On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:22:34 -0400 "Boyd Stephen Smith Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm looking to buy a portable music player, but I'm not sure what to > get, so I'm polling for recommendations. > > Ogg/Vorbis support is a *requirement*, as is a Linux interface to the > device. > I've used a Neuros, V1, in the past for a few years and it's worked fine until the battery recharge circuitry ate itself. The hard drive is now in one of my Gentoo systems as a system drive. (Definition - after multiple firmware upgrades, it finally started working fine last year.) Downside of the V1 was that it's audio output was pretty crappy by my standards. The V2 and the new model coming out this fall, I can't comment on. I now use an iRiver IFP-999 with the ifp-line driver (it's emergable) and the ifpmanager, a perl script - http://ifp-manager.sourceforge.net/ > I'd prefer to be able to simply mount it as a USB device, but as long as > I can add/remove/view the contents of the player from Linux it'll be > fine. A GPL/BSD firmware and/or Linux interface is a plus. > The iriver doesn't act like a USB storage device, but it's easy enough to deal with. Beware, that not all iRiver products support Ogg/Vorbis. Check the specs. > I'm not set on hard drive or flash based so feel free to recommend on > either or both. > Downside to hard drives - fragile, suck power, physically larger, will die sooner. Downside to flash - limited to 1 GB, at the moment, for reasonable costs. (Note, the 1 GB iRiver I bought was actually significantly less at iRiver's online store then their suggested list on their main web site - check the real prices.) Upside of hard drive - Was able to load up all 13 GB of music. For me, 1 GB of Ogg files on the iRiver is approx 120 songs. Upside of flash drive - Really small, lightweight, rugged, and easy to carry. Audio quality of this particular iRiver is very, very good when used with good headphones - the included ear buds suck. Sharp Zaurus - Audio quality out of the C860 or C3000 is outstanding. A bit tricky on the C3000 to get a player to play Ogg files, much easier on the 5600 or C860 - theKompany's $20 music player works ok. Music can be stored on SD or CF and moved in and out. USB network support is outstanding, while sync support still sucks on Linux. Downside is the Sharp's a a bit bulky, but they do include a keyboard and full computer functionality. Bob -- - Are you living in the real world? - -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
