Digital Music Player Overview

An anonymous reader writes "MP3 Newswire just posted its fifth article of its 'iPod Killers' for the holidays list. Most interesting are a bluetooth unit from Aiwa, Sony's Vaio U, and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA." See also I, II, III, and IV.

Re:What is the future of standalone MP3 players?

[solowCX]

Apple already has that covered http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jul/26motorol a.html [apple.com]

Re:Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries?

[seringen]

get the belkin battery pack. it'll make your ipod bigger, but you'll get a lot of play time with it. there's another one on the market that uses a custom laptop battery as an addon, too. but that's even less like you want. personally i HATE changing batteries, it's a huge cash sink and also it's even more bad for the environment

Yes, an iPod can use regular batteries

[Jeff85]

Previously, on Slashdot... Build Your Own iPod Battery [slashdot.org]

Re:OGG?

[mobby_6kl]

>None of these play Vorbis/FLAC?

Dammit, at least RTFSlashdotSummary: "and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA."

Digital Music Players?

[Jason1729]

This article takes a very narrow view. What about the Mini Disc players. The new HD-MD format has a 1 gig disc that costs $7. 7 bucks for a 1 gig removable media alone should give this line of players a huge boost over most mp3 players. Add in the battery life (40-50 hours on a single AA), and it becomes a great option. Hardware prices start well below the price iPod mini too.

Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]

Re:Electricians: Could iPod use regular batteries?

[dave420]

Have you seen the size of the battery in the iPod? I took my first-gen ipod apart, and the battery is a few millimeters high. AAs (and even AAAs) take up CONSIDERABLY more space. If the iPod was to use A{2,3}s, then it would be massive, removing a lot of its appeal.

Killers..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I used to say "I will never have an iPod."

I used to hate the iPod.

After going through 4 or 5 other hard drive based mp3 players in two years, I finally broke down when Best Buy said I could trade my 6mo old 20GB Archos Jukebox in for a new 4g 40GB iPod, if I pay another $150.

I have now had an iPod for about 3 months and love it. The battery time is nothing to write home about, but it lasts from when I plug it into the stereo in my car to drive to work, my whole eight hour shift, and the drive back home. I have dropped it on a hard tile floor, and nothing was damaged, chipped or not working.

It's a wonderful little thing, and while I may never get a non-iPod apple product, I do love my iPod.

The only problem I've ever had with it, is how easy the case picks up little scratches while in my pocket, but that's not a huge problem.

Re:OGG?

[Quixote]

From the bloody summary itself (above):
and an Ogg/photo/FM broadcast record, flash unit from SAFA.

RTFA, the SAFA SR-M800F can play MP3, WMA and OGG.

I don't know what is sadder: people responding to /. without even reading the one sentence blurb, or the mods who didn't do the same and modded parent up.

I know, this is /., it shouldn't surprise anybody...

What about iRiver?

[Paul Slocum]

I'm really surprised iRiver [iriver.com] wasn't mentioned. I've got the 40GB HP-140 and it's a nice player with FM and the ability to record high quality compressed or uncompressed audio. The interface isn't as nice as the iPod, but with the open source Rockbox [rockbox.org] firmware being ported to several iRiver models, seems like a pretty serious competitor (especially for the Slashdot crowd).

Re:Maybe I'll miss the whole iPod thing

[BP9]

I've been pretty happy with my Nexia [frontierlabs.com]. It uses 2 AA's, the NiMH rechargables last around 20 hours, and its easy to keep a spare set around even when biking or whatever. It uses cheap, standard CF cards populated by simply copying files into the VFAT filesystem. No wacky 'media manager' or any of that BS.

The s/w is just a little lame: in over a year they haven't been able to make it follow a playlist in order (it does almost always play in the order the directory was filled in though, so you can use it for audio books). Whoever they got for support in the US has a worthless website, if you want to d/l the latest firmware you have to go to the europe support site. Other than those minor issues the thing does what it does and does it well.