<div dir="ltr">Hello Rick, <br><br>I just purchased a Cowon iaudio D2 (the DAB version) for about £130 a couple of days ago , I'm impressed so far , the only down side in your case is that the storage is flash based and therefore the sizes are 2gb,4gb(mine),8gb,16gb however this can be expanded using the sd card slot on the player. I'll just quickly list out the pros and cons for you that I have observed so far.<br>
<br>Pros<br>-----------<br>+ Excellent Sound Quality<br>+ Good Video Quality (I know you don't care but anyhow..)<br>+ Supports a substantial range of formats for music ( MP3 , OGG , FLAC , WAV , APE )<br>+ Compatible with Linux , Windows and Mac OSX due to it acting as a USB Mass storage device , software for video encoding is windows only however I have managed to get a full film ripped and encoded using linux.<br>
+ 52 hours battery life for music. 10 hours for videos.<br>+ Good build quality (in my opinion)<br>+ 2.5 inch touch screen. (the device measures about 3.5" across , slightly smaller than a pack of cards.<br>+ FM Radio <br>
+ DAB Radio (with the DAB version, usually about £20-£30 more)<br>+ Regular Firmware Upgrades from Cowon.<br><br><br>Cons<br>----------<br>- Premium price compared to players of similair size.<br>- Most likely far too small a storage capacity for what you are looking for. (however if you are willing to expand with sd cards then you can increase this by up to 32gb {I believe that is the highest capacity of SD cards right now..}<br>
- Blind navigation isn't brilliant as their are only 2 buttons that can be set to change the volume or the track , the rest is on the touch screen.<br><br>As said I am very impressed by this little player, however the major downside for you is the storage space as unlike me , you have a large music collection. Just thought I'd put it out there though. <br>
<br>Gordon.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Rick Moynihan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rick.moynihan@gmail.com">rick.moynihan@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi all,<br>
<br>
I'm looking for a replacement for my old MP3 Player (30gb iPod 5th Gen<br>
- running Rockbox), as it's recently given up and died. Overall I've<br>
been disappointed at the reliability of Apples hardware; and I'd<br>
really not like to be forced to purchase another. However it looks<br>
like the competition is pretty poor.<br>
<br>
I don't care much for watching videos, so don't really want to pay a<br>
significant premium for a device to handle video; but I do want lots<br>
of space as I download and listen to lots of podcasts and audio<br>
lectures, plus I have a large music collection. So my ideal device<br>
will:<br>
<br>
- Be Linux compatible & Support the transfer of audio through a simple<br>
copy (via USB Mass Storage) to the devices filesystem. i.e. no stupid<br>
proprietary software to make things difficult.<br>
- Preferably have 100GB+ storage (and no less than 60gb))<br>
- Be small and compact enough to fit in a trouser pocket.<br>
- Optionally Support FLAC encoding<br>
- Optionally be able to run Rockbox (not so important if I can upload<br>
files with a simple copy).<br>
<br>
Can anyone recommend any such device? It seems the MP3 Player market<br>
is in dire straights just now, and is fascinated with flash based<br>
storage and devices with about 8gb storage :-(<br>
<br>
--<br>
Rick Moynihan<br>
<a href="mailto:rick.moynihan@gmail.com">rick.moynihan@gmail.com</a><br>
<a href="http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://sourcesmouth.co.uk/</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>