thelinuxlink.net

I'm thinking about getting rid of my iPod again. It's an older 3g one, and I hate it. It still works though, so I haven't yet gotten rid of it. One of the players I've been looking at is the cowon A2. I also really like the looks of the iaudio6, but I need more disk than that. I'd be more into the xl5, but it's pretty damn long in the tooth at this point, and from what I can tell, firmwares are few and far between at this point. Still, a 60 gigger would be sweetass.

Anyhow, back to the point - could anyone who has an A2 let me know what they think about it?

I convinced a friend to get one and I have done a lot of research on it before so I know a fair amount about it. Although supposedly there will be a new one coming out in the near future so if you can hold out for a little while I would.

The one thing that really scares me away from the A2 is it's size, it's not huge but its not small either (I think I compared and the screen is the size of my X5L or an iPod). For me the iAudio X5 is a great size because I like things to be able to easily fit in my pocket, but it comes down to preference. That and the slow USB-OTG/USB-Host connection are the only problems I have with it. Either than that the interface is really nice, the screen is amazing, it have all the standard iAudio features (Voice recording, fm radio, line-in recording, OGG support, FLAC support, etc). It plays videos very nicely and it seems like a solid unit plus you can record from and play to your TV directly. If you turn the screen off a good amount then it has pretty good battery life too. Not to mention it runs Linux

Overall if it doesn't matter to you that it is a little bulkier than most digital audio players I would get it (or wait for the A3).

To be honest, I'd rather get an iaudio x5 next gen, but it appears that may be what the iaudio6 is. I don't want a 4 gig device - especially in that price range, and especially non-solid-state. I'd probably snap up an x5 if it weren't for the fact that it's 2 year + old technology at this point, and the fact that it uses that godawful minipack. I hate dongles. Oh, and the car-charger options look pretty damn horrible, too.

I can definitely hold out. The size is a little worrisome to me - in general I want an audio player, but maybe the movie thing would be nice, too, especially if I could stick training materials on it (CBT stuff). I imagine if cowon follows archos, though, the a3 will be physically even larger than it is now. I also wish the hard drives weren't so small - 20/30 gigs is pretty lame in this day and age. I have to admit, though, that the PVR ability is a pretty damn sweet idea.

At this point, what I really want is an ipod form-factor player with a decent sized drive (30+ gig) that's linux friendly. Video would be a plus, but isn't a requirement. Ogg support would be nice, but again, I don't use ogg for most of my stuff (got burned already by aac - don't want all of my media in a non standard format, even if it is better/free/whatever. I may change my tune on this, but not today). I hate to say it, but the previews of the zune look pretty sweet. I don't expect it to be linux compatible though

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives ... h-daps.php
4GB Flash players are coming soon although that is still not _that_ much...

I still like my iAudio X5L, it's a solid player with a good set of features but yes it would be nice to see a successor come out soon. I think it is extremely odd that one hasn't come out already considering it was once known as the best 'ipod-killer' and wildly popular. Anyways the subpack is only slightly annoying to carry around, the most annoying part is the fact that it isn't held in very firmly. As far as the car charger/fm transmitter goes I actually like it since you can charge it (it clips in so it doesn't constantly fall off) or detach the charger and just transmite using fm. It can use the charger as power for the transmitter or the AAA battery you can put in it. However my charger broke so I am probably just going to get a generic one that uses a headphone jack.

I've had such a positive experience with my Iaudio5. It still works without issue 18+ months after purchasing. Whenever someone asks me about audio players I tell them to check out Iaudio. I haven't heard any negative comments from them after their purchases. Whenever this thing dies I will most definitely get another Iaudio device. Cheap, reliable, USB mass storage and it plays OGG!!! What's not to love?

I too love my IAudio 5, which I have had for a little over a year. Fantastic little device.

As to the A2, I have actually been thinking about getting one as well. There are some good reviews at Amazon, and the 30GB model is now just a bit over $300, which seems like a pretty good price to me.

http://tinyurl.com/yzvojj

Thanks for the input, folks. My oldass ipod has always worked, though sometimes linux hasn't worked with it. I can stand to wait for a while - it sure would be nice if more vendors made linux compat stuff. IIRC iRiver was good for a while, but now most of their stuff is plays for sure. It appears that neuros isn't planning on releasing a new audio player any time soon. Both the archos and the iaudio "media players" are linux based, which is pretty sweet, but size is a concern for me, and I really doubt I'd be watching many movies on a pocket device - I could be wrong though.