[legoman]

I. Do I have any alternatives to the Ipod Shuffle?
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- I am looking for something in the $/€ 100 range; $/€ 150 is absolute max
- I hate AAA rechargeables, I want something I can ideally charge on my laptop (which is always with me). I don't want to carry a charger. I am lazy, I know.
- I ideally would want 10h+ battery life, 8h is absolute minimum
- No display is not that big of a problem (lots of audio books), although having one would be nice.
- Small, can be used for jogging, a regular Ipod is definitely way too big
- at least 512MB, 256 is a bit tight
- Good sound quality

I am not an Apple person per se. I do not own any Apple products. But I have yet to find another non-AAA player in that price range. So tell me: Are there any alternatives out there I have missed?

II. Can the Shuffle fast forward or backward within the song...
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...when depressing the fwd/bkwd key like a normal CD-player? In audio books it is crucial to be able to go a few seconds or minutes back and re-listen when I haven't been paying attention.

Thanks,

Legoman

 

[yyoo]

With respect to II, yes, the iPod shuffle supports fast forward and fast reverse within an individual track. You just hold down the << or >> button.

BTW, you probably want something with bookmark support for Audible audiobooks. The shuffle offers that as well.

 

[davidd]

the only other flash player I can think of that is around the same price of the shuffle with that much space is the 128MB Rio Forge with a 512MB SD card (640MB total and a little less than the shuffle), but they use batteries

iRiver is cutting their prices soon, but they still won't be quite as cheap. and the N10 is the only one with a recharable battery.

so the shuffle is pretty much your only choice, unless you want some of the things the other players have like a screen, recorder, etc.

 

[legoman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidd ..... so the shuffle is pretty much your only choice, unless you want some of the things the other players have like a screen, recorder, etc.

It is not that I don't want a display etc., it is just less important to me than it being USB rechargeable. I know it seems weird to most but with my (work) lifestyle means that I am always with a computer but also always in different countries for longer stretches which makes AAA rechargeables a pain (to me).

 

[Cyclone]

im not absoloutly sure but i think the sandisk is cheaper has all of those features. could be mistaken though so try and check them out by just googling them.

edit:it should be noted that some players can charge their AAA batteries from the usb so you should look closely for that info

 

[jimbodinny]

look into iRiver flash based mp3 player.

 

[easypeasy]

My 512MB iRiver N10 is even more expensive than the 1G iPod shuffle, that is after I got it at a discounted price!!

I love the electroluminecent screen on the N10, but as a player, I don't really
want to keep looking at the screen.

The shuffle makes you think about the screen, we never had any screen with old cd players and Walkman

 

[Thisp]

http://www.dapreview.net/comment.php?comment.news.952

'nuff said.

 

[xau]

The best player for you is probably the Creative MuVo slim.

$139 (the 512Mb version)
Charges through USB
User replaceble battery
17H battery life
It has a screen (plus radio and voice recording)
Small and uses a flash card (good for joging)! it's about the size of a credit card but a little bit more thick (about 5 times as thick as a credit card)
excelent sound quality.

i river has good flash based players too but the MuVo slim seems to be the most adequate for you.

 

[viper_45]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xau The best player for you is probably the Creative MuVo slim. $139 (the 512Mb version) Charges through USB User replaceble battery 17H battery life It has a screen (plus radio and voice recording) Small and uses a flash card (good for joging)! it's about the size of a credit card but a little bit more thick (about 5 times as thick as a credit card) excelent sound quality. i river has good flash based players too but the MuVo slim seems to be the most adequate for you.

I second his recommendation. My brother bought one of these recently and it's a good all-rounder. SQ is good - (helped by the EQ), it's very slim (as the same suggests), you get a decent smart carry case with it and the battery life is good / can (only) be charged via USB. The radio and voice recording functions can also be pretty useful (it records voice in mono - 16hrs worth i think).

 

[MrSlacker]

why not get a player that uses AAA batteries and just get a pack of regular AAAs for cheap.

 

[IpaqMan]

I am a little late here. For audio book use (not Audible books), the Iaudio U2 (USB rechargeable and UMS) is excellent. Runtime is up to 20 hours per charge.

You can fast forward/rewind very quickly through a long passage. It can FF through an hour in less than 30 seconds. Many other players have a max FF speed of 12x or 16x. It also provides 20 bookmarks. The bookmarks are displayed as track titles. On my Nitrus, the bookmarks are displayed only as numbers. You have to guess which book belongs to each bookmark.

I have been searching for a good audio book mp3 player for a couple of years. I just chose a related product, the Iaudio 5. It takes AAA batteries (20 hour runtime) and has a giant LCD display. It has the same functionality as the U2.

For Audible.com books, the Muvo N200 is a good alternative but it takes AAA batteries.

BTW, some players like the Muvo2 can be charged with a special USB to power plug cable (Ipaq 3600/3700 USB charger cable).

 

[Rodent]

Muvo Slim is pretty sweet. An iPod mini isnt much more than £150, though, I think. There's also the Samsung YP-T6Z and iAUDIO U2 within that price range, at least in Sweden.

 

[blessingx]

If you want Audible support, go to Audible.com and click the Device Center. You can see what's compatible. Also glance at the format support, to know the sound quality level which is supported. I use '4' (highest level directly from Audible) which is an .AA file, basically an encrypted 32 kbps mono MP3 file. If you buy the same book from iTMS, it's a .m4b 32 kbps mono AAC encrypted file. I confirmed this with Audible (and by downloading a free book from iTMS). At 32 kbps, AAC should be quite a bit superior, but I haven't ABed (don't have the same title). I'm assuming these will only work with the various iPods. Course in either case, you could play/capture the stream on your computer and convert/transcode to a non-protected/non-crippled format for any player (my friend does this for his NJB). "--alt-preset medium -a --lowpass 10" (though you should probably also try a FhG encoder) works quite nicely if you want generic MP3 (give a little headroom so new artifacts are very minor - very close to original).

As for any other audiobook sources (purchased CDs, library, etc.), I can't comment on bookmarking for other players, but I'll say the various iPods support bookmarking any AAC encode, simply by changing the extension from .m4a to .m4b. This is extremely useful. This is also possible if transcoding Audible to say ~48 kpbs AAC mono (again for a little headroom to minimize new artifacts... this is my current audiobook default).

Also see: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000953032902/

 

[MartinJ]

Have you checked out the new SONY flash player?