Travel Technology - Best mp3 player, small, takes standard batteries?

I'm having a bit of trouble with this one. When I think of what mp3 player would be best to get my mother, I think iPod. She even already has a MacBook.

But. She wants to take this thing on her hike next year. Big hike, Appalachian Trail, the whole thing in one summer. To me, this really suggests that proprietary rechargeable batteries would be a bad idea. She may have rather infrequent chances to recharge them. Also, she's got it in her head that she'd like to have an FM tuner in it. I'm not sure how much reception she'll get most of the time, but whatever.

I know there are external gadgets that can charge devices that have rechargeable batteries, and I've even seen solar panels that hook to packs, etc. but I think this is going to make things to bulky and/or heavy. (I'm open to suggestions along these lines, though, if they're small enough.) It's one thing to carry just a player and one of these charger things, quite another to have a great number of other essential items and have to be able to carry them all with you all the time for weeks on end. Supplies can be replenished along the way, so a couple of spare standard batteries could do until the next town stop, where they could be tossed and new ones bought.

So anyone have a suggestion for one of these? The amount of storage is the least of our issues. 1GB would be plenty, even 512MB is probably plenty. The key is that it's small and light, has FM tuner, takes a standard battery (probably AAA size), and can be filled from the MacBook somehow. (That last seems to be a sticking point with some players.) Ease of use would be nice (this is my mother after all, not too technical ;)), but probably has to be sacrificed somewhat in favor of the other features.

No tuner, but I have a Sandisk 1 gb that takes another GB or 2 on SD cards, so you can have lots of choices by just swapping the cards. It's very small, runs a couple transcons on one aaa battery and sounds pretty good.

It was a refurib, like $25, I believe the deal was actually mentioned in this forum.

Ecost has a later model with 2 gb and a built in tuner for $35

http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=40040349&source=EWBBASE&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=40040349

but it's out of stock.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this one. When I think of what mp3 player would be best to get my mother, I think iPod. She even already has a MacBook.

But. She wants to take this thing on her hike next year. Big hike, Appalachian Trail, the whole thing in one summer. To me, this really suggests that proprietary rechargeable batteries would be a bad idea. She may have rather infrequent chances to recharge them. Also, she's got it in her head that she'd like to have an FM tuner in it. I'm not sure how much reception she'll get most of the time, but whatever.

I know there are external gadgets that can charge devices that have rechargeable batteries, and I've even seen solar panels that hook to packs, etc. but I think this is going to make things to bulky and/or heavy. (I'm open to suggestions along these lines, though, if they're small enough.) It's one thing to carry just a player and one of these charger things, quite another to have a great number of other essential items and have to be able to carry them all with you all the time for weeks on end. Supplies can be replenished along the way, so a couple of spare standard batteries could do until the next town stop, where they could be tossed and new ones bought.

So anyone have a suggestion for one of these? The amount of storage is the least of our issues. 1GB would be plenty, even 512MB is probably plenty. The key is that it's small and light, has FM tuner, takes a standard battery (probably AAA size), and can be filled from the MacBook somehow. (That last seems to be a sticking point with some players.) Ease of use would be nice (this is my mother after all, not too technical ;)), but probably has to be sacrificed somewhat in favor of the other features.

This SanDisk player (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/SanDisk-2GB-M250-Digital-Audio-Player-with-FM-Tuner-SDMX32048A18/sem/rpsm/oid/134798/catOid/-12952/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do) does what you're looking for. It's 2GB, has an FM tuner and takes 1 AAA battery which lasts for 19 hours of continuous playback.

I have a creative zen nano that take a AAA battery. It is tiny. I think I bought the biggest one when I bought it but I could use more memory now. so I would suggest getting as large a storage memory as possible. I am pretty positive you can receive the radio on it as well.

Worth a look.

http://us.creative.com/products/welcome.asp?category=213&

Thanks. I like the idea of either the Sandisk or the Creative, but I'll have to see if I can dig up info on whether they can be filled from a Mac. I suppose it doesn't have to use iTunes, but it might be easier if it did. Creative always used to support Macs so maybe their site just ignores that because they assume everyone with a Mac will buy an iPod. Sandisk I thought totally ignored Macs with theirs so I dunno.

Also, it seems both of these are discontinued or at least being pushed aside in favor of newer models that use rechargeables. Hm....

