Portable music devices

[feren]

Dear Lazyweb,

I am in need of a new toy. Given that in five days I will be flying to Orlando on an airline that doesn't let me listen to Air Traffic Control via the in-plane audio system, I know I'm going to be bored during the flight. While I'm at the campus working, I'm going to be in wiring closets and conference rooms, thus I will be bored to tears and forced to listen to humming exhaust fans. To try to avoid being bored, I've decided I should buy a portable music device to take my increasingly substantial collection of MP3 and M4A audio files with me.

The requirements are:

• It should have a battery life that is in reality greater than 8 hours. Marketing claims need not apply.
  
• It should have a rechargable battery inside it, because swapping out AA batteries is lame and means bringing along more crap.
  
• Whatever the battery technology (LiON,NiMH, etc), it must be user replaceable so that when it inevitably dies three days after the warranty is over, I can put a new one in myself.
  
• Capable of playing MP3 and M4A files. Why M4A? Because that's what iTunes files are after you rip off that ridiculous DRM crap, and I'm too lazy to convert formats after removing DRM.
  
• Capacity greater than 5GB.
  
• Firewire is preferred, but USB2 is acceptable.
  
• No crazy software packages to copy files to it. I want to plug it in and just drag-and-drop. In other words, it should appear as a HD to my PC. Being able to copy non-media files to it is not a necessity, I have a Lexar Jumpdrive for that.
  
• I'd like to be able to build playlists somewhere -- on the PC or on the device, I care not.
  
• Some sort of control over what's playing is necessary -- if a song isn't right for my mood, I better be able to advance to the next track or the device will be set on fire and thrown over a cliff.
  
• I don't need or want "value-add" features like FM tuners or crazy colors. If I wanted to listen to FM and be subjected to "whacky" DJs and annoying Enzyte commercials, I'd bring along a Walkman. If I want colors, I'll powdercoat it on my own time.
  
• I'd prefer that it be not harddisk based (flash has no moving parts to break in fun and unique ways), but this is only a personal preference and is overridden by the above.
  

Tell me there is a non-iPod product that does this. While iPod is neat and "industry leading" and all that, their prices are ridiculous and their products violate many of the above requirements.

Comments

[datonel.livejournal.com]

Well, aside from being harddisk based, needing a minor program to add files, and not being able to play M4A files (I think... never came up), I've been damn happy with my Creative Nomad Jukebox 2 [link]. Had it for about 2 years now and haven't had to replace the battery yet (although it has gone from a battery life of about 12-16 hours or so to about 5... and that's even taken a loooong time).

They also have a third version [link], that might be closer to what you want--I haven't checked it out enough, and they have a ton of other stuff probably worth looking at [link].

I definitely sympathize with you on wanting to avoid the iPod like the plague, because they are definitely overpriced and more trouble than they're worth.

Hope that helps, even if it isn't exactly what you're looking for.

[datonel.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and I should mention that almost all of Creative's stuff costs about half of what you'd get with an iPod. I got a my 20gb for $200, and it looks like a cd player so I don't have to worry as much about people stealing it.

[suzuno.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if there's any other widget out there that will play m4a's besides Apple-based products (portable music things wise).

Not sure though.

[fiskblack.livejournal.com]

I finished an entire history book over the course of a year, only reading it during airplane trips and while my car was being worked on in the shop. Now I have to buy a new one.

It was a history book about the Ottoman Empire during WWI, and the subsequent destruction of it at the hands of the Allied powers, and the creation of the modern Middle East.

I bought the book for $20 at the store, and I learned a lot more about a subject that continues to be relevant in our lives today.

Jay Naylor

We're losing

[yakko.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the lazyweb has failed.

It looks like the only hardware players that play AAC audio come from Apple. It's really dumb, too, because AAC itself isn't proprietary to Apple, but the Fairplay DRM crap is. Other hardware player OEMs like Creative really should support AAC if they're serious about competing.

It appears that, even if Creative's Zen Micro (for instance) played AAC, it'd still cost as much as the iPod mini.

You know... a good many marketroids could do well to read your list of features. I know I'd buy such a device.

[doomsey.livejournal.com]

Thinking outside the box...

A PDA with a CF slot meets essentially all of your requirements, except possibly battery life.

I have a friend who's trying to get rid of an older Zaurus...

