I’m thinking about buying myself an mp3 player for my birthday next month. “Happy B-day to me type thing.” Any-who! What kind of experience have you ladies and gents had with different mp3 players on Linux and Amarok?
I really like Zune, but Sony has got some good stuff too. iPod is just a little too, … ?commerical? or something.
Anyway. Suggestions?
TTFN
John
Didn’t msft take the Zune off the market? Where are they still selling it? Anything from Sandisk has been good for me. Any player with mass storage support will be at least partly functional, in that even if all of its features are not supported, it can be managed similar to a storage device. The Zune, I suspect, only supports Windows Media Player.
I am not sure why iPod is such a bad idea.
Anyway, check out the rockbox project and operate it via rockbox. Most mp3 players are supported. I had an Toshiba F-40 (i still have) and works fine.
Rebeliousness. Everyone has an iPod LOL. I’ll look in to rockbox as I’ve never even heard of it at this point.
chief_sealth: Zune, I don’t know? I’ll have to check. I guess it’s good I asked someone who does know.
Just remember, that using rockbox may revoke your warranty.
I don’t listen to mp3 on the walk anymore, but still have my old toshiba player. With rockbox you can use most of the players without using the implemented software. You can then store and listen to .ogg . flac or what have you. So a little more freedom.
I’ve had good luck with an 8gb Sanza Fuze. Plays ogg format OTB and has good battery life.
Recently loaded RockBox and it seems to work fine as well but admittedly have not really played with all the options.
Did some reading on rockbox, and it has a lot of respect. Some I’m going to give that a try. Thanks for making me aware of that everyone.
JoergJaeger: Warranty! ROFLOL. I don’t think I have a single piece of technology that I haven’t voided the warranty on. So why not an mp3 player? I’d much rather use open source anyway and open source fireware sounds kinda’ fun to play with.
On Sun, 29 May 2011 02:06:02 +0000, JoergJaeger wrote:
> I am not sure why iPod is such a bad idea. Anyway, check out the
> ‘rockbox’ (http://www.rockbox.org/) project and operate it via rockbox.
> Most mp3 players are supported. I had an Toshiba F-40 (i still have) and
> works fine.
I’d second using something that Rockbox works on, whether it be an iPod
or something else. Just make sure you get a supported model. 
There’s an alpha/beta quality Rockbox for Android even, a little rough
around the edges but it does work pretty well even still on my Android
phone.
I use it on an iPod Mini 1G that I got about 8 years ago - upgraded the
internal microHD to a 16 GB flash card and put Rockbox on it. The only
downside is that iPod accessories generally don’t work well (for example,
we have a couple iHome docks and very little works - I can listen, but
the remote doesn’t work, and the alarm clock won’t kick off the custom
playlist), so I tend to dual-boot my iPod depending on circumstances.
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
I’m leaning toward something Sandisk(right now at least). Rockbox seems to have some good support there. And as someone already pointed out, Zune is dead, and no Rockbox anyways. I’ll let everyone know next weekend how it goes… or if I have any Questions.
Thanks
John
On 05/28/2011 07:06 PM, ogbi-web kenobi wrote:
>
> I’m thinking about buying myself an mp3 player for my birthday next
> month. “Happy B-day to me type thing.” Any-who! What kind of experience
> have you ladies and gents had with different mp3 players on Linux and
> Amarok?
>
> I really like Zune, but Sony has got some good stuff too. iPod is just
> a little too, … ?commerical? or something.
>
> Anyway. Suggestions?
Well… “mp3 players” are sort of passé now. I use my phone (Sprint Evo 4G Shift).
However, the BEST sounding PMP I ever owned (and still own… and it still works
great) is my Cowon A2. The last one I used most often however, was my Insignia
Pilot (and I do recommend it). Why? It uses full size SDHC cards (e.g. 32G).
However, it does have a number of files limitation (2000?)… so most useful
when combined with music AND videos (because videos are larger).
The Cowon A2 can RECORD video… useful if you want something that can take
composite in and turn it into video. Both do video output via composite which
is still useful on the road since most hotels have the composite inputs on their
TVs. The video recording quality of the A2 is comparable to what you’d get
with a Hauppauge capture device… it’s really not that bad.
Neither do “gapless” playback, both have a very small gap… the Insignia does
slightly better. Both do mp3 and ogg vorbis… my ogg vorbis rips sound a LOT
better (IMHO). The Cowon A2 handles several video formats and can even handle
subtitles. The Insignia just does Xvid I believe. The Insignia is tiny, light
and has a user replaceable battery in addition to the SDHC slot. Both devices
work well with Linux, the Insignia only understands album art on mp3’s and only
if they are embedded into the file. The Cowon A2 handles art as a separate file
as well.
My daughter has a Zune… she’s ALL Windows… but the device does what she
needs it to do. I would NOT recommend the device for Linux users though.
I’ve used a lot of other mp3 players, including Creative (multiple), Sansa
(multiple) and Archos (multiple)… I can tell you that NONE come close to the
sound reproduction of the Cowon A2… and most of them aren’t that much better
than the Insignia Pilot.
What about “contemporary” players? I haven’t found one that I like… well,
apart from my phone, which does do both mp3 and ogg vorbis… and it does well
with album art. What can you say? It’s an android phone… so pretty much
everything is handled well.
Hi,
Not sure if you’ve already chosen your player yet, but you could do worse then looking into Creative’s line of MP3 players, I used to use a Creative Zen Vision:M exclusively before I got my hands on an Android phone. The new Zen line isn’t too bad, and I’d assume they’d work fine with AmaroK.
Hi,
I use sansa it has an incredible sound at a chip price on top of that works well with linux.
You’ll be surprise when it delivers the sound on your earphone. Mine is the tiny one with 4 gigs and an additional 16 gigs on the tiny mem. card ( one uses in cellphones). I use it when traveling to work downtown using the subway train.
I have a Sansa fuze. It’s been a great little mp3 player. I got it as a close out (4 gb model) from Amazon.com. I added a 4 gb micro SD card and it’s a 8 gig. openSUSE 11.3 and 11.4 see it as a mass storage device with it mounts so adding mp3’s is easy as drag and drop.
I haven’t tried any software with it as I pretty much hate Amarok and use Audacious and Kaffeine for mp3 playback on my System. Dragging and dripping files is easy and fast without some wonky interface getting in the way.
Sansa supports ogg vorbis also
Avoid Sony Walkman,I have one and it doesnt work well with Linux.Which is a pity since the player itself is great,intuitive and fast menus,great sound and very very long battery life.I have yet to see an mp3 player with such a long battery life.
I disagree.They may be passe for people who need to listen to some music occassionally but for those that are listen a lot of music “on the road” in the course of their daily activities and use their mobile phones a lot,using mobile phones as a substitute for mp3 player is a bad idea,lots of listening+calls+sms+wlan tend to drain battery life FAST and nothing worse than a dead mobile phone and you are expecting a call or need to make one,and if the mobile phone turns off you lose access to both your mobile phone and your music.
I can be without a phone, but never without music. My Sansa Clip is more valuable to me than any smart phone ever will be.
My Sansa Fuze is always with me if I am out and going to have to spend any time waiting as is my portable DVD player. My iPhone4 is a crappy substitute for a MP3 player and has the requirement of a copy of iTunes running on a Windows system. Just bad all around. My Sansa Fuze is a drag and drop operation and is quite happy connected to a Linux box. The only draw back is at proprietary cable connector on the end that connects to the Fuze. Micro USB would have been better.
I tried that one, with a good ear/headphone sound is awesome. The equalizer works well too.