I recommend against buying a player with no provision for adding memory. Get something (even a phone) that takes mini- or micro-SD cards and you can carry hundreds of hours of music in your watch pocket. Anything that only has built-in memory is already obsolete.

Rechargeable batteries are better than throw-away, but make sure you can change them in the field. One of iPod's worst features is that the user can't switch batteries when the built-in runs down.

I recommend against buying a player with no provision for adding memory. Get something (even a phone) that takes mini- or micro-SD cards and you can carry hundreds of hours of music in your watch pocket. Anything that only has built-in memory is already obsolete.

Rechargeable batteries are better than throw-away, but make sure you can change them in the field. One of iPod's worst features is that the user can't switch batteries when the built-in runs down.

I don't think changeable battery will be too useful in this particular instance if it's a proprietary battery. Needing to carry several of them wouldn't be too good. Throw-away is normally something I would avoid, but this is a special case. The town stops are going to be small towns. The stops may not be long enough to recharge anything. The easiest thing would be to toss old AAAs and buy new ones.

I wasn't too concerned about expanding with cards, but cards are large and cheap enough now, for sure. Do you have a suggestion for player, though? I didn't notice any that take cards. I need a very small player that runs on one AAA battery (any more would be too big), has FM and will fill from a Mac, and can be figured out by my non-technical 65-year-old mother. The amount of memory is really secondary. 1GB is probably enough for her, but extra cards is not a bad idea if I could find one that worked.

A phone is out of the question from the battery point of view.

Hm, I think another friend has tipped me off to a good option, which does have a card slot:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDMX2-1024-Digital-Player-Expansion/dp/B00083XXTY/ref=pd_sim_e_img_41#productPromotions

These apparently are phased out as well, but he says he saw it much cheaper than that, so that may be it. I do appreciate your suggestions, thanks!

That's the one I got for like $25 refruib (or at least the same case)

There are portable rechargeable options for iPods such as the Energizer Energi To Go:
http://www.energizer.com/products/energi-to-go/ipod-charger/Pages/ipod-battery-charger.aspx

Or you can make your own portable USB charger:
http://paulstamatiou.com/2006/06/06/review-minty-boost-ipod-charger-kit/

You can get a regular iPod or a iPod Nano and bring along these chargers and you are set. You can buy a FM adapter if she really wants one. Then she can use iTunes and it would make things so much easier on her MacBook.

There are portable rechargeable options for iPods such as the Energizer Energi To Go:
http://www.energizer.com/products/energi-to-go/ipod-charger/Pages/ipod-battery-charger.aspx

You can get a regular iPod or a iPod Nano and bring along these chargers and you are set. You can buy a FM adapter if she really wants one. Then she can use iTunes and it would make things so much easier on her MacBook.

I recommend this option as well. It's one I use now in conjuction with my regular computer connection.

There are other rechargers similar to this one. Many of them use AA batteries (the one I use uses 1 AA battery and charges my 80G ipod to 1/2 capacity). Do a search on "Ipod chargers" and see what pops up.

The Sandisk should work with a Mac. It will just appear as a flash drive. Just drag and drop the mp3s.

I recommend the Creative Zen Nano, it's the smallest mp3 that uses standard batteries. I have several myself (and the Sandisk m240, ipod nano and shuffle, rio forge, zvm, creative v200), and the Zen Nano gets the most playtime of them all.

Hey by the way, if you go San Disk, when you drag the files, put them in a folder or two so you don't run into the number of files in the root directory issue on the device.

Didn't do that the first time.

I have both the Sandisk E250 and the Creative Zen. Both use a standard AAA battery. I primarily use the mp3 player on Transpacs & it lives in my QC2 case along with 2 backup batteries.

I prefer traveling with the Sandisk because the battery doesn't run down much when it's powered off (sometimes it's a few months between flights). If I haven't used the Zen for a few months it's pretty much guaranteed that the battery is flat. The only real advantage of the Zen is that it has a standard USB plug. The Sandisk requires a USB to mini-USB cable to update the songs.

Just wanted to thank you again for the additional updates. I went with that refurbished Sandisk e140 for now, which is $30 here http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0264987 I'm still a little worried about the whole integration thing, but I think she'll be able to handle dropping the files over, and apparently the player itself handles finding the files; they don't have to be organized in a particular way so probably digging into the iTunes library and dragging will be fine. Sounds pretty decent for the price. We'll see.