Linux-friendly mp3 player?

[unknownmosquito]

Hi all.
It's time for me to get a new mp3 player, and unfortunately I've had my eye on the new iPod Nano. I have a love/hate relationship with Apple for excellent products like the Nano that don't... agree.. with all of our favorite choice of OS.
Anybody got any recommendations for something I can get instead, that's maybe a little more Ubuntu-friendly, but shares the same amount of excellent product design and elegance as the iPod line?

[WWSmith36]

I dig the ZEN. I thinks its from Creative Sound Labs. Priced very reasonable.

[abdeali]

my iPod works just fine
it auto mounts too!
rhythmbox works great (just like iTunes)

[unknownmosquito]

The problem with the Zen is that they are clunky... both visually and in my pocket. Honestly, I'm looking for something that rivals the iPod in construction & design quality as well as not having draconian content management ideas.

I think the old Zens rivalled the old iPods, but the new iPods are leaps and bounds ahead of the old ones, and the Zen has not managed to keep up...

Also, I'd like something small & flash-based. The more appealing Zens are too big (for me).

[aysiu]

I don't know about elegance, but I've always had great experience with Sandisk players and Linux.

[unknownmosquito]

my iPod works just fine
it auto mounts too!
rhythmbox works great (just like iTunes)

What generation?

Also: the sandisk players look nice, but even their smallest model, we'll call it the "shuffle competition" since the iPod is leading the market and it seems everyone designs their product lines around Apple, is thick. I don't know about you guys, but I already have my wallet, my car keys, and a chunky cell phone in my pockets.

I need something small. It either has to be small enough that it can slip behind my wallet (I carry my wallet in my front pocket because I'm paranoid of pickpockets) or it has to remove itself altogether (like the shuffle).

See where I'm going? The Sandisk line looks really nice, but the "nano competition" is twice as thick as the Nano.

[unknownmosquito]

Anybody had any luck with a Sony Walkman? http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665524094

Although I generally detest Sony, this one has me intrigued.

[bubba_169]

Sandisk Sansa - Bought it as 4gb and a 2gb MicroSD card as well and it only cost me just under £50. Works flawlessly with linux if you update the firmware on it and use the drag and drop mode. There are instructions for updating the firmware from linux too.

[fjf]

Cowon D2, drag-and-drop folders and files, SD card slot....

[kinematic]

I agree, Cowon Iaudio. Not only do they actively support GNU/Linux because they list it as OS their players work on but it also beats Sandisk and Ipod in terms of sound quality.

[earthpigg]

this bad boy (http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/7/) looks pretty awesome.

[helliewm]

Cowon IAudio is just brilliant.

Helen

[unknownmosquito]

It saddens me that it doesn't have video though. :(

Although I guess it's silly on a player so small anyway...

Anybody know any retailers (in the States) that sell Cowon? It's really hard to figure out how big these players are, and since that's a BIG part of what I'm interested in .... it'd be nice to be able to hold it you know? It strikes me that the iAudio A3 would be perfect if it wasn't so thick...

[kinematic]

this bad boy (http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/7/) looks pretty awesome.

That's one I have...the 8Gig version. Superb sound quality (get a good quality pair of earbuds!) and very long battery life.

[AndyCooll]

I too can recommend the Cowon iAudio7 (though I know aysiu didn't have a very good experience with it).

I have the 16gb version. My needs are basic so I've been very happy with it. It plays just about anything (including ogg files), and as has been mentioned it gives good sound quality and has an extremely long battery life.

:cool:

[zmjjmz]

All though the Cowon has probably outshone this, a used 1st generation iPod Nano, once Rockbox is put on it, is awesome.

[Sealbhach]

I'm using a Philips GoGear SA2825. It came with a CD for windows but Nautilus sees it as a flash drive so I just use it that way.

http://images.philips.com/is/image/PhilipsConsumer/SA2825_02-GAL-global?wid=430&hei=430

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/en/gb/consumer/cc/_productid_SA2825_02_GB_CONSUMER/Flash-audio-player+SA2825-02

Works just fine for my purposes.


.

[rotwang888]

The iAudio is fantastic, but it's gonna be too thick for someone who thinks zens are too bulky. That said, buy it anyway! It plays ogg and FLAC! woo-hoo!

[unknownmosquito]

It's simply too big. (The Cowon).
It really has to be something I don't mind always having in my pocket or I'll never use it.

I bought a Nokia n810 last year 1) for the GPS 2) for the wifi on campus, as a sort of umpc and 3) as an iPod replacement when my 4G Photo died

And I only ever use it these days as a GPS in my car. The audio management was bad and I moved off campus (and bought a smaller laptop), and it is so big that one of my pockets always feels like it's stuffed full of stuff.

So I'm trying to avoid the same thing.

[mostwanted]

Cowon D2, drag-and-drop folders and files, SD card slot....

I HAVE to warn everyone thinking of buying this that its support of Ogg is horrible. It can play Ogg just fine, but it cannot read the tags which means you can't navigate them in your library, you have to use the filemanager to play them instead. If you have Ogg Vorbis files in your collection, don't buy this.

[unknownmosquito]

I HAVE to warn everyone thinking of buying this that its support of Ogg is horrible. It can play Ogg just fine, but it cannot read the tags which means you can't navigate them in your library, you have to use the filemanager to play them instead. If you have Ogg Vorbis files in your collection, don't buy this.

Wow. That's really good to know.

[eddietours]

the sony works fine no ogg support , archos5 work good to has ogg and flac support:guitar:

[ironflippy]

The Cowon D2 is tiny. Imagine taking the screen of the iPod Classic, and putting a little border around it. It's that small. It is slightly thicker than an iPod, though, that's my main complaint. Factoring in it's amazing feature set (battery life, codec support, flash apps and skins, simple drag-n-drop interface, etc.) I find it to be the (almost) perfect little player.

[unknownmosquito]

Going to resurrect this thread:
anyone used any of the iRiver line? Thoughts on those?

[TBOL3]

Nope, but why not check out the sansa clip. My friend has it. It comes in 1, 2, and I THINK 4 gigs. It is about the size of a piece of chocolate.

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/02/sandisk-sansa-clip-vs-ipod-shuffle.php

[TBOL3]

Also, I heard that a new version of the firmware plays ogg verbose.

And the e200 is about the same as an ipod nano.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sansa_e200_series

Finally, a mix between the two, is the c200, 1/2 the size of the e200, sorry, no linky, too lazy.

[unknownmosquito]

http://www.sansa.com/players


It's similar (now called the sansaview?), except that it's larger (bad for the pocket) and plastic (read: less durable than the aluminum iPod).

Then the smaller one has a very limited screen, and is more targeted to compete with the Shuffle..

The problem that a lot of these players have is one that you see with software: they choose to do a number of jobs minimally well instead of doing one thing extremely well. Honestly I'd kill for something that was a media player and loved Rhythmbox and not much else... damn feature checklists.

So all the non-iPods that I've seen suffer from the same thing: they are large due to bad design and feature a checklist of features that I don't need, while time and money could have instead have been invested in the original design, and in UI design.

But I digress.