Ok I’m finally dragging myself kicking and screaming into the mobile media age starting from scratch (i.e. I have nothing not even a cell phone or a laptop anymore). All the help sites I’m finding are geared to just one or two uses so it would help for me to narrow down my search to what types of devices I would benefit from. So here are the main things I’m looking for in order of priority:

Required:

Playing mp3 (possibly other formats) of audio in my car which presently has only an AM/FM cassette player (add car).

Play movies and TV shows at work on a built in screen (w/option to hook up to larger screen and play from CD/DVD nice).

Play movies, TV shows, mp3s on long 13 hour plane flights (w/option to hook up to larger screen in hotels and play from CD/DVD nice).

Access internet at work w/o using the DOD network (have to check if other hot spots available or cell only access).

Wireless network with my home network and allow me to control what music is playing. (Presently running Media Monkey on my Vista box with files stored on a NAS but willing to entertain other options).

Access internet world wide (most likely from hotspots in hotels and military bases but from a cell network wouldn‘t suck).

Nice:

I would prefer to stay away from needing to convert to proprietary file formats.

Playing turn based strategy games nice.

Ability to run or recharge off foreign electrical grids w/o a transformer very nice.

Access Netflix “Watch Instantly” content most anywhere.

Access my NAS anywhere.

Any other cool feature I haven’t thought about yet being so out of the loop on this.

I have no specific budget but prefer not to buy “bleeding edge” tech. Multiple devices are not a problem and having some redundancy on trips might be nice I just want to avoid getting something only to find out I doesn’t accomplish something I thought it could do and then have to buy something else.

Any help/advice appreciated.

Cheers,
Dean

iPhone. But I'd wait until the next one comes in the summer.

Android is almost there if you are really averse to Apple.

The only adversity I have to apple is converting files to their format which I thought was necessary?

Archos 5 or 7 sounds like fitting your needs

Those do look cool. I like that they also support PAL and SECAM I haven’t been paying attention to that. From what I’m seeing the 7” screen looks nice but a couple of the 5” versions seem to have some other useful features. One thing that’s been frustrating me about all this is no one device seems to get it all right even for just one or two uses. Also I think the 7” at least, and probably all of them run off Linux which is nice.

Gah! The false info out there is utterly infuriating. Apple devices play MP3s just fine.

Does that mean Apple supports FLAC or any other non-Apple lossless format? That's cool.

Now you're being sarcastic. :P

A feature, which in my opinion should be required, is that the player show up as a mass storage device. So you can manage the files on it as if it was just a USB drive. As opposed to requiring proprietary software to copy media files to the player. That way if you have any other file you need to transport, you just make a "Junk" folder or what ever and store your stuff there.

You can easily enable your iPod's hard disk mode via a check-box in iTunes.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1478

For portable audio and video playback.

http://www.jetaudio.com/products/

I just got a Droid.

You should get an iPhone or an iPad.

Dean
Yes, you can play MP3 or Apple lossless formats. Sorry, no FLAC, OGG or the like.

I would strongly suggest you take a look at Apple's app store. That is their strength. You can get apps to control stuff on your network, including other PCs/Macs, Tivos, Pandora, specialized apps to access HP Home Servers (like my EX495), home automation, games, etc. The fact that those apps work on iPod Touches, iPads and iPhones is the real strength. Yes, you have to commit to the Apple ecosystem but it's a BIG eco system. Android has promise but it's not there...yet.

BTW, I did play w/ my coworker's iPad yesterday. I'm an Apple fanatic and early adopter, but I couldn't see buying this thing because I already own a Kindle and a Dell Mini 9 Netbook (running Win7 and OSX). After 10 minutes, I want one. It doesn't replace a laptop or smartphone, but it does replace a Kindle and netbook. Even the soft keyboard in landscape mode is better than a netbook. Gorgeous screen, Kindle app, and promising iBook store. The killer for me: viewing full page comics. Wow.

Yeah, it doesn't have a camera, but I rarely do video chat so it's not a deal killer. And if I need a camera in a pinch, I always have my iPhone w/ me.

