Whats the smallest, simple to use 20GB(or more) mp3 player?

rubadub

My mate was looking for one. Wanted smallest possible, good battery, play all formats, easy to use, OTF playlists, preferably gapless..
Does not need, eq, colour, movies etc. Just a decent player.
He had the cowon in his hand which has a fiddly controller. The sony HD5 seemed a nice small size, simple to use, but has this atrac crap, I hear all wma's get converted, and the 40hr life is only for atrac (mp3 is 30)

Is there anything out there that fits the bill?

Linku

I'm not just saying it because I'm an Apple fan, but iPod is really ahead of the competition in features and price following the move to all-colour screen iPods. The 20GB iPod is €319 new at the moment (shop around though) and has a colour screen, 15hr battery (shown to be longer in many tests too I hear), On-the-Go Playlists, plays MP3,AAC,WAC,AIFF,Apple Lossless,Audible, and iTunes for Windows can convert your non-DRMed WMAs for you.
It can display the album art and you can look at photos too and organise them into albums which is pretty cool.

Also, that Sony model requires the use of the painful SonicStage software, iTunes isn't half as bad.
The specs are here - http://www.apple.com/uk/ipod/color/specs.html

Malafus

Yeah, for what you are looking for, the iPod is not appropriate.

You are asking too much, you need to organise your requests into order of importance.... for example:

For "all formats"/gapless, you really need a Rio Karma. Not the smallest player, but quite nice, features OTF playlists, about 15-hour battery life... not the best interface.

iRiver is another good "lots of formats" player, and claims to support gapless playback, but I have heard this is.... um.... how should I put this.... A blatant lie? I don't actually know, since I haven't used one, maybe someone else here can confirm.

The Sony player is quite nice - ATRAC is a reasonably good format, and is totally gapless, if you want it to be. Despite what people tend to say, SonicStage is not the worst Media Library program I have used(close though). Another advantage(or two) to the Sony player is that it is small and has excellent battery life. You do need to Hax0r it to get the most out of it. Damn volume limiter. There are plenty of guides on how to do this though.

Hope this helps some.

4Xcut

i have an ipod don't get one, ive seen the iaudio x5 in action and its a deadly player if not a little on the expensive side

Scubadevils

The X5 is not that expensive now given that it starts at 329 for the 20GB X5 and 20 euro more for the extended battery.

As for the Rio Karma, it was a great player but maybe a little ugly. Problem is that both the Karma and now Rio are no more. Rio have just been sold off by their parent company Digital Networks and seemingly they are gone for good, RIP for the second time :eek:

rubadub

He doesnt want an iPod. It will convert wma, and make a balls of it just like the sony atrac conversion will. I hate the fact the ipod and sony need their own software to transfer songs, especially as the sony is meant to work as a removable HD when connected. Is there any software for ipods like the rockbox to free you from itunes and let you play other formats? I hear the ipod chip is capable of playing wma.

Gapless is not too important.
Main 3 in this order is that it is small, decent battery, easy to use.

I find it very odd that there are so many players out now but all of them still have flaws. I have a iriver H120 for a good while now, and I always wonder if it was nicked what would I replace it with, probably the cowon but I might get another H120. Do these developers not visit forums and see what everybody is moaning about with players. Doesnt seem such a task to make one without some major drawback. None is top of the list head and shoulders above the rest.

the X5L 20gb is less than €300 delivered on ebay

Crucifix

rubadub wrote:

Main 3 in this order is that it is small, decent battery, easy to use.

Creative Zen Sleek? It's small, and the battery is given as 16-18 hours. The touch strip could be considered awkward by some though, and I think it only plays MP3 and WMA. And it requires it's own software.

eoinf

sonys new hd5 possibly the smallest 20gb mp3 player and battery life is excellent. retails for €299 almost everywhere

Wertz

I have to agree that the NW-HD5 fits the bill on your 3 main selling points...
Sonicstage 3.2 is as good a piece of audio s/w as anything else I've used (earlier versions definitely had issues though). and if you find it a chore you can d/l Vaio Pocket transfer 1.2 which is a simple drag and drop interface for Sony players (it can f*ck around with your ID3 tags though)
As for transcoding of .wmas....yeah that's a PITA but it does do native mp3 (finally) and atrac is a great sounding codec IMO.

Gapless should be an issue IMO, it really depends if you listen to full albums or mixes on the player...I recall listening to a mates iPod on which he had a mix album...there was almost 1 full second aof a gap which is unforgivable...it can totally kill the flow of an album.
NO mp3 player really does gapless...some cheat to make it sound like there is no gap but it's still discernable...it's nothing to do with the players themselves....it's to do with how mp3s are encoded. Stuff like flac, MPC, ogg and atrac are true gapless codecs.

NW HD5 is going to drop in price shortly as Sony have a new range of 20gb and 6gb players coming out in october...