[Raguvian]

So I ended up returning my J3 as Cowon didn't want to take it back and the battery life was horrendous. Now I need a new mp3 player and want to go cheap.
 
My requirements: 12 hour battery life minimum
Drag and drop
FLAC playability
Minimum 16 gb
 
Don't want or need:
Color screen
Touch screen
Video playback
 
Right now I'm trying to decide between the Clip+ and a 16 gb microSD card, which would be a total of $70, and a refurb iPod Classic 4G (black and white) 20 gb. Both would be running rockbox.
 
Which one will give me better battery life and sound quality? My old clip+ that I sold didn't get great battery life, but I didn't rockbox it either. However, my understanding is that the microSD card slot really drains the battery. Is this true?
 
I'm leaning towards the clip+ for its size and the fact that it's new, but the iPod for the battery life.
 
Any suggestions?
 
Thanks!

 

[sari0n]

The Clip+ with 16 plus gb of music is going to be very annoying to navigate.  So you'd probably be better off with the ipod except that I'm pretty sure ipods don't play FLAC.... which means you're going to have to convert to ALAC or look elsewhere.  ipods also aren't drag and drop.  I don't know if the older ones are any different but I know all of the recent ones have been like that.
 
I'm sort of surprised that you didn't like your J3.  It must have been defective or something because mine gets 12 hours easily, probably even double that.  Sometimes you need to go through a few charge and discharge cycles for the battery to reach its full potential.  Maybe you can take a look at the iaudio 9 although that might be a bit more than you want to spend.  The Sandisk Fuze+, original Fuze, as well as the e260 and other Sandisk players are all very nice as well (also very inexpensive), and will be much easier to navigate than the Clip.  

 

[ostewart]

the clip+ isnt that bad to navigate with lots of music if it's rockboxed. I find it fine. It's plus points are far more than the negatives.

 

[Raguvian]

With rockbox though, I will be able to play FLAC files and have the drag and drop functionality as well. I just want to know how the SQ compares.
 
The J3 was very weird. I got 4 days out of it twice, but every other time I put it to sleep, it'd die when I tried to turn it on. An email response from jetaudio/cowon just said that with their settings they got 64 hours of playback. They didn't bother to test my player or anything so I returned it.