Talk:PortablePlayers

Discontinued players

I think that discontinued players should be moved into a different section. Not necessarily removed, as many are still available on clearance/refurbished/used.

The question is, how to make the split? I see three possibilities:

1. Discontinued players on a separate page
2. same page, but separate top-level section. e.g.:
   • Current devices
     • Flash-memory devices
     • HD devices
     • CD/DVD devices
   • Discontinued devices
     • Flash-memory devices
     • HD devices
     • CD/DVD devices
3. make a subsection within each section. e.g.:
   • Flash-memory devices
     • Current devices
     • Discontinued devices
   • HD devices
     • Current devices
     • Discontinued devices
   • CD/DVD devices
     • Current devices
     • Discontinued devices

I'll hold off any updates right now, but I'll check back in a few days/weeks/whenever and see if there's any opinions here. If there's no disagreement by then, and noone has beat me to it, I'll take the initiative. Bsammon 03:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

List of top five players

It would be a good idea to have a few (five?) players at the top with images that are considered to be the best *recent* devices. I don't think any of the MP3 using masses will use this page to choose their next music player unless it lists recent devices, and presents a choice of five or six at the top, with images, and links to sites that they can buy them from. Also, could someone put up a notice to remind people it's not OGG, or Ogg! It's Ogg Vorbis, or if you must, Vorbis. - thehumanerror 25th December 2006

I totally agree with the above. This page was next to useless for me when I was shopping for a Vorbis player since I was overwhelmed with choices. Add to that the fact that many products have been discontinued or cannot be bought new and there's a recipe for disaster. - erpo41 October 17th, 2007

I also agree with the above; the primary reason I am not using Ogg Vorbis (I keep a parallel collection of mp3 and flac files) is I cannot easily find a portable player. I don't know that reorganizing this wiki page will help. I did comb through this page; basically all of the listed hard disk players are from one off manufacturers or not being manufactured any more. There are plenty of nice flash storage based devices and cell phones (from Samsung and others), but that is not what I am looking for. Also, I'm not interested in hacking my iPod. (I do embedded linux development enough at work; I'll pay someone else to get my media player working). Until this is addressed, Ogg Vorbis is going to remain out of use; which is a shame because for every other reason it is the best (in my opinion). --Kevin Holzer, January 10, 2009

Yes. This is a good idea. Create a section at the top. Polish it well. And perhaps add a free-licensed photo. Anyone up for it?--Ivo 06:41, 17 October 2007 (PDT)

I would rather see just a simple feature matrix (sorted so that unavailable devices are listed at the bottom, or just not listed at all). See talk below. Maybe preferred choises could be raised to the top thought! I agree that current list is quite unusable.

Recording in Vorbis

I would like to know which Players can record in Vorbis?! -- 217.186.150.213 17:03, 26 Dec 2004 (PST)

Ditto. Absolutely vital information. Do any of the players listed also record in Vorbis? If anyone has experience with A player, please state specifically whether it does or does not record in Vorbis.Nickhill 15:04, 4 June 2006 (PDT)

Never heard of one that does, and there isn't a fixed point reference encoder, which makes it unlikely.

Pretec Allegro may need firmware update

I recently purchased a Pretec Allegro, but was unable to play Oggs for three months, until the firmware update was made available on 14 or 15 March 2005. Now it works well! (So far, listening to -q3 Oggs). I'd hope that units purchased after this date already has the firmware update, but you never know. Installing the update is as simple as placing the .rom on the USB-storage-device media (eg flash disk), starting up the unit, and pressing the play button. -- Hugo van der Merwe

How much battery runtime do you get playing Oggs compared with playing mp3? Phr 02:05, 27 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Any player with Removable Memory Cards

The NexBlack (see PortablePlayers ) has removable compact flash and batteries.

Every single Vorbis-capable portable player out there seems to come with built-in flash memory. Which is stupid, because I don't want to fire up my computer and plug in the player every time I get tired of the tracks on my player. Plus flash memory has a limited lifetime (write cycles) and so does your player with built-in memory. The same applies for built-in rechargable batteries.

Now when would you ever need to buy your second device without any moving parts if you could just change flash memory and batteries? Ok, that's the industrie's point of view but not mine. I want to go on vacation with music and batteries for one week of non-stop music - without a power source or computer nearby.

So, any hint to where I might find a portable audio player that can play back ogg vorbis files and uses SD flash cards (and preferably AAA-batteries) would be greatly appreciated.

• Me too! If the Enox EMX-830 took SD cards it'd be perfect. --rgm 14:41, 7 Nov 2005 (PST)

• SanDisk Sansa e250/e260/e270/e280 has a microSD-card slot. With ROCKbox it plays Ogg/Vorbis and more.Nostromo 15:26, 29 October 2007 (PDT)

---

The Pretec Allegro is not the slickest player out there, it's LCD backlight seems to give off a high-pitched whine, which not everyone can hear (it kind-of screams in my ears though, so I put the backlight timer on 1 second so it doesn't scream too long). It is, however, the only one I now know of that can play Oggs, and uses removable media. If you want a nicely portable device, you have to use Pretec's "iDisk tiny" usb flash disk, the only thing that will fit inside. You can also, however, connect some USB SD-card reader with it's cable, then listen to Oggs off of SD. A little unwieldy, but, it works, and is the only thing *I* know of. (I stopped following developments in December though, when I bought it...)

Samsung / Yepp

Moved to Talk:PortablePlayersSamsungYepp

UniBrain iZak

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this; I'm new to wikis.