My recommendation would be to separate your audio/video player and mobile phone/wi-fi device. Apple products just don't have the battery life for a all in one device (like the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) IF you are going to be using the audio/video sections for extensive periods of time like 13 hour plane rides. I would recommend something from Cowon like the s9 or d2 (or whatever) that offer extensive battery life like 50-60 hours for music 10-20 for video. Get a phone of your choice and you are set for the even the most demanding portable audio/video use (and by your original post that seems to be the case)

I’m sort of confused at what that article is saying. Seems to indicate that files copied that way are not playable from the iPod only being stored on it. Or is it allowing standard mp3s to be copied and played while bypassing the iTunes encoding (tagging or whatever else it does) process?

We both posted exactly at 3:31.

Both the battery life and media format support (MKV OGG) of the Cowons looks intriguing though at some point I might have to resign myself to using one standard format for simplicities sake. Something akin to your recommendation of separating some functions seem to be that way to go as no one thing seems to get it all right.

I agree but everything I’ve read recently is blending together, can you recommend one that operates like that. I’ve seen a lot of car audio that will sync up with an iPod using the same interface but haven’t noticed if there is anything out there that would simply work as an external hard drive or flash drive.

Yeah I haven’t even started thinking about apps yet but should since it seems this will be a major part of the functionality of portable devices.

Did you do much surfing with the iPad you tried. Listening to NPR on the way to work they were discussing the iPad launch and I guess there are issues with it playing flash videos if the sight hasn’t been designed to support the iPad. While I asssume most sites would be quick to support “I” anything and other players also seem to have some flash issues I just wondered if you had a take on this.

It was actual that story which finally got me moving on this since the next story sucked and so did everything else on at the time.

The Sansa players by Sandisk behave as a regular flash drive, but are missing many of the other features you want.

I really like my PSP (works as a USB flash drive, and has removable storage), but it's too big to carry with me everywhere.

Regarding MP4 nation
Scratch that. Not worth posting a link of a company I am not fully informed on.

No I did not do a lot, but it seems very similar to the iPhone/Touch. I don't do a huge amount of surfing on my iPhone because I find that there are specific iphone apps that perform similar tasks in a better way on the small screen. It's tough to surf w/o a real keyboard IMHO. But that doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have change your habit a bit. I do recommend using a multiplatform bookmark syncing client so you can use the same bookmarks from any machine/browser. On my iPhone/Macs, I use MobileMe to accomplish that. With Firefox, I use Xmarks. I do this because when I surf, it's usually to the same sites (like here) so the bookmarks rarely change.

I also use NetNewswire with Google Reader to peruse my RSS feeds. That actually tends to cut down on my voracious web surfing on my iPhone. It's not really the best app, but one I'm most comfortable with.

Yes, the iPad/iPhone don't support flash, only HTML5. It remains to be seen whether Jobs made the right call there. A coworker made an interesting point. Some sites, as of Sunday, have started to revamp their sites to allow surfing from the iPad w/o Flash. That tells you the power of this iPad movement. Flash isn't the end all be all, it's requires a lot of CPU/GPU horsepower. You can play still YouTube on an iPhone app. But if you want to play Farmville on Facebook, then you're out of luck. But I have to imagine someone's trying to rectify that.

BTW, MP3s are not reencoded or anything by iTunes. They're just synced to the iPod/Pad/Phone/WhateverTheyDoNextWithStupidInterCaps. No need to copy them over by hand in hard disk mode.

Thanks for all the feedback it’s helping me much better target what I think I’ll be wanting in a portable media player. I think I’ve come to the conclusion I’m going to need 3-4 separated devices in the long run.

First I’ll need a new car stereo but I’ll start another thread on that one.

Second I’ll need a portable media player.

Third I’ll need a full laptop. (just doesn’t look like anything even netbooks really do portable computing and portable media well) Point me in the right direction if I’m wrong.

Third and a half (might come before a laptop) mobile phone.


For the portable media players I’m now concentrating on:

Archos 7 320 GB Internet Media Tablet

+ screen size
+battery life
+removable battery
+storage capacity
+good PQ and SQ

-very mixed reviews
-touchpad sluggish???
-pay extra for full media support

Apple iPad

+screen size
+external battery???
+will likely have lots of apps

-USB charge doesn’t work on all computers
-shortest battery life
-still don’t understand the whole iTunes thing???

