11:16 pm, Derek Martin wrote:
> Since recently I have some extra money in my pocket, I'm interested in
> buying some sort of portable music player.  My criteria are these:
>
> 1) MUST play both MP3 and OGG formats, since I have a substantial
>    amount of both, and no current physical access to my source
>    material in order to re-rip to one or the other...
>
> 2) Should be small and lightweight -- my main use will be to enhance
>    my jogging experiences
>
> 3) 128MB of RAM is ideal.  I can live with 64MB.  More than 128MB is
>    not necessary, and probably a waste of my money.
>
> 4) Ideally, it should interface easily with Linux.  I have USB,
>    ieee1394, and smart-card interfaces available.  Unfortunately the
>    USB is only USB1, but the device should ideally do USB2 for when I
>    upgrade.
>
> 5) Price and battery life are considerations.

...but you don't say how much you would be willing to spend.

I recently bought an iRiver 20GB hard-drive-based model, and love it.  I have 
all sorts of USB problems with my server, but this thing just plugs in and 
mounts like a hard drive.  15 hours of battery live, it does play OGG, never 
skips, is close to the size of an iPod, has a FM radio, and can record from 
multiple sources, even encoding as MP3 on the fly.

Cost me about $320.  They have a 10GB unit too. 

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DDDD   David Kramer         david at thekramers.net       http://thekramers.net
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DKK D  Caffeine is raw fuel which has not yet been purified into software.
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