Which USB mp3 player to purchase?

[Lee Colleton]

On 11/29/05, Ron Bellomo <cyberbear at plateautel.net> wrote:
> Alligator wrote:
>
> >A dilemma, I bought a LG - Ubuntu would not recognize it. Next a Sony
> >walkman network, it works up to the point of pressing play "No Data", so
> >Sony decodes mp3. What should I purchase that works?  I want a small
> >device not an iPod, something around 512M. Tell me what works for you!
> >Ron
> >
> >
> >
> >
> I have been using a small Lexar Jump Drive that has an MP3 player built
> in. It is only a 128MB capacity player but holds enough songs for a one
> hour run/jogging workout. the Lexar works with Windows 2000/XP without
> any drivers. It works seamlessly in Linux, too. Just plug it in, add or
> delete files, and go!
>
> There may be higher capacity units available now.
>
> I have an iPod but only use it for listening while walking on lunch
> breaks. I found out the hard way that using a hard drive based player
> for anything that causes moderate jostling can cause the drive to fail
> prematurely.
>

I agree that running or jostling and hard drives don't mix.  I had a
Rio Karma which would crash now and then perhaps because of physical
impacts.  It also couldn't connect with Ubuntu over USB, so I ran
Windows in VMware just to manage the music on it.  Expensive and
inelegant.

I'm really happy with the iRiver flash player 800 series that I
currently use.  They have a range of capacities from 128MiB to 1GiB,
FM tuners and voice recorders.  The players encode mp3 files directly
but can playback Ogg Vorbis files which makes them compatible with
Ubuntu from a software patent perspective.

There is a command line app for loading files called ifp which works
really well and can integrate with the midnight commander file
manager.  A GUI system was developed as a frontend for ifp but it
drops uploaded files in the root directory of the device, which is a
little messy because you can't refile them from inside the device.

Flash players that have built in USB plugs are probably your best bet
for ease of file management, but I carry a separate USB key for that. 
My cabled iRiver works fine for me.
--
Lee Colleton <lee at colleton.net>