Cowon S9 32 GB Video MP3 Player with Touchscreen

+Battery life
+media support
+excellent PQ and SQ
+regular firmware updates

-small screen
-problems with playlists and tagging on imported mp3

Can anyone add to the possible pros/cons of any of those players or suggest a player I’ve missed that would be similar to those while hitting more of the pros than the cons.

Just for reference some of the competing advice I’m hearing from 2 people at work one a confirmed mobile tech geek and the other an airline pilot who uses mobile media a lot are to stay away from “i” anything because of having to use iTunes to import media and all accessories being proprietary but from what I’m seeing the proprietary accessory thing seems to apply to most players. The other thing is that the large screen is the way to go especially if I will be mostly watching things, which I will be.

With the feature list you are looking at, multiple devices is the best approach.

Cowon offers great support for the S9 from tweaking, guides, firmware updates, Q & A, troubleshooting, acessories etc. If interested in this PMP, head over to this link and start going through every subforum. Plenty of valuable information available to help you make an informed decision on this product.

http://iaudiophile.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=bebaf3a51bbee10feed012d85491ac17&f=90

Thanks for that link I guess it’s time to start looking at the dirty little details of theses things before finding out about them myself. I hope to see discussion of a larger screen. If they offered a larger screen version I would probably get one right now and forget about the other two.

Stopped by the closest BB and tried out a couple players the Archos 5 and ZuneHD.

What they both had in common was that they had no internet connectivity so I couldn’t see how they browed the web. Both powered on instantaneously, nice.

Archos 5 - Unfortunately the Archos 5 didn’t have anything on it. No music, video or pictures and wasn’t connected to the internet or picking up FM radio so about all I could do was check the interface. Not impressed. It was set up like a computer desktop with icons and also icon based menu options were available. I liked the larger 5” screen better than the ZuneHD but that’s all. The touchpad interface was very sluggish. The “Home” feature didn’t work. It kept getting confused about what orientation it was in while switching screens. It would pop back to the correct one but it was annoying. Another annoyance was after trying to connect to the FM radio and failing ever minute or so a dialog popped up asking if I wanted to try connecting again even after telling it “no” and powering it off and back on again.

ZuneHD - screen size was just to small I think the 5” screen is going to be a minimum for me. The interface was responsive and more intuitive but seemed it would be more limited as it was just a list of menus. Had a “hard” button which jumped back to the top of the menu hierarchy.

I listened to some demo material including symphonic metal which sounded good on the Sennheiser headphones (forget the model). While this combo was loud enough for general listening and normal commuting it wouldn’t be loud enough for a military cargo aircraft w/o noise canceling.

Listened to some FM radio which sounded ok but nothing special. However, not bad at all for something w/o and antenna and indoors made me wonder if the store had a repeater or something.

Watched a demo video which looked sharp and colourful but was just to small to enjoy watching.

I had already eliminated the ZuneHD and others based on screen size which using one confirmed. My experience with the Archos seems to bear out what half the owners are saying that the interface is sluggish and it’s buggy. If I find another one I certainly try it but if it fairs as badly then it’s out, teetering on the edge already.

Unfortunately that BB didn’t have the iPad so I could give it a try. Looks like I’m going to have to find a Cowon s9 and iPad to look at. At 3.3” I’m not sure the s9’s screen is going to be big enough for me but I will have a look before deciding that.

I got a chance to use a coworkers Cowen S9 last week. Seemed very comparable to the Zune HD in PQ and SQ though it was not a side by side comparison. If I had to choose between one of these it would be a real coin toss as the Zune has more functionality especially WiFi while the S9 has a longer battery life.

However, both now lose the screen war since I’ve had a chance to really watch one. The 3.3” screen is just too small. Cowen has released the V5, still no WiFi, and I’ll likely revisit the Archos 5 and 7 to see if it was just the display model that was so buggy.

I’ve now had a chance to use a Zune HD, Archos 5, Cowen s9 and an iPad. I’ve decided what I want is a Zune for video quality an Archos size screen with Cowen Sound Quality and an iPad interface. Is it that much to ask for one company to get it right, how about 3 out of 4 or even 2/4.

The last thing I tried was an iPad and must say I was quite impressed. It just plain worked. Never touched one before and with one push of the Youtube app and a few fat-fingered keystrokes and I was watching my favorite Oreskaband video. Cool thing was I turned it off and then back on again and it came up exactly where I left off. Did the same for a movie I also checked out. Does anyone know if any other players can do that? Also the interface was the most responsive of the 4.

