HD based mp3 players

[johnbot]

So I'm in the market (or plan to be within the next little while) for an mp3 player. Preferrably a hard disk based one somewhere between 5-20 GB (anything beyond 5 is nice, but nowhere near necessary). It will not be an iPod. At first, I was dead set against anything without an LCD remote, but at this point I don't really consider it necessary,

Comments

[ketrien]

i have yet another option, which has impressed me greatly.
the astonishingly awesome rio karma 20gb
nothing can touch it; forget slowass usb. this thing can do -ETHERNET-! oh, and yeah, i guess it does kinda stream that way too.

[johnbot]

Oh hey, that is one I did forget to mention. It doesn't have FM, which I'd prefer, but that's not an essential for me. However, since you (I assume) have one, maybe you can clear something up for me. Someone somewhere (I forget now) mentioned that while playing, the scroll wheel would skip forward or back within a song. If so, does it jump X seconds and continue playing? I would actually like that functionality, because holding down a button can be annoying if I'm trying to go back just a short distance without either overshooting or not holding down the button long enough and losing the track. I listen to a fair amount of spoken material, so that would be a nice feature for me.

It also appears that I can get a Karma for a pretty damned good price too. I'll consider it.

[ketrien]

unfortunately, i do not have one. i would not object to being given one, however, hinthinthint.
a friend has one. i played with it a bit. istr the scroll wheel doing a 3-5s jump forwards or backwards, and then continues playing. much like pressing left or right arrow in winamp, but without the cheezy fade-in/fade-out. i would check rio to make sure, they're pretty helpful.
and yah; bonus on price.

[johnbot]

After posting that, I went and downloaded the Karma's manual, and it confirms the skip forward/back behavior. It didn't mention the amount of time, but I would have hoped that it'd be something reasonable (3-5s sounding good to me). And assuming newer firmware hasn't added anything more, the feature set discussed in the manual is pretty damned nice. Too bad it doesn't have a remote (though the unit appears to mockingly provide a jack for one, I doubt they're going to release one at this point), but I already said I'm not going to be a stickler for that, so I guess I can't go back on my word. ;)

That said, I had somewhat discounted this player because of the size (chunkiness, that is), but some comparison shots make it look a bit more favourable, and the WxH is pretty good too. I'm sure I can get a hands-on with this thing somewhere around here...

Deciding on one of these things sure isn't easy. And don't you hint me, I don't even have one of my own yet!

[primis]

Of course you don't want an iPod, silly.

You want to buy ME an iPod... right?

-- Primis.

[johnbot]

You can do better than iPod.

[primis]

If I could, wouldn't I have done so already?!

FREE IPOD!!!! Help remove iPod from the tyrannical rule of communist China... oh no wait, that's Tibet.

FREE IPOD!! MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!...

-- Primis.

[johnbot]

It's never too late to... get on some medication.