Hi all,

I'm hoping you technically savvy people will be able to tell me if there's any device out there that is in decent competition with the iPod Classic. I like the look of the iPod and it's 160GB but can't seem to find anything that matches it for specs.

Thanks

Which specs do you want to match?

Hi,

To be quite honest, storage and battery life (needs to last at least a day) are the only two things that matter to me for MP3 players.

Thanks

Hmmm....maybe an Archos 80 G9 250GB?

http://www.archos.com/products/gen9/...=au&lang=en&#a

Seems to stack up fairly evenly against the iPod classic-

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP15

Slightly less battery life, but much better audio file support. Seems to be about the same price as the iPod classic as well.

Only possible problem is that its over twice the size and four times the weight.

Another option is a flash based player with micro SD expansion and a few microSD cards. 32GB microSD cards can be found for 15-20 quid, and 5 of them adds up as much storage space as a 160GB iPod. It could be cheaper to get 160GB with SD cards than from a HDD based player.

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Whoops, I guess small and compact(ish) should be on my list too. Although my colleagues think an iPod classic is a brick.

Whilst disgustingly lazy of me, that's just too much hassle. *I fancy listening to x band, unmount card, mount new one, search* Reminds me of going back to CD days. I think I'll stick with my phone and continue to use three batteries.

Compared to flash players they are bricks.

Understandable. New reason to avoid that option though, mostly I hear 'but I dont want to lose SD cards, they are tiny'.

Depressing. But maybe I have a different solution for you?

http://www.cowonglobal.com/product_w...uct_page_4.php

Its a little bigger and heavier than ther iPod classic, but nothing like the size of the archos tablets. Great range of supprted codecs. Battery life playing music looks to be over twice that of the ipod (103 hrs for the cowon, 40 hrs for ipod). Price appears to be about the same as well.

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Although it's ever so slightly too small for my current range of CDs I've got ripped, perhaps with the effective use of converting to MP3 rather than flac I could get it small enough to fit onto 120GB.

Thanks very much and if you happen to know of any other ideas I'm opened to them.

Theres a 160GB model, not just 120GB.

MP3 (or ogg vorbis) will take up a lot less space than .flac. How much less space will depend on the MP3 bitrate you use and the music you are compressing. I've got a lot of flacs and the eventual filesize can vary a huge amount. The simpler the music, the better the compression with .flac.

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Well i wouldn't describe my self as technically savvy, but i guess my parents do ask me to tune the tv and recharge there phones lol.
I dislike ipods, i have ever since the first one i purchased. My last two mp3 players have been Sony walkmans. They do communicate with Gnu/Linux easily, just drag and drop. I listen to music a lot, and i personally have found Sony Walkmans to be very competitive to Apple Ipods, and i personally like the interface more.
That is putting it up to your specifications. Alas Sony walkmans will not play ogg files, and because of this, my next mp3 player will not be a walkman, but unfortunately, i'm unsure at the moment of what will make a suitable replacement and support ogg.

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The 'Z' series should be able to play oggs vorbis files with some sodding around, as its android. Sony being sony though, its only got MP3, AAC, WMA and L-PCM suppotr 'out of the box'. Mind you, even if it did support ogg vorbis and flac out of the box, I still wouldnt touch one.....sony is one of the few comapines that apple doesnt bad compared to. Rootkiting CDs, what bastards.

Sansa, Cowon and iRiver are the brands of portable media players I would be looking at for ogg vorbis support and gernal linux friendliness.

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Thanks for that, i will consider them when i get my next player. I have been needing a new one for a while now because my walkman is starting to bugger up.
I can't stand the whole touch interface which seems to be growing in the mp3 plyer market; i like mine with buttons, OLD SCHOOL!. My walkmans were/are E series.
Thanks for the tips

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