i was just about to close my eyes and have a quick kipper at work, but this demands a response...
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- Why would you want to remove the HD? I mean maybe I could understand the device having a small bit of onboard ROM so that you could put in a better HD on your own without screwing things up, but I'd still expect that to require some skill and to void the warranty. That is, unless the
device itself was like a barebones thing that came without
a hard drive in the first place maybe. But that'd probably get expensive and leave you with a questionable warranty since the HD would be handled seperate from the rest of the device.
ok this one isn't a be all and end all, but it would be cool if you could simply pop out the HD as if it was a laptop and put in another one. as for the warranty, obviously if you start changing components then the manufacturer of those parts would be responsible for the warranty...i'm thinking of a mp3 device that is more like a mini PC, the sum of many diff interchangable parts. this is highly unlikely in the not too distant future. and as i said, i could live without this option, but it would be cool
...
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f it's rechargable and can be replaced with only a small bit of skill that's certainly good enough. Again, probably void the warranty to do and require taking apart the ah heck, but no biggie if you're past the warranty anyway. (And if you're not past the warranty and your battery fails, RMA the sucker.)
as much as i dislike Sony's offering in this market, they have made a device which has an easily removable battery; just slide the cover and take it out and put another one in. i dont see why this cant be done in other systems and why it is not? anything with a non-removable battery, or one as easy as that is effectively useless, the battery wont last forever, and if its not lithium then your got a better chance of damaging the battery before its expected life ends. i dont know why these devices were made with built in's? but its a pain and its hard to argue against how handy it would be if you could just pop it open and replace it.
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· Small
once again the Sony is small, probably the smallest for a HD based player i've seen
i'm not sure how it compares to the Iriver or Zen. the Ipod is a brick!
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· No colour screen (its a waste of money for something that is going to sit in my pocket)
Screw that! I'd much rather have the color screen thanks. Portable photos are useful to me. In fact, if it were able to play MPEG2/MPEG4/DivX/whatever but still be in an MP3 player size and shape format that'd kick asterisk. For that matter, playing cheesy games is be handy too.
thats called a portable media device, i'm talking about an mp3 player here. trying to keep it simple; if the market cant make a decent mp3 player, i dont want to even think about the portable media players.
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No need to use proprietary software, sure. But coming with a good user-friendly non-DRMed file converting and CD ripping utility suite would be nice.
non DRMed, whats that?
yeah CD ripping would be cool, but basically a device which can be used with windows explorer or other similar standard file managing utils is a must. i believe Iriver and Creative work perfectly with Windows Explorer
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I could definately live without a remote.
yeah agreed, thats not essential but the option to have one, would be great and if it came with one; even better.
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True enough there, though how you're going to make a hard drive completely safe from shock damage is beyond me.
some laptop HDs have shock resistantancy built into them. just about all of them do, but some only operate on Y axis instead of XYZ...and any HD player that doesnt have this, is once again a hunk o junk
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Well duh. I would have thought this went without saying. What'd be really nice is the option to manually turn on and off the backlight like on my old Palm. Though I have to wonder why you care about the screen at all if you're using a remote and keeping it in your pocket...
the screen's not that important but a backlight is a must and should go without saying, but then i think there are a lot of points that go without saying, yet the companies out there dont bother.
backlight on the screen, for backup, and yes on the remote is a must.
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Again, duh. Good file support would be another one. Playback quality is meaningless if the only file formats you can use are crap. :O
agreed. ie: Atrac, i wont even begin on that one.
the sound play back on the Sony HD5 is crap, way too soft, i wish that went without saying but they prove me wrong.
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using it as an external HD
Doesn't this go standard with using Explorer instead of proprietary software?
yes it does, but i wouldnt' put it past a company to include one and not the other. once again i'm looking at Sony.
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While nice, I'd certainly be willing to suffer through some less than perfect controls if everything else is good.
yeah i can understand that.
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???? I don't think I even remotely get this one. Do you plan on breaking yours a lot or something? Wouldn't it not needing to be repaired for years be a lot more useful? Why would this even matter if you've got the next item in your list, a long lasting warranty?
my first Sony Mini Disc lasted about 5 years, when it came time to repair. the total cost would have been more than buying a new one. only prob, by then the new ones were all crap. oh and there wasn't any option but to get it repaired through their repair agents, shopping around proved a waste of my time.
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Of course you also missed directly stating the ability to browse files by their location on the hard drive in addition to the various auto-sorting features from the tags. (And for that matter, the ability to create and sort playlists of your own.)
AGREED
Another huge one that you missed is an auto-normalizing volume since not all files are recorded with the same volume and constantly fiddling each time a song changes can get old really fast.
NOT TOO SURE WHAT THIS ONE MEANS
Another rather important factor IMHO would be a long battery life. We can't always take our docking stations/USB cables with us.
AGREED, AND NO DOCKING STATIONS, I HATE DEVICE THAT REQUIRE THESE THINGS...IE: THE SONY HD1. AND THE ABILTY TO PLUG IT INTO A GENERIC USB CABLE
Another useful factor to me would actually be the inclusion of a short-ranged FM transmitter so that I can play music in my car (or wherever) without a goofy and annoying cable system or an external device to do the same.
AGREED
For that matter, an FM reciever is nice too. (In fact, AM/FM would be even better since I still occasionally listen to AM radio as well.)
AGREED
Hell, if you can do radio reception, why not even try for TV reception? That'd make a color screen handy.
(Though this is more fanciful wishing at this point and hardly necessary.)
YEAH MORE ALONG THE LINES OF THE MEDIA PLAYER
For the office warriors (or just people who need it) the ability to set alarms and/or synch with calendars would be nice.
AGREED
And an uber-coolness factor would IMHO be a built in standard wireless network adaptor for file transfers without docks/cables. (Or even better, for file transfers between devices without any PC involved.) Of course you'd want to be able to turn this on and off and maybe even password lock access to your device for security and power usage reasons.
AGREED
SORRY BOUT THE CAPS, I DONT KNOW HOW TO DO THAT INDENT STUFF...
anyway...basically the HD 20gb and over market is a joke. there are a heap of players that do the same pathetic job. i've just come off a promo job for Sony with their new offering and i hate it. its great to use for free, but the software that came with it turned this potentially great device into an absolute hunk of junk.
see my other post for my review of the device.
i'm a very heavy music listener, always on the go, on the move and always want to have music where ever i go.
i cant understand why no one has steped up to make something that really stands out from the rest. Sony is being held back by their own personal battle with mp3 making any quality product useless thanks to the software that comes with it or just the media it supports.
the other guys seem to be full of holes. i wonder who is responsible for desining them?
i hate seeing rave reviews for useless products. or not rave reviews, but its always a review based around someone thats used it for a few days.
after 1 month of use, i hated my product and could list why. but after that i could easily grab a new device and put it through some simple test/criteria to see how it would stand up after only a week or two
i'm sick to death of not being able to get a decent review anywhere except from Top Gear, but unfortunately all they review is cars
i would give anything to see them produce a Tech Show
as for the mp3 market, i know so many people that refuse to buy in or spend much on the devices because they are all so crap. useless.
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