What are the Most Important MP3 Player Features?

[musichound]

Battery life, a least 30 hours of music playback and 7 hours of video playback.
Build quality that resists scratches
Gapless playback
Brick and mortar availability
A relatively easy way to get it serviced if the inevitable happens
Line in recording
FM radio
Good tactile controls, and no touch screen

Anything else would be fluff.

[CrowdAds]

[Skinjob]

I have pretty modest requirements, but unfortunately, I don't think my ideal player exists.

Must have:
1) 16GB Flash (or 8GB + SDHC)
2) UMS/MSC
3) Playlists (in some standard format like m3u)
4) Good SQ
5) Pocketable
6) Good tactile controls
7) Strong build quality

Nice to have:
8) FLAC
9) OGG
10) Gapless
11) Album art
11) True line-out
12) Standard mini-USB plug (not proprietary)

Heck, I'd settle for the first four, but AFAIK there is no player with decent playlist support in UMS/MSC mode. Am I the only one that cares about playlists?

[Mogles]

Excellent sound quality
Excellent build quality
Very good battery life
Playlist
Remembers playlist when turned off
Small monochrome screen
16GB
Flac/MP3
UMS
Dedicated stop/start track back/forward and volume buttons that can be easily located through a shirt pocket.

No video playback, custom eq, JPEG viewer, recording, radio: I want my money spent on build quality not features I'll never use.

[JK98]

It would be nice to see an mp3 player with a magnesium or titanium alloy case. I am tired of all this plastic stuff.

[gregzx]

Originally Posted by JK98

It would be nice to see an mp3 player with a magnesium or titanium alloy case. I am tired of all this plastic stuff.

Hells yea. I really dont mind +100g more weight, I even prefer stuff like cellphones or players a little more massive. I like to feel it in my hand and pocket.

[kratonator]

Originally Posted by JK98

It would be nice to see an mp3 player with a magnesium or titanium alloy case. I am tired of all this plastic stuff.

The Sansa e200 has something like that, the Liquidmetal back plate.

[WalkGood]

In no specific order:

• Excellent sound quality (without having to tweak it)
• All the tweaks of a Cowon iAudio and then some
• MSC/UMS or MTP user selectable (if only one, then MSC)
• Excellent build quality that does not scratch
• Powerful amp & then some
• Excellent display & ability to customize
• Programmable buttons
• Excellent battery life
• Full screen album art
• Flash memory with sdhc expansion slot
• File/folder or iD3 browsing (user selectable)
• Ability to delete on the go
• Intuitive controls
• Audio formats - MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, (Ogg) Vorbis, MIDI, FLAC, ...
• Gapless

[gregzx]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

In no specific order:

• Excellent sound quality (without having to tweak it)
• All the tweaks of a Cowon iAudio and then some
• MSC/UMS or MTP user selectable (if only one, then MSC)
• Excellent build quality that does not scratch
• Powerful amp & then some
• Excellent display & ability to customize
• Programmable buttons
• Excellent battery life
• Full screen album art
• Flash memory with sdhc expansion slot
• File/folder or iD3 browsing (user selectable)
• Ability to delete on the go
• Intuitive controls
• Audio formats - MP3, WAV, AAC, WMA, (Ogg) Vorbis, MIDI, FLAC, ...
• Gapless

O ya and dont forget about a build-in kitchen robot :P
Will we ever get a player so superior? I guess not.

For me the most important stuff is:

• Fne build quality
• Big screen (doesnt have to be color, I just want big letters )
• FLAC support
• long battery life
• fine sound with a strong amp
• stable, customizable firmware
• reasonable price (>$300)

.

Do I ask for much?

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by gregzx

O ya and dont forget about a build-in kitchen robot :P
Will we ever get a player so superior? I guess not...

Did you read the thread title

[gregzx]

Damn, you all people are so serious..
Sure I read the title, is stating that we might never get a perfect player that much of an off-topic comment?