The UniBrain iZak was added, then removed recently, with the comment that it doesn't claim to play Ogg Vorbis.

The FAQ is available here: iZak FAQ and Question/Answer 24 says:

'22. Can iZak™ support OGG audio files?

Yes, iZak™ fully supports OGG playback using the latest firmware.'

I was the one that removed it. In their specs linked from the main page, I saw that they listed only MP3 and WMA support for music formats. Obviously they need to update their promotional material! I went ahead and added the iZak back in, making a point to mention that the most current version of the firmware now supports Ogg Vorbis and linking to their FAQ as evidence. Saxifrage 02:36, 5 May 2005 (PDT)

Splendid. I didn't want to just stick it back after it had been taken out.--Ipl 05:14, 5 May 2005 (PDT)

Entempo Spirit

This inexpensive player from Entempo had listed Vorbis as a "Supported Audio Format", but the device will not index the Vorbis files into it's menus -- let alone play the files. Tested with both the stock and most recent firmware, May 29, 2005. Vendor had been contacted and removed Vorbis support claims from their website, but has not provided any resolution to customers which purchased the product expecting this support. The company's webpage has disappeared as of Feb 2006.

Lexar LDP-800 dropped

It seems that Lexar have abondoned the LDP-800. The following was posted by a user on dapreview.net " Unfortunately, lexar will not offer the LDP-800, but will focus instead on its existing LDP Players that already offer appealing features and benefits to meet a variety of consumer needs." Shame.--Ipl 06:15, 22 Jul 2005 (PDT)

There's more info on that dapreview thread that indicates some confusion within Lexar. Currently, it looks like the release is going to happen in early September.

Update 2005-11-11: after inquiries to Lexar's "new products" personnel, I received a telephone message that the LDP-800 will definitely "is not going to see the light of day." Ask me if you want details. I agree that it's a shame since this looked to be an outstanding product. --dfavro

Hong Kong Dream-tech Electronic DT-202, works? please confirm

http://hkdream-tech.com An ebay seller says that it can reproduce Vorbis. This is unconfirmed. In the manufacturer web it says: MP3, WMA, WAV, DMV and etc.

Some webpage also says that it works on Windows, Mac and Linux. Also unconfirmed. Further investigation required.

Trekstor i.Beat Cube

This player seems to be very similar to the Samsung Yepp YP-T6, possibly with the same problems regarding Vorbis playback. Trekstor has moved info about this player from "MP3-Player" to the "Archive" section which propably means that it is not produced anymore.

The Muzio jm300 / jm-300 does NOT play Vorbis

NB this is the jm-300 (not 100 or 200)

I bought this a month ago. I've been unable to play Vorbis files on it. It simply shows these as 'etc' files and skips over them.

Pitty really, this was the main reason I chose this player.

I've seen lots of discussion about the muzio playing oggs, is there anybody there who owns a jm300 and is actually playing oggs ? I can't help think I've juts missed something basic.

Layout of the PortablePlayers list and Feature matrix

It's gone! I've moved this discussion to Talk:PortablePlayersv2. Imalone 10:55, 18 November 2006 (PST)

Is there something very wrong with those proposals? I mean, is there any reason why (even a simple) feature matrix just could not be applied right now? It would probably solve 'list of top 5 players' problem above too. Just list something basic from the main features, name, size, weight, price, battery (internal, aa, aaa, ..), capasity, flash card type (sd, microsd, ..) , availability (current or discontinued), supported formats, charging (usb or propietary or none). Link to the longer comments. No complicated sorting or anything too fancy. No icons. Name can be a abbreviation to save space, use it as a link to current comments.

NEXBlack out

I got my NEXBlack player today from Frontier Labs. It is a nice gadget with sleek design. They have corrected the occasional snap-sounds that came between tracks and it is overall more usable now. Vorbis-files also play fine, but the current firmware doesn't have Vorbis-tag reader, which is somewhat major drawback. The music selection works through mp3-tags and you can select by album, artist, genre and playlist, but since Vorbis tags won't work you have to select "unordered" to play them. Vorbis-files are all listed in one big list. I hope they either implement a Vorbis-tag reader or revert to old Nex IIe system where you could select by folder in the flash disc. But for the cheap price ($89), it is a good player... waiting for a new firmware..

Sumvision M18/S1

I've just got the 2GB Sumvision and it plays the OGG files I've tested so far. Should I add it to the list? Steevc 04:05, 19 April 2007 (PDT)

Humble A2 Review

Just a blog link to my review of the the Cowon A2. Thanks, GChriss 13:23, 6 November 2007 (PST)

iRiver e100

CNet and Amazon are saying the iRiver e100 supports Vorbis. I haven't tested it myself. Mattflaschen 03:09, 15 April 2008 (PDT)

Bought an vorbis-enabled player recently? Tell us where!

I have started a page that should allow people easier purchasing of vorbis-enabled players: PortablePlayers_per_Place

Everyone, who bought an vorbis-enabled player recently should update the page with place and model.

Move Flash/HD-sections to dedicated pages

Hi,

IMHO the PortablePlayers page is too long. I want to split it into several pages for each main section. Like PortablePlayers/Flash, PortablePlayers/Harddisk etc.. Sure, one have to fix some links then, but I am convinced this step would increase the usability a lot. What do you think about that? --Gsauthof 01:20, 31 March 2009 (PDT)

Since there were no objections I restructured the page as planned. --Gsauthof 10:07, 27 June 2010 (UTC)