Good portable .ogg player?

[OneSeventeen]

I'm getting really used to Ubuntu, and the fact that I'm not tied to any one company by proprietary file formats, and I'd like to take it a step further and switch from mp3 to ogg vorbis.

are there any portable .OGG players that meet the following criteria:

can play .ogg files (of course!)
LCD screen to browse folders/playlists
Ability to pause one song, play another, then resume original song
Good sound quality


I would prefer something with video playback capabilities without being too huge, but I'm not too concerned about that, I have never felt such withdraws from TV that I need to stop whatever I'm doing to watch a 2" video podcast of digg owners getting drunk...
[b]The iRiver Blue 1GB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855150057) looks good, but I'm not sure if you can do items 2 and 3 on my list, not to mention it looks like it requries Windows Media Player 10 to copy files?? Can I use an Ubuntu app to bypass this? I hear flashing the firmware removes FM tuner capabilities...

[Kimm]

You should look into iAudio players, I dont know if they can do point 3, but most of them can do the rest :)

[junior aspirin]

i have a iriver t20, similar to the one you are looking at. they can be officially converted to ums now (IE no longer needs wmp 10). see here http://www.mtp-ums.net/.

it depend on what you are looking for, my player has very good sound quality and is very small, which is what i wanted. i have don't think many media players support my huge amount of music anyway (35gig +) so a small flashed based player i update regularly is fine for me. i have never had any problems with ogg's either. also it cannot do 3. the firmware is very similar so i guess the features are the same. the FM radio is also quite good quality, i managed to pick up a few stations in my lecture theatres that normally i cannot get a mobile phone reception. (i know i should be listening but..meh).

also a good thing about the t20 is the slidy usb thing;. it is actually built into the player, you just slide out the usb. i charges through this too, which is great so no wires.

this is just a guide/feature list of my player, its not the best, but just though you would appreciate the info :D

agreeing with kimm, i have heard very good things about iAudio, but never used one myself.

also ipods can play oggs with the rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/) firmware.

[Lord Illidan]

Sorry to butt in. About the ipod, will installing rockbox invalidate your warranty?

[OneSeventeen]

After looking at the iAudio stuff, it is going to be hard for me to not save up for one of their higher-end players! The fact that they have high quality mic's and line-in features makes it very tempting (since I podcast with PC audio, this would enable me to record podcast segments wherever I am without a laptop)

I'll still consider the iRiver, since I've heard good things about them, and I'll definitely post if I find one that does #3!

And no, from what I hear, running alternative firmware does not invalidate iPODs, since you can easily re-install the iPOD firmware anyway. check this out (http://ipodlinux.org/FAQ#Is_this_legal.3F) for more details on the warranty issue.

[junior aspirin]

i would assume yes. but i dont think the original firmware is replaced, you can sortof dual boot it. i havnt looked into it much, but the website has all the info.

[darkhatter]

ipod with Linux installed should do all of those (I think)

[Onyros]

I have an iAudio X5, and it's a great little player with ogg support, it also has browsing by filename (no out-of-the-box support for id3 browsing, btw, unless you install Rockbox's firmware), sound quality is quite good, yet not as good as my previous mp3 player (which also had ogg and FLAC support), the Rio Karma... the god of portable music players :P

It's detected as an external HDD, so there's no need for third party software to be installed in order to transfer files, it's just drag'n'drop ;)

As for item #3 of your requirements... that's quite a strange one. I've had a few mp3 players, and never even heard of that feature before :P

[augied]

I have an iAudio X5

I have a Karma and I'm thinking about buying an X5. How big are the gaps between flac files? I've heard mixed reports about gapless playback.

[professor_chaos]

I place a vote for iaudio. You might pay a little more, but you get quite a bit.

[Corbelius]

IAudio is the best.

I have an iaudio 6, it's wonderful, nobody has quality like IAudio.

[Onyros]

I have a Karma and I'm thinking about buying an X5. How big are the gaps between flac files? I've heard mixed reports about gapless playback.The gaps are definitely noticeable, on mp3, ogg, FLAC, whichever file format you try to play. Rockbox's firmware supposedly offers true gapless playback a la Rio Karma, but I don't think it's optimized yet (battery consumption and a few other quirks).

Especially coming from the Karma, you may be disappointed at first with the sound quality. I know I was, I *REALLY* miss the parametric equalizer, iAudios sound enhancements seem a bit artificial at times... But you know that after you've owned a Rio Karma the bar is set pretty high, and the X5 is actually known for good sound quality, so... there you go ;)

Biggest advantages over the Karma: drag'n'drop transfer of files (in Ubuntu you had to use Rio Music Manager Lite, the little java version and it was somewhat problematic, it always erased the playlists I had at the player), it doesn't tend to break anything and everything like the Karma did (I lost count of the times I opened up my Karma), it's definitely more durable.

Video playback is nothing special, though. So, if your Karma is still in good shape and you want a good music player instead of something that will also play videos and display photos (which is nothing special in the X5, btw), stick to your Karma. It's the still the best there is, in terms of sound quality.

[OneSeventeen]

As for item #3 of your requirements... that's quite a strange one. I've had a few mp3 players, and never even heard of that feature before :P

Thanks for the tips about the Karma and iAudio X5, as for item #3, this is a podcast-listener's dream-feature current supported by all the recent iPODs. (Of course, apple doesn't seem to like "stop" buttons... just "pause" anyway)

I'm not worried as long as I can skip through the track. I actually have a DVD player at home that forces me to start audio CDs/MP3 CDs at the beginning of each track! No Seeking!

So as long as I can easily seek to a point, say, 30 minutes into a 1 hour show, I'll be happy.


Thanks for all the tips everyone!

[bobbybobington]

list (http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers) of linux compatable players.

these guys (http://www.jetaudio.com/) also have some players as well.

[OneSeventeen]

Well, so far the COWON A2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855603834) seems to be my dream player for now.

It costs a little more than an iPOD, but there are four features that make me sold on it:

Plays Ogg Vorbis
Records from Mic/Audio Line in/Video Line in
Screen is roughly the size of an iPOD
it is not an iPOD (and is linux compatible)


It is so OS independent, you could put songs on it without using a computer at all! (Just by transferring them from one USB device to this)

If I can easily record from my PC microphone straight to this, I might have to save up for it (since I podcast, and recording on the road would be a nice time-saver!).

[kanem]

Samsung's new flash players also do ogg. They say you need windows, but most reviews note that you can choose 'drag and drop' transfer and use it in other OSs.