[youngvanwinkle.livejournal.com]

There's only one way to do "greater than 5GB" and "flash-based", and it's not cheap. It involves buying a Creative Labs Muvo2 mp3 player (I have one of these I don't want, or you might find one on eBay, even a pre-cracked one), cracking it open and yanking out the 4GB MicroDrive, and sticking in an 8GB CompactFlash flash-based memory card. By the way, the 8GB cards are just hitting the market now, and being limited-supply and high-end items, are retailing for well over $500 each, putting this kind of out of the range of sanity even if you do feel like hacking your own mp3 together out of different parts.

However, if you want a model that has 4GB of flash, you can follow the same instructions, and a 4GB CF flash card is $250 or so right now, which seems significantly cheaper.

But even then you wouldn't have a player that played MPEG-4 audio, as the Muvo2 won't do that. To be honest, DRM or not, if you wanna keep your files in MPEG-4 audio without messing with making mp3s out of them... you want an iPod. As much as you don't, you do.

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I'd still recommend the iPod, especially if you've got AAC files.

With respect to the batteries, I've replaced the battery twice in my three year old iPod. The one that's in there now is a 3rd party battery with at least 50% more capacity than OEM. The battery came with a pair of spudgers (case-splitting tools), and it took almost ten seconds to pop the back off the iPod. The battery is the topmost item in the stack of components, and it plugs in to the mainboard. Battery replacement time: 5 minutes. Cost (for the latest iPod generation): $26.

Yeah, I know they're a little pricey, but I think they're fairly sturdy and last a long time. I really don't think there's a better product out there.

[captain18.livejournal.com]

So, this is an unorthodox solution, but it might be worth a look since you didn't require it to fit in your shirt pocket. While you're never going to get five hours of battery life from it, you might consider scrounging eBay for an old Toshiba Libretto.

Granted, it means buying an old slow laptop, but it's got a footprint about the size of a clamshell VHS tape so it is reasonably portable. Put whatever software you want on it with whatever codecs you like. Slap in a network card and share a network drive and you can trade with your friends, or grab a PCMCIA flash reader.

Obviously, this is one of the things I continue to use my 110CT for. In fact, on road trips to Boston, spoothbrush and I have let WinAmp shuffle the whole way. (Though to be fair, my battery is shot and is only good for about 75 minutes now so we used an inverter through the cigarette lighter for that.)

I have no idea what kind of CPU is required to decode AAC, but if you're only doing playback you might be able to go übercheap with the 50CT at 75 or 100mHz. If you kept the music on flash and ghosted the HD once you had the setup to taste, it'd even be relatively trivial to replace the whole thing if it were stolen/broken/whatever.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of pulling it together in five days is near nil, but that's what you get for asking the lazyweb to work to a deadline.

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I've had my iPod since 2002 and haven't had to change the battery yet at all, so don't take Rusty's statement about his having changed the battery twice to mean that it will necessarily crap out soon.

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I'm also an extremely heavy user of my iPod. Li-Ion batteries have a rated lifetime of 300-400 cycles. They just don't up and die one day. What happens is that with increasing cycles their capacity (ampere-hours) decreases. "Lifetime" is defined as "number of cycles until capacity is x% of new".

For instance, this laptop had an original battery capacity of over 4 Ah, now it's more like 3. It's pretty much new battery time for me.

So when I start having the battery run out faster than I'd like, I replace it.

[wolfbrotherjoe.livejournal.com]

Well, just my own thoughts on power sources -

I prefer rechargable double-A batteries.

If you have to plug in some sort of special battery or plug the unit itself into the wall, that means that once the power runs out, you cannot just replace the power unit and enjoy more music - you have to wait for it to recharge.

Rechargable double-A batteries, on the other hand, are easy to replace, easy to recharge, and easy to have backups of. Which means the music keeps coming even after you run out of power.

FrankenIpod

[tetragon.livejournal.com]

You have kind of limited your options here. You need an Ipod just to decode your music.

If you really hate hard-disk players then perhaps go with a (slightly) cheaper 4gb Ipod mini. See if there are any tutes on the net for cracking it open, and replace the 4gb microdrive with your flash-based CF drive of choice, a'la Taka's suggestion for the Creative. (Note: Creative is high on the list of evil corporates, moreso IMHO than Apple.)

Its not a cheap option however. Personally, I would live with something like a 6gb Ipod mini. They have excellent battery even compared to a full ipod (and definetly over the double-capacity full Ipods that have more spinny brown stuff inside) and are more robust. (Smaller mechanism == less head intertia and more shock resistance.)

And your music collection fits right in.

Re: FrankenIpod

[feren.livejournal.com]

Why does everybody focus on the thing I listed as a preference in favor of ignoring the things I listed as a requirement?