advex

Having owned an Archos Jukebox 20GB, that uses 4 rechargeable AA's, for the past 2 years, it's time to get something lighter. It weighs in at 13 oz and is the size of a 1983 Sony Walkman.

I have a SanDisk micro MP3 player that uses 1 AAA battery, over 12 hours per battery, but it's only 1 GB- a good backup but not something to go into battle with. Advantage is that you can carry lots of AAA's and you can buy them anywhere. It was a great buy at $130 and is PERFECT for the gym. (Nothing like a little Slipknot to intensify the workout instead of the club garbage they pipe through the speakers)

On the 20 - 40 gig players, which is the king of battery life? Dell, Creative, iPod (any issues using Windows XP), etc.

ScottC

I have yet to find an ipod capable of fulfilling its battery promise. My wife is trying a new 6Gb mini which so far looks faily promising.

My personal favourite after trying pretty much every major model is still the Rio Karma. I get a decent 20 hours out of that baby, it plays MP3 and OGG (with OGG I am able to carry the equivelent of 49Gb of MP3). It can sync over ethernet and it has playlist features Apple could only dream of. No stupid shuffling before you leave, this baby can make a playlist lasting 2 hours based on music I haven't played in the past month etc...

Another good option would be one of the Dell jukeboxes, they too lasted for ages before dying...

swise

Users have reported that all of the current model iPods are performaing at or beyond their battery promise. Shuffles in particular, promised to last 12 hours, are lasting 18-20 on one charge for some.

This was really only an issue in the first rev models. Each rev has introduced better and better technology for handling the power management, and this has been reflected in the reviews the products have been getting.

Apple has a tendency to be haunted by its past more than other companies, due to the well-known brand.

I have a rev1 iPod that still works fine. The battery is no spring chicken, to be sure, but it does hold a charge for a couple of hours: pretty good, considering I've gone months without using it, left it in the car during extreme heat and cold, used an AC cigarette adapter that doesn't sense when to shut off, regularly let it discharge down to nothing before recharging, etc.

ScottC

Yes, I am sure it has nothing to do with their lack of being able to deliver according to the specs of the device in the past...

My original 5Gb ipod was pretty much useless after a year, the battery would only last for about 20 minutes.

My next ipod had that effect after 5 months.

At that point i gave up... My wife however still loves her ipod(s)...

swise

My point was that because of the visibility Apple receives (fan sites, media, analyst attention, etc), any instances of lack of delivery tend to stay in people's minds longer than, say, if Toshiba had a product with a similar shortcoming.


Any idea how many charge cycles they went through? In my experience, that sort of performace is not the norm, and, considering a good chunk of the Customer Service/Support folks are my neighbors -- and that a good 75%-80% of my co-workers and probably 60%-75% of family and friends own them -- I'd probably be aware if it was.

Yep, they're made more for the "your wife" market and not really the "ScottC market". You're not exactly the bullseye for this target.

ScottC

I know

And despite that all I still love Apple... Spending half an hour in an Apple store is a real pleasure for me

MBM3

I concur - I love my Karma and picked it over the apple stuff for a lot of reasons, most of which being the battery life issues at the time I was investigating products. I do wish it came with a case and it would be nice if it were just a bit thinner....just being picky.

jumpmonger23

I suppose you're talking about on the unit itself? That would be a good advantage over iPods, but with the flexibility that iTunes provides anyway, I really don't see a need for creating playlists on the fly when I'm out.

ScottC

Yes, on the unit itself.

I have all the music I ever need right on my device and REALLY don't want to have to hook it up to itunes or any other app once a week to make a new playlist. The last time I hooked up the device to my desktop was the week I purchased it...

The Karma has "Rio DJ" built in and can make playlists based on the following "rules":


Top Tunes : your most played tracks
New Music: only plays recently loaded music
Sounds of...: Plays music from a specific year
Forgotten Gems: Plays music you have'nt heard in the past X days/weeks/months
Deja Vu: Plays tracks you DID play in the past X days/weeks/months...
Random Mix: What apple calls shuffle
Entertain me: makes a random playlist X minutes/hours long

It will also play music out of a specific genre, artist or album of course...

ScottC

Well, the "new" Karma should be on its way pretty soon. A device with Karma like settings, color display, photo support etc...

I can't wait!

csb

My Dell Jukebox 20gb lasts forever on a full battery charge. It's now almost a year old, and I've yet to notice any depreciation in battery life.

daw617

I have had a 40GB Nomad Jukebox 3 (NJB3) for a few years now. I get 20+ hrs on one charge (with two batteries). I am very pleased with it.

Pluses: It has a line-out (I use it with a Total Airhead amp + Etymotic 4S headphones); sound quality is quite good; it handles VBR mp3s encoded with notlame --alt-preset extreme.

Minuses: It is a little large, compared to, say, the Ipod. The form factor and size is just strange enough that it won't go in your pocket (not a problem for me, but might be for you). The PC software that goes with it gets flaky when downloading hundreds of albums onto it, though you can generally make things work.

All in all, I am happy with it. I would happily buy another if this one broke.

jwalkabout

Take a look at the iaudio/jetaudio M3 or M3L. There are several positive reviews about it and it has unbelievable battery life for a 20gb DAP that is about as slim as they come. I have the G3 flash plaer and it plays all of my Mp3's, WMAs and OGG files with no problems. The sound settings on the player are the best I have ever heard.

I am a flash player kind of guy but if I was buying a HD player I would definitely check the M3/M3L out, keep in mind that it only operates by remote control with a display, which may or may not be a hassle. I tend to leave my players in my pocket. Go to iaudiophile.net, dapreview.net, iaudio.com and cnet.com for reviews and specs.

Also I hear alot of positive things about the Iriver players.

I don't really care for players that support mainly proprietary codecs such as Apple and Sony, although the Sony HD-3 and HD-1 look really sweet and are supposed to have awesome battery life.

Ipod is only worth it if u buy music from itunes, your entire collection is in AAC or MP3 format and you want to spend more money on a bunch of accessories.

scubamom

If you need to travel as "light" as I do and every inch of space counts in my roller suitcase and carry on, I've paired a Samsung YP-MT6Z - tiny 1 gig player with a choseable playlist (unlike the Shuffle) with a foldable Sennheiser PXC300 Noise Surpressing Headphone and it all fits (including a few extra batteries) in the Sennheiser case that is only slightly larger than a standard glasses case.

I've put about 300 songs on it, the AA battery lasts about 40 hours, and it's only 1" x 2 1/2" x 1" in size. Great sound too. The Sennheiser doesn't handle the noise suppression quite as well as the "double the price, monster size" Bose headphones, but it's fairly good. I'd say it cuts the sound about halfway between the Bose Low and High settings.

The Samsung and Sennheiser are definitely space savers.

Somewhere Over the Atlantic

There are some--myself, included--that view AAC as a sonically superior format to MP3 when comparing files of the same size. With almost no non-Apple products supporting AAC, this limited my choices to the iPod line. (I ended up getting an iPod Mini 2nd-gen 4G, and have been very pleased with it.)

Did anyone else find this to be a factor in their choice of portable audio player?