Based on my experience with other computing devices I find that those devices and programs that just work and are user friendly get used more often so despite my aversion to iTunes and not the longest battery life or best SQ the i-devices are definitely in the running.

Heh... as far as battery life, the iPad ought to have the others beat--most of that thing IS battery!

The Cowon S9 will probably edge out the iPad on battery life slighty for media. Rated 55hrs for continous music playback and 11 hours video. Its an average rating. The iPad is rated around 10hrs(full functionality). Its just an average could be a bit more of less what depending on your settings and what you are doing. I would estimate for continous audio playback the battery life would be quite good on the iPad (40-55 hrs) but it would be silly to just use the iPad as a music device since it lacks portability/mobility to an extent.

10 hrs give or take is what you are probably going to get out of the iPad if you actually use its features. The iPod touch is half that or less. Continous Wifi on the touch I believe is somewhere around 2-3 hours.

I think within a years time we're going to see tons of of devices that will do most of what you want but right now it's about finding that one device that does "most" of the things you want (this goes for phones too).

I just love how the ZuneHD works. I'm hoping MS gets smart and tweaks the OS for tablets ASAP. For such a successful company they continue to make poor decisions in marketing.

I agree with you about the Zune. It was the first one I tried out that I liked and if it came with a larger screen would have bought one.

I’m hopping that you are right an companies have newer models in the works. I know that Cowen does and I assume it’s going to be a very competitive marked so I imagine others will also.

I think for now I’m just going to buy a laptop since most of what I plan on doing right now will be here locally at work and although not as convenient to use it will be more functional.

I finally bought a car stereo: Pioneer AVH-P4200DVD In-Dash Double-DIN DVD Multimedia AV Receiver

Yes it’s expensive but it is totally awesome. First off it sounds great even with the factory speakers so as of right now I don’t think I’ll need to upgrade them. The thing I like the most about it is the interface, and it also looks cool. Even my aging eyes can use every function w/o putting on my reading glasses. The function buttons are pretty intuitive taking less than10 minutes to learn everything on the demo unit in the store. When the installer took me out to show me how to work it I zipped through all the functions w/o any help and even showed him a feature he didn’t know.

It accepts input from CD/DVD including -R -RW but not dual layer (no head units I saw did), USB, iPod, SD card and of course AM/FM. Some other units accepted +R +RW but since most of my DVD rips (95% +) are on dual layer which they didn’t accept I’ll just have to rip things to -RW to take with me. I does read several media formats including mp3 off both CD and DVD. No FLAC but it does do WMA but for driving purposes I thing 320 bit mp3 sounds just fine.

It has all the standard head unit features plus some nice extras. The screen is easily visible even in the brightest light (important for Phoenix). Only direct light reflecting off it dulls the image somewhat but the screen tilts to it can be angled out of the reflection. A track progress slider allows you to queue the song/video up to any point by dragging it with your finger, even giving a time hack so you know exactly where you are.

One drawback, all the units I was looking at suffered this problem, is that it only sorts tracks by mp3 tags when hooked up to an “i” device, however one review I read said it worked with a Cowen S9 I think. OTOH the screen is so large that navigating files/folders is actually still quite easy since it lists about 10 on the screen at a time. You can also scroll through them with a flick of a finger.

Another drawback, legal one, is that DVD players can project an image from the front dash while driving so a DVDs video won’t display unless the parking break is on. However, you can still play a DVD hearing the audio and having full control over playback functions. So concert DVDs will play fine even when driving.

Since I spend about a total of 1 hour in the car each day I drive to and from work I wanted something I could really enjoy and most importantly learning from my last head unit was easy to use while driving. So I figured it was worth the extra money since I plan to keep the new car I bought to go with it for at least 5 years.

P.S. leaning heavily toward a Cowen J3 as a portable media player.

iPhone. I want to buy one But I have no money! So work hard! Fighting!

I finally broke down and bought a “portable media player.” More precisely I got a Samsung Galaxy S Fascinate from Verizon. I do however, have a couple of questions.

Can anyone recommend a good pair of circumaural headphones for mobile use. Along the same lines does using separately powered Bluetooth headphones help save battery life on the player or not?

