MP3 player suggestions ...

[Mele]

That cowon player looks nice.   Only thing I don't like:  touchscreens.   I've got this thing for touchscreens.

Like - disgusting fingerprints smeared all over the screen.   I have little tolerance for that.   ( and with these people touting "design" - I'm afraid of the price tag. )

I agree completely. Touchscreens are generally only a gimmick used to sell a product without truly adding any additional functionality but still increasing the cost. This is kind of what Apple stands for, but the DS at least uses the touch screen effectively sometimes. I also like being able to blindly navigate my Zune in my pocket simply by recognizing the buttons - something that isn't possible with touchscreen based devices.

emulators for pretty much any console prior to the n64.

What device these days can't emulate pretty much any console prior to the N64? The DS, PSP, and even some powerful mp3 players can do it.

[sdedalus83]

Since when did any handheld but the psp do playable psx emulation?

And snes is pretty sketchy, even on the psp and iphone.

[Mele]

Since when did any handheld but the psp do playable psx emulation?

And snes is pretty sketchy, even on the psp and iphone.

When you said N64 I was assuming you were referring to the generation as a whole, which would have included the PSX. My mistake. SNES emulation worked great for me back when I had a PSP, and I was using homebrew builds released within the first few months of the console's launch.

And as you said, the PSP can emulate PSX games. To me the Pandora is just an expensive glorified PSP. What does it really have to offer?

[sdedalus83]

Since when did any handheld but the psp do playable psx emulation?

And snes is pretty sketchy, even on the psp and iphone.

When you said N64 I was assuming you were referring to the generation as a whole, which would have included the PSX. My mistake. SNES emulation worked great for me back when I had a PSP, and I was using homebrew builds released within the first few months of the console's launch.

And as you said, the PSP can emulate PSX games. To me the Pandora is just an expensive glorified PSP. What does it really have to offer?

The PSP won't even load snes games needing coprocessors, isn't playable with most hacked roms, and won't run a lot the later, larger, more demanding games.  Sure, it's a lot better than trying to play them on a DS or iphone, but hardly all that great.

The pandora is an ARM based, ds lite sized netbook with gaming controls and about 8 hours of battery life.  If you can do something on an atom based netbook running linux, you can do it on the pandora, albeit generally more slowly.  The PSP is a completely different beast.  They both have their place, and both are far better choices than the overpriced DMPs currently on the market.

I'll certainly keep my psp around for psp and psx games, but for everything else, it's considerably less capable.

[Nanonanol]

*drools*

From what I saw on the openpandora forums, battery life seemed to be around 10 hours for games/video, and closer to 12-15 for audio. However, for audio, the device wasn't running in power management mode (i.e. the screen was still lit up, and the core was running at the voltage for 500MHz) ... so maybe if they are able to add code for power management, the battery life could increase for audio 

I think I may just wait to buy anything for the meantime, and see how the pandora turns out (as far as the production scale).

Does anybody have an idea as to how large future batches are going to be? I read that the first batch was only 4000, but I haven't found anything on future batches (although admittedly I only searched for a little while before going to work)

[kostya]

I don't mind the interface of the Zune all that much (except for the fact that you can't create and name playlists on the device, except for the quick playlist), but the software pisses me off. It is practically impossible to get the software the recognize all your music, and if you eventually succeed, you'd be lucky if half the tags are correct. I use Easytag to edit all the ID3 tags of my music (and audiobooks), and they show up perfectly in every other media player I've tried (Amarok, Rhythmbox, Banshee, Mediamonkey, etc.) but not in the fucking zune software.

When I had a Zune, I got all my music to import fine, it recognized all my tags, updated my Zune when I edited music outside the program, and did everything I needed it to. It also generally did a good job of automatically tagging all my music. After the Zune (returned under store extended warranty due to various issues), I got an iPod. Oh god the horror of iTunes. It never syncs fully (it misses half my library on an average sync), needs to have its own folder to mess around in, more often than not deletes cover art of tracks that have it rather than adding it to those which don't, and cannot auto-tag.

I know I can use my iPod with other software, but I have yet to find a program that will support all the features (including videos and pod casts).

[fohfoh]

I can't deny that iPods have a nicer playlist function than most mp3s... but everything other than playlists is absolutely annoying as hell.

It took me maybe 5 minutes to teach people how to use my Cowon S9. They seem to like it more than their own iPods on casual use. (I still miss the playlist function, but make good use of "favourites" and "bookmarks".

[Nanonanol]

I just absolutely cannot stand the stupid scroll wheel on any iPod, but I'll have to agree with the whole playlist thing. You can have playlists on the Zune, but you can't actual put together playlists on the device itself (except for a quick list thing) - you have to put together a playlist in the software, and sync that to the device. Unfortunately, the software absolutely blows, so I avoid using it for anything other than syncing my device.

I just don't understand what the deal is with Cowon leaving out all these little features, no ID3 tagging on the O2, seriously? And no playlists? Hell you could put together playlists on the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra, and name them (of course you'd be lucky if the headphone jack didn't break before you could listen to any of your music)

[psyren]

I think they've introduced ID3 tagging with newer firmware. What I'm hoping for next is for them to implement Replaygain support, so my tracks play at an even volume level.

[Tatsujin]

Is there a .flac player >_>;; Or doesn't really matter?

[fohfoh]

Is there a .flac player >_>;; Or doesn't really matter?

Most cowon products support .flac

I think the samsung P3 supports it too, but not sure.

[mgz]

I think they've introduced ID3 tagging with newer firmware. What I'm hoping for next is for them to implement Replaygain support, so my tracks play at an even volume level.

the O2 i dont think they have add id3 tagging for its still folder based i believe

the S9  and the D2 both use id3 tags though

[fohfoh]

Looks like 2.31 Beta released another version today.

7/24/09 has released 2.31 Beta2

EDIT: I was talking about the S9