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by gregzx

Damn, you all people are so serious..
Sure I read the title, is stating that we might never get a perfect player that much of an off-topic comment?

do you know what *rolleyes* means? Being sarcastic

[Xenodius]

I seemed to have misinterpreted that comment as well, along with a couple others. Sorry WG, I know you mean no harm =D

• Excellent sound quality, preferably with customizable effects similar to Cowon's BBE enhancements
• Good, smooth equalizer, preferably 7 band or higher
• Excellent battery life
• Excellent build quality
• Fast n functional interface
• Good amp
• Portable enough to take with me everywhere
• At least 16gb of storage, or expandable (SDHC, not microSDHC crap)
• Easy to use without taking out of your pocket (Play/pause, ff/rew + next/last track and volume, at least)
• On the go deletion
• On the go playlists... Preferably *more than one!!*
• Bookmarking
• MSC support
• File/folder AND id3v2 compatible browsing
• Broad support of file formats (VBR for all formats; MP3, Ogg, FLAC, APE at least)
• Reasonable price, not over $300 unless its really kicking awesome! =D

[Alex91]

for video players, WIDE viewing angles. The Zen Vision(NOT W or M) apparently had bad ones. My new Archos 504 has wide viewing angles.

[Solan]

1. Tubes. But there are to my knowledge no tube players on the market, so ... on to #2:
2. Upper-end sound. Market leader or close to in sound.
3. Non-proprietary and versatile in terms of file formats and connections:
3a. File formats should at a minimum include OGG, and preferrably also FLAC.
3b. The system should be able to hook up to Mac, Linux, Windows anywhere with no extra software needing to be carried with me on a CD.

I don't really care about user-friendly controls as long as the player doesn't have a seeming own free will.

[mtn]

I have not found this yet, but I would really like the ability to plug in to the internet, subscribe to podcast RSS feeds and download directly on to the player.

- OGG support
- Copy directly from NAS to player over the network
- Stream media over the network from a NAS
- Open source OS so that there is at least the chance extra functionality can be added and thus extend its useful life
- FM radio
- Voice recorder
- Line in
- DRM free
- Cross platform compatible (Linux, Windows and Mac)
- Light weight

[4DThinker]

Plays every audio format.
Plays every video format.
Displays every photo format.
Bluetooth
FM radio
FM broadcasting
FM recording, including RDS data as ID3 tag.
Microphone
Voice recording
Lecture recording
Voice command
wifi, including web browsing.
Free cell phone networking like the Kindle has.
ATSC TV tuner.
Camera, but lens can be used in reverse as a projector.
Reads all ebook formats. Great text reader app.
1280 x 720 pixels, 4" diagonal 16:9 touch screen.
Player is all screen, 4" diagonal.
Touch screen as biological coating that eats finger print residue, keeping screen clean all the time.
Color changing skin. You can program the case color from the device.
IR transceiver. Device is also a programmable remote control.
Insteon and X10 radio. Device can control lights.
Light weight and thin, but a little thicker than the iPod Touch.
Screen also acts as solar cell. Any sunlight hitting the screen helps charge the battery.
Completely recyclable.
Made in U.S.A.
$299.

4D

[ZenChick]

When you come back from Fantasyland, think you could post more realistic specs?

[gcogger]

- Min 30GB
- Acts as removable USB storage (i.e. just use Windows Explorer to copy files to/from)
- Nothing proprietary - no DRM, no special software needed, plays standard mp3s
- Gapless playback
- Good battery life
- Real tactile buttons - no touch screen, awkward joysticks, touch sensitive controls
- Good sound quality
- Decent headphone socket! (not like the flimsy ones on things like some Toshiba or Sandisk players - there are far too many reports of these failing).

There are other things I'd like, but these are the vital ones for me.

[Reubo]

-No scroll wheel, mechanical OR touch (I hate moving my finger around in silly little circles to scroll through my songs)
-Preferably tactile buttons, although the Zune pad is very nice since it's a blend of tactile AND touch. And I HATE the dumb touch button things that they use on the Samsung players.
-Flash memory (Hard drives can crash)
-Good battery life. Preferably a user-replaceable battery
-Color screen
-Any capacity is fine, whatever suits my needs. If the player's memory isn't expandable, I would go for more GBs.
-No DRM stuff. Just put the music on and go.
-Good UI (My friend has a player with a really bad UI.)
-Good buttons (The same player belonging to the same friend has horribly sticky buttons)
-Extras like a clock, photos, voice recording and FM are all nice.

[FreeZ5]

It's kinda fun looking at what some people would like in an MP3 player. Here's my list...

- plays MP3s
- small & light
- has a good working clip that doesn't break (ie Sansa Clip but NOT Zen Stone with skin)
- has a screen
- battery won't become dysfunctional in a couple of years
- doesn't need some fancy software to load it
- supplier provides firmware upgrades that are meaningful to me
- workable controls

Hmmm...Sansa Clip ... already got one (except maybe the battery thing)

Steve