Also can anyone recommend any Android Apps that they find useful? I’ve been finding and downloading some free ones so far but am starting to run out the commonly recommended ones. So far I’ve got:

Google Sky Map - just because it’s cool
Barcode Scanner - pretty much the same reason
Google Goggles - more of the same
ASTRO - for file management
Last.fm - seems it would have more of a “world view” than Pandora but I might try it too.
c:geo - an awesome geocashing app that syncs with the geocashing.com database.
My Tracks - logs distance, speed, elevation for running cycling etc. . . .
GPS Test - to make sure the GPS was working (hadn’t known to enable it for external apps)

The default video and music players seem ok with just one glitch. So far everything I’ve tried mp3, wav, flac, mp4, avi, mkv, wma have worked. The glitch is that the only subtitled video I’ve tried, the mkv file didn’t show subtitles on the Galaxy S but works on the computer.

Also I was able to sync up the phone with Mediamonkey so music management is already seamless.

Got WiFi working for when I’m at home.

Any other suggestions or tips are welcome since this is not only my first mobile media device but also first cell phone.

I can’t comment on the audio quality yet since I don’t have headphones that this little thing can power but the PQ is amazing.

Are you going to be listening to headphones with this device in environments where outside noise could be a problem?

BTW congrats on a excellent purchase.

I already have a pair of noise canceling headphones for work when I’m flying but I don’t want to cart those around for normal use like when I’m sitting I the lobby of the doctors office. Mostly these headphones will be used for when I just need to kill time but not when I’m flying. I don’t listen to music when I’m running or shopping or anything like that, but at the same time I’d like a little more separation than open headphones like my Sennheiser’s provide. Also I just can’t stand to where earbuds or on-ear headphones.

And thanks. I held out for the Galaxy S since a friend got a Droid X and by comparison the PQ on the Galaxy S is night and day better.

Alessandro MS-1?

http://www.alessandro-products.com/headphones.html

P.S. They are on-ear.

Beyerdynamic DT880 (32 ohm)

http://www.headphone.com/headphones/beyerdynamic-dt-880---32-ohm.php

These look pretty interesting.

On the same page they sell battery powered amps. Can you comment on whether those are of any value? Especially whether they save battery power on the source. Something like that might even come in handy on long trips especially to countries with different power standards.

I have never used the total air/bithead but they do seem to get good reviews.

I do use a tube headphone amp that is most beneficial with headphones such as the Beyerdynamic DT880 (600 ohm) version. The 32 ohm version caters to the portable market .

P.S. You might want to search around to find better deals at places like Amazon for the headphones.

Thanks for the DT880 recommendation. The more reading I do the more I think I’ll like them. Many are comparing them to the HD600s I already love. The general consensus is that they are a little more forward than the HD600s but have a little better imaging and are outstanding for classical and airy music which would be a significant part of my listening.

Amazon has them in stock. . . .

Have a look at the charger that came with your phone. It should be 100-240V 50/60Hz. All you need is a physical outlet adapter to charge the phone. That's what I'll be doing in Romania.

Thanks I’ll check it out. The documentation that came with the phone is a tad sparse so I keep having to find things out second hand like this. I guess they figure most people know how to use them by now so don’t need as much info. Hell I even had to call a friend to have her read back my own phone number to me since the place they hid it in my phone was not intuitive, well at least not to me.

Went out today to get a pair of headphones to hold me over until I found something to really use. Listened to everything I could that they had at the local BB and the only ones that sounded decent were the Swnnheiser HD428s so I picked up a pair. Compared to everything else they had the 428s were the clear winners but when I got home I thought just for the hell of it I would try out my HD600s.

Despite the greater loudness of the 32ohm 428s vs 300ohm 600s it was no contest. Even with the little droid phone the Sennheiser HD600 just destroyed their little cousins. I hadn’t directly compared the HD600s to anything since I bought them years ago and this just served to remind me why they one. The 600 are noticeably more neutral and have much better bass extension but IMO the biggest difference is the open (600) vs closed (428) design. The 428s sounded like I was wearing headphones whereas the 600s sounded like I was in a room full of instruments and singers depending on the song.

I can tell right away that both of these headphones will sound better with an amp but especially the 600s which at max volume were just below the ideal level I would like for listening.

I really didn’t expect to hear much difference between these because of the source but colour me shocked at just how much difference there is.