Musashi Wrote:

liosama Wrote:I'm still thinking about an MP3 player to get. I love everything about iPod's except for the stupid piece of shit program called itunes. I just want to be able to copy paste my data onto memory like any other portable drive.

And I'd also want one with a touch screen or something, again, an iPod, so I can srs on it and stuff but yeah, same problem, gayTunes.

えっ！iTunes is the best player because it's so handy. Don't tell me you prefer crappy players like Winamp or MediaPlayer over iTunes.

iTunes is a total joke compared to Amarok...

stoked Wrote:iTunes is a total joke compared to Amarok...

heh, I found it hard to make the switch to amarok, if only foobar appeared on linux. It would make even more sense for it to do so even. I found it hard to get ALSA/kernel streaming running on an emulator I really love foobar, it is the most customizable thing out there, free, fast, and no bloat.

bladethecoder Wrote:

Dustin_Calgary Wrote:My fave is the ipod, very customizeable, I went with something cheaper once and was quite disappointed, ipod has a lot of good controls, full customization over playlists, etc. I think the creative zen's are similar in price and functionality as well.

The smallest sizes with a screen have come down in price but still are not super cheap

Yes, but there are quite a few iPods, all different

Yonosa Wrote:What kind of cheap MP3 players are you looking at!? Are they made in Haiti, the Congo, or some place like that?

Usually Hong Kong. And the ones I mentioned first seem to be based on the iPod Shuffle, which is apparently quite good enough for some people and purposes, and is made in the same places as any other iPod.

iPod Shuffle Wrote:Skip to the next song - Press the Next/Fast-forward (>>|) button.
Start a song over or play the previous song - Press the Previous/Rewind (|<<) button once to start a song over. Press it twice to play the previous song.
Fast-forward or rewind a song - Press and hold the Next/Fast-forward (>>|) or Previous/Rewind (|<<) button.

Now, I don't yet know how user-friendly the fast-forward and rewind are, how easy it would be to accidentally "press" instead of "press and hold", or whether the other models do it any differently.

Yonosa Wrote:I mean a $40 Taiwanese made MP3 includes a screen and all the basic amenities, but then again you can probably buy some second rate piece of crap if you're that cheap.

Also, If you came from the stone age, why in the hell didn't you bring some exotic animals from those times, you could have sold them and had enough money for a decent MP3 player.

There's no need to be rude. And it's not "cheap" to only want to pay for the features I need, even if I'm not yet sure what those are.

What I am trying to get at is that, the MP3 player is an investment, so buy a good one. I just have a sony walkman, got it on sale for like $45, and it's pretty solid. I am not saying spend a lot of money. But even basic inexpensive $40 range Mp3 players are highly capable if you didn't know.

Yonosa Wrote:What I am trying to get at is that, the MP3 player is an investment, so buy a good one.

Thats exactly how I reasoned when I bought my D2 for ~$200(!). I'm glad I made the investment, it has served me very well.
An MP3 player is a must when learning a language, IMHO.

I'm with the ipod (touch/phone) camp. Youtube for japanese shows/PVs, ability to set default language as Japanese (even turning some apps to japanese), quick japanese-english dictionary, srs'ing through web browser, easy podcast updating, kanji lyrics for music (also transcripts for jpop101), plus I've actually come to like iTunes. But that's just my opinion. Only down side is the price, but for me it's been well worth it.

I cheaped out and bought a Sandisk Sansa 1GB two years ago for like, $30 off Amazon. You can find the 2GB models these days for $20 and less. It has its (negative) quirks, but it's served me nicely for a small, cheap player. Since I usually only use it for low bitrate audiobooks, podcasts and spoken word, 1GB is usually more than enough space, too.

Also, Foobar2000 FO' LIFE

bladethecoder Wrote:...If we go back to my original question, "I noticed MPlayer (on the PC) lets you seek forward/backward 10 seconds or 1 minute using the arrow keys, which seems rather useful. Do any portable MP3 players have that?" - perhaps the answer might even be "no" =P

If any of you have never tried studying audio with MPlayer-style skipping, please do. Maybe I just have eccentric tastes, but even so, some of you might like it too. Alternatively, maybe this way really is better, and just hasn't caught on yet

I think you're right. I've never seen any portable mp3 player able to do that, and only very few on the computer. I agree with you that the difference in control is amazing being able to jump back a predefined number of seconds with just the click of a button. It's so nice when listening to Jpod101 and trying to transcribe some of their 例文. Just push a button, and back I go 5 seconds. If I want 10 seconds, I just push the button twice. So easy and so much better than rewind or point-at-the-timeline-and-click methods.

I watch recorded TV on my Xbox360 using windows media center. It works the same way. I'm always jumping back a few seconds in shows because I missed something or something. I love it, but I always mess up when watching DVDs, because it's the chapter back button.

^iPod touch/iPhone has a go back 30 seconds button... but only for podcasts and audiobooks.

Really? What's the button? I've got an old video Ipod that I might start using again.

Sorry, it's not available for the non-touch sceen ipods. At least I think it isn't. Looks something like this http://www.theiphoneblog.com/images/stor...ntrols.png

I suggest doing what I am doing. Wait until September for the refresh of the ipods to come and get an ipod touch. You can run AnkiMini on this so do your reviews on the go. Note that you will have to wait until it is jailbroken before this can be done, although there is an official client planned.

Thermal: Are the newer iPods really better than the older ones?

Robots: Unfortunately, I think "go back 30 seconds" is probably too much. 10 seconds is usually about right for me (and when I occasionally want 30 seconds, I just press it 3 times).

I recently got a DS flashcard, and I found a program called Moonshell that annoyingly does almost the things I want but not quite. I'm half tempted to try to modify it, but I don't really have time for that, heh.

Oo, I must have a Pandora! It looks much more friendly to program than a DS =). Though they're both a bit big, so I probably want a small portable MP3 player as well- and I don't see myself needing the most high-tech stuff on that if it's not my primary tool.

(See, I'm not that cheap, lol.)

I think I probably want a player with a standard mass storage interface, even if iPods are better in other ways...

nonpoint Wrote:Thats exactly how I reasoned when I bought my D2 for ~$200(!). I'm glad I made the investment, it has served me very well.
An MP3 player is a must when learning a language, IMHO.

My Creative Zen M has just died on me, so after being without music or Japanese audio for 2 weeks, coincidently I caved in and bought a Cowon D2+ DAB 8GB.

They're still quite expensive in the UK, but I actually bought it on the back of the battery life (can you really get 50+ hours?), SD card expandability, DAB radio and the bookmarking feature (a feature many mp3 players lack!). It hasn't arrived yet; just wondering are bookmarks well implemented on the D2?