[austonia]

I'm trying to group DAPs into useful catagories for a buying guide but for "Full-featured players" I'm trying to decide if on-the-fly playlisting should be a requirement. For me, I think so, but it's also relevant to what other people think. If most people agree that yes, it is a must-have feature, then it knocks the iRiver iHP off the list and a few others.

 

[Big D]

Personally I consider an LCD remote the main "must-have" feature which sadly most DAPs lack, followed by gapless playback. Because the iHP has the LCD remote I would consider playlists on the fly a non-essential feature plus it can queue up the next song anyway. When I'm out in the street, which is where I mostly use my iHP, the last thing I want to do is be getting out my £300 player and waving it around.

The Karma doesn't come with a proper protective case.

The iPod doesn't have a good enough battery life to be fully featured nor does it have gapless.


Simply there is no "fully-featured" player on the market at the moment. There are players with good and bad points. No-one yet makes what I would consider a fully featured player. Still waiting for the next Gen of players.

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big D Personally I consider an LCD remote the main "must-have" feature which sadly most DAPs lack, followed by gapless playback. Because the iHP has the LCD remote I would consider playlists on the fly a non-essential feature plus it can queue up the next song anyway. When I'm out in the street, which is where I mostly use my iHP, the last thing I want to do is be getting out my £300 player and waving it around..

no problem, but most people wouldn't agree or else we'd see more players with a fully-functional LCD.... supply & demand

Quote:

The Karma doesn't come with a proper protective case.

I don't think most people would agree that knocks it off the list either. You're buying a player, not a case. If you get one, so much the better, but that doesn't affect the quality of the player itself.

Quote:

The iPod doesn't have a good enough battery life to be fully featured nor does it have gapless.

Believe it or not, most people believe that 4-8 hours _IS_ enough for a player according to polling by Juniper Research (an industry standard). obviously, more is better, but the iPod's battery like is OK for the vast majority of buyers. So that wouldn't disqualify it either.

Gapless is a nice feature to have, LOVE it on my Karma, but it's not even close to top of the list of features that _most_ people look for in a DAP...

Simply there is no "fully-featured" player on the market at the moment. There are players with good and bad points. No-one yet makes what I would consider a fully featured player. Still waiting for the next Gen of players.[/QUOTE]

 

[Luke]

Hi Austin,

You misspelled "playlisting" in the poll. Could you define playlisting? Do you mean the ability to add tracks to a current playlist, or adding tracks to a current playlist and then saving that playlist to the HD, or do you mean creating and saving new playlists? Or all the above? Thanks

 

[gorman]

Yes, I do think it's important. Before getting the Karma I didn't consider it so. Now that I'm used to be able to edit and save playlists on a fly, I'd think twice before buying a DAP that doesn't allow me to do it.

Even more so considering that it's not something so complicated to implement...

 

[austonia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luke Hi Austin, You misspelled "playlisting" in the poll. Could you define playlisting? Do you mean the ability to add tracks to a current playlist, or adding tracks to a current playlist and then saving that playlist to the HD, or do you mean creating and saving new playlists? Or all the above? Thanks

Hi Luke,
what i mean is just the abiltiy to create a custom playlist on the player itself.

btw i can't change the poll question now so the misspelling has to stay, sorry 'bout that

 

[DigDub]

is playlisting something similar to that on creative's hard disk based nomad series of players? if so, it isn't a big deal for me, since i seldom used it anyway when i had the nomad zen 2.0 cos thats not my listening habit. i usually listen by folders (1 folder = 1 album), looping all the songs in it until i get tired of it and and will proceed on to another album.

 

[rextrade]

Before I got my ipod, I thought that on-the-fly playlisting would be really important, but in reality I never use it. For me, my biggest ipod complaint is the lack of user settable eq. I admit it, some music needs eq, depending on the headphone. All sound engineers aren't created equal and neither are all headphones.

 

[blessingx]

No, but it would be nice. Growing up on LPs, cassettes, and CDs, I'm usually an 'album' listener, but it's obvious things are moving (at least partially) back to a 'single' age. Seems like a more important feature for that.

But going a few years ago from a first gen NJB (all about on-the-fly playlists) to the first gen iPod (not an option), I didn't miss it at all.

 

[john_jcb]

I use the playlists but I could live without them. I have 3 for the gym that I rotate based on my mood. One of favorite tracks that I change as the mood strikes me and a couple of Jazz compilations.

Other than that I use the play by artist, album or the random track selections.

 

[DigDub]

i would consider these features to be essential to a dap.
1. ability to delete files on the player. ihp can't do that now.
2. decent live recording capability. minidisc is pretty good at this.
3. adjustable eq.
4. hard disk capability. able to transfer files natively. creative daps can't do it.
5. useful firmware updates.

hmm...thats all i can think of for now.

 

[GSTom1]

Playlisting-on-the-fly is a great function that should be on all DAPs. Here's a good example to demonstate the value of playlisting-on-the-fly.

I was riding in a car with a friend. He has his iPod Gen 2 with him and I had my Nomad Zen 2.0. He wanted to hear some of my songs from different albums, so I went into my music library, browsed and added a bunch of songs to the currently playing queue, and played them. Subsequently, I was able to add more songs while the Zen was playing and also change the order in which they were played (i.e. move tracks around).

Later, my friend wanted to play some dance tracks from his iPod Gen 2 from various albums. Unfortunately, he forgot to make a playlist for them on his computer in advance. Therefore, he could only play one track at a time. After one track finished playing, he had to browse for the next song and so on. Can you imagine how tedious this process is if you have a lot of tracks to play?!?

I have certainly taken playlisting-on-the-fly for granted and don't think I could use a DAP without this feature.

 

[austonia]

well this hasn't proven to be very conclusive either way.. near 50/50

 

[gorman]

Well... I would see it this way. Why a modern DAP should *not* have it? Is there a technical reason? Is it difficult to implement? The answer is no to all two questions. And I say we should not put up with companies' laziness.

Now, before somebody thinks that I'm just defending the Karma, I will just add that I consider the absence of a remote for the Karma as lazy as not having on the fly playlists (and the ability to save them).

 

[TMC]

Since I'm very much used to on-the-fly playlists with my Zen Xtra I would have to say that it's become a necessity by now. It just doesn't make sense to me why you'd need to make playlists on the computer, when most players have a fairly large display that will easily allow you to set up a playlist directly on the player just the way you want it, when you want it. Having to decide in advance what songs/albums in what order I will feel like listening to in a couple of hours or days later just doesn't cut it for me.