On the hunt!

[yen_4_zen_683]

Greetings ladies and gentlepeoples! I hope everyone had a great holiday season As the title of this post suggests, I am currently in the market for a new pmp/dmp/mp3 player to replace my Creative Zen X-fi style.

What I'm looking for is pretty simple; 30gb or higher, with tactile buttons and a screen suitable for video playback and of course, good battery life and good sound quality would be nice.

I've been looking at the Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip, the Zune, and a few others, but everything is either way out of my price range, or has some type of proprietary nonsense that won't work with my Operating System, which is Ubuntu 12.04 btw.

Many here have helped me before with my now defunct Zen Vision W, and I am once again in need of some assistance or at least a nudge in the right direction.

Any help and/or suggestions is always appreciated. Thank you for reading!

[CrowdAds]

[IDvsEGO]

what is your price range?

[FreeZ5]

Originally Posted by yen_4_zen_683

What I'm looking for is pretty simple; 30gb or higher, with tactile buttons and a screen suitable for video playback and of course, good battery life and good sound quality would be nice.

I've been looking at the Sandisk Sansa Clip Zip, the Zune, and a few others, but everything is either way out of my price range, or has some type of proprietary nonsense that won't work with my Operating System, which is Ubuntu 12.04 btw.

Video and Clip Zip - that won't work.

Have you looked at the Sony Walkman choices? Although I just realized that I'm not sure about them with Ubuntu.

Steve

[yen_4_zen_683]

Oops! Forgot to mention the screen size issue =P

Not too crazy about Sony players as they don't allow storage capacity upgrades

As for my price range, $100 is as high as I can go at the moment

[FreeZ5]

Video under $100?

How about a Sansa Fuze (NOT the Fuze Plus)? Proprietary cable, micro SDHC slot, not great video.

Steve

[The DarkSide]

Unrealistic expectations for under $100,...

[yen_4_zen_683]

I figured as much. Is the Zune good for anything? It seems like a solid machine

[john blade]

Originally Posted by yen_4_zen_683

I figured as much. Is the Zune good for anything? It seems like a solid machine

I use my Zune 120 as my video player for show I want to watch on the go. It's a good player and the video playback is very good. Just to warned you, if you do use it as a video player, you might get around 4 to 5 hours of playback before you need to recharge it. As most Zune right now is been use or old when sold, 4 hours or less is what you're getting now. Also, don't think the video will look good on TV. I got a dock for my Zune (it's bundle with it when I got it) and video quality drop quite a bit when watching on the TV screen.

If you want to spend 100 dollars max for a good player, Sansa Fuze is maybe a choice you can see. Either that or start looking at those Chinese PMP player as they isn't anything good for under 100.

[dgb52]

How about a Cowon C2? its only 130.00 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-C2-16BS-...words=cowon+c2

[yen_4_zen_683]

hmmmmmm...nice, good price too and I know begers can't be choosers, but I'm not overly fond of a touch screen. I will admit, it does look promising. I've been looking at the cowon iaudio 10 and so far it looks pretty good.

Thanks for the suggestion dgb52! I think we might have a winner!

Anyone else have any info on Cowon players?

[IDvsEGO]

generally speaking cowons are good battery, great sound, somewhat lacking UI. I had a J3 and loved it though

[yen_4_zen_683]

Hmmmmm... looks good! They're unavailable on amazon & ebay though.

I think it's a tossup beteen the C2 & the iAudio 10

:UPDATE:

I just discovered the cowon A2 & I think that's the one I'm looking for! Unfortunately, it's $250 on amazon and very hard to find elsewhere.

[BruceBanner]

I reviewed the C2 in some depth from a custom UI perspective, should prolly give that a quick read. Its in the Mp3 Player review section.

[skip252]

I see an Cowon A2 for sale at our sister site iAudiophile. http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41455 The listing is a few days old and the seller mentions listing it on ebay so I'm sure of the current status.