I'm looking for a portable device that can....

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:52 am

1. Play mp3 and ogg
2. Has a voice recorder
3. Has an fm tuner
4. Preferably is less than 100 bucks
5. Fits in a pants pocket

Anyone know of such a beast?

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:47 am

I really like the iAudio line from Cowon. I've had an iAudio5 for a long time now and it's still working fine. It fits all of your requirements but I don't think they sell that model anymore. I believe the successor is the iAudio7. It does everything that the 5 does plus the following:
- 4 gig of storage
- plays flac files (besides mp3, ogg, wav, wma)
- you can schedule radio recordings with the FM tuner
- has a rechargeable battery
- displays pictures (jpeg)
- display txt files
- can play video (avi & mp4)

I think they sell for about $140.

Another cool device from Cowon is the D2. Aaron Newcome had one at OLF and I was checking it out. It has a bigger screen for video playback, handles more video codecs and has a touch screen interface. A very slick device. That model sells for like $185.

Like the iAudio5 I believe both devices are mounted as usb mass storage devices so all you need to do is plug it in and drag and drop files.

Check out newegg. If you don't want to spend that much I'll sell you mine for $75.

Chess · Post by **Chess** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 7:53 am

+1 on the iAudio line.

tuxtorials.com · Post by **tuxtorials.com** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:30 am

Sounds cool! I'd like one of them; probably twice that price in the UK. I hate this place

By the way, anyone know of a Linux based video camera? I'm looking at getting a camera and would like a Linux based one if they exist!

Chris

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:58 pm

Thanks for the replies. One follow up question concerning the voice recorder.

I am looking for something akin to a note taking device recorder. You know the kind where you just "jot" thoughts into it. Would it be plausible to be listening to an audio file and then be able to quickly stop and record 5 seconds of audio and then go back to listening music with this device? What is the process for recording voice?

greggh · Post by **greggh** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:27 pm

I would recommend the Meizu M6 or M3. They play every format including OGG, APE, and FLAC.

Newegg has the 4GB M6 for $89.99 after $10 rebate free shipping...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6855625004

If 1GB is enough for you then you can get it as cheap as $72.98 shipped...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6855625008

The M3 is really tiny and is said to have even better sound quality, but it has a smaller 1.5" screen. I've seen the 2GB as cheap as $85 at MP4Nation. Shipping is only $6.50 plus I think they have a $3 off code, so it would be $88.50 shipped...

http://mp4nation.com/products/index.php?PID=m3b

If you're not too concerned with viewing pics and watching vids the M3 is one of the best players for quality and all the formats it can play and small size.

jamathis · Post by **jamathis** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:29 pm

Patrick wrote:I really like the iAudio line from Cowon. I've had an iAudio5 for a long time now and it's still working fine. It fits all of your requirements but I don't think they sell that model anymore. I believe the successor is the iAudio7. It does everything that the 5 does plus the following:
- 4 gig of storage
- plays flac files (besides mp3, ogg, wav, wma)
- you can schedule radio recordings with the FM tuner
- has a rechargeable battery
- displays pictures (jpeg)
- display txt files
- can play video (avi & mp4)

I think they sell for about $140.

Another cool device from Cowon is the D2. Aaron Newcome had one at OLF and I was checking it out. It has a bigger screen for video playback, handles more video codecs and has a touch screen interface. A very slick device. That model sells for like $185.

Like the iAudio5 I believe both devices are mounted as usb mass storage devices so all you need to do is plug it in and drag and drop files.

Check out newegg. If you don't want to spend that much I'll sell you mine for $75.

Sounds like a cool player with great features. I would like something similar but with a lot more storage capacity. That's the only reason I've been sticking with the iPod is storage space. No one else seems to be offering anything with 80 or 160 GB of space. Based totally on capacity the iPod is still the best thing for someone with a large music collection. Anyone know of anything with the features of the iAudio, but with the capacity of the iPod?

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:16 am

All those devices look nice.

I should have emphasized from the beginning that the voice recording is the most important thing for me. I need something that can do voice notes really easy. You know like those old tape machines where you just push a button talk and then let go. I want the other stuff too but not at the expense of a clumsy voice recorder.

Can anyone explain how the voice recording works on these devices? Like for instance what would the procedure be if you were listening to an mp3 and then needed to take a quick voice note?

Post by **Patrick** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:38 am

hellonorman wrote:Can anyone explain how the voice recording works on these devices? Like for instance what would the procedure be if you were listening to an mp3 and then needed to take a quick voice note?

I can't talk about the devices I don't own. The Iaudio 5 has a scroll wheel on the bottom used to navigate directories. It has a scroll wheel on top to power on/off the device (by holding it in for 2 secs), fast foward, rewind and pause. It has a mode button in the middle to switch between audio playback, voice recording, line-in recording and radio play. The device will be in whatever mode you were in before shutting down last. The next button on top is the record button. The quickest way to do voice recordings is stay in voice record mode and just hit the record button. To get from audio playback to record is 3 taps (hit the pause on playback wheel, hit the mode button to go to record mode, hit the record button to start recording. Hope that helps.

mowestusa · Post by **mowestusa** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 9:45 am

hellonorman wrote:Can anyone explain how the voice recording works on these devices? Like for instance what would the procedure be if you were listening to an mp3 and then needed to take a quick voice note?

It really sounds like you want two different devices. One to play mp3s and one to do voice recording. Sometimes having an all in one is not the best solution. I would suggesting finding a really cheap like $20-$30 digital recorder, storage should not matter if you just want to record a few voice notes. I use an old 128meg IRIVER and it can hold 4-5 hours of voice recordings, even with a few mp3 podcasts on there too.

My experience with most of these devices is that the voice recording and play back are two completely separate functions, so you would have to stop the play back, switch on the voice recording, then start recording, stop the recording, switch on the mp3 playback again and maybe just maybe it will remember where you were at on the mp3 then you could just push play again. The process on my old IRIVER takes about 10 seconds to switch back and forth, but depending on how you want to use the recording that might be too troublesome for you. If you want immediate ability to record while in the midst of listening to an mp3, this would be a case for having two different devices.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 12:50 pm

jamathis wrote:Sounds like a cool player with great features. I would like something similar but with a lot more storage capacity. That's the only reason I've been sticking with the iPod is storage space. No one else seems to be offering anything with 80 or 160 GB of space. Based totally on capacity the iPod is still the best thing for someone with a large music collection. Anyone know of anything with the features of the iAudio, but with the capacity of the iPod?

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I keep waiting for one of the alternative players to look enough better than an ipod to ditch my ancient 3g, but nothing has managed to fill all the requirements. I was really hoping that cowon was going to come out with a kickass replacement for the iaudio, but it looks like almost everyone is moving to small, solidstate storage rather than better palyer with larger drive. What the hell ever happened to neuros? As far as I can tell, their audio player project has fallen off the face of the planet. Ah well, my ipod still works...

Post by **Patrick** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:13 am

Snarkout wrote: I was really hoping that cowon was going to come out with a kickass replacement for the iaudio, but it looks like almost everyone is moving to small, solid state storage rather than better player with larger drive. What the hell ever happened to neuros? As far as I can tell, their audio player project has fallen off the face of the planet.

Solid state is the future. Personally I like the trend, then again I'm not one of these people who wants to carry around their entire music collection. As far as Neuros, we're talking to Joe Born on 10/17. We'll have to ask him why they stopped working on the audio player?

Post by **Patrick** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:46 am

Links to reviews of the Iaudio7:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/23/cowo ... w-roundup/

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 1:17 pm

Patrick wrote:Solid state is the future. Personally I like the trend, then again I'm not one of these people who wants to carry around their entire music collection.

Oh, I agree, I just don't like the size hit. I carry a lot more than music on my ipod, though.

As far as Neuros, we're talking to Joe Born on 10/17. We'll have to ask him why they stopped working on the audio player?

That would be great - I was really surprised when I checked out their website a while ago and saw that they've pruned their product line back to the OSD and the recorder. I have to assume that the audio player was just not a money maker for them, though, considering all of the other insanely awesome players out thee at this point.

Post by **Patrick** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:00 am

Cowon has released a 16 gig version of the iAudio7:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/01/cowo ... 2-players/