Although I've had quite a few MP3 players (kicking off with a 64Mb beauty that used SmartMedia cards) I've only recently used them for podcasts in anything like a regular way.
I have escapepod to "blame" for that as the first podcast I've regarded as essential (and well worth $5 a month for).
There are a few working MP3 players in the house, some of which have been retired for a bit, including:
* 16Gb iPhone
*
Sansa C240 /
RockBox*
Sansa E280 / RockBox (currently MIA)
*
Toshiba Gigabeat F40 / RockBox
*
Techika super-cheap-1Gb-emergency-bought-on-holiday-because-my-iPhone-locked-player
At the moment, the C240 is my bedtime Podcast player of choice. This is because of:
* RockBox support. Commendably flexible firmware that lends itself to tweaking for late-night podcast listening getting the maximum battery life
* USB rechargeable batteries
* Drag-and-drop transfer from Linux
* I can roll about on it without fearing it'll break too easily.
There are downsides - the USB adaptor is proprietary for instance, meh - but all-in-all it's the best of the bunch for the job. (The Technika gets an honourable mention, much better than it first appears for the purpose)
So my question (there is one) is what else would people recommend for my circumstances?
My ideal player would have:
* Small bullet-like construction
* Drag and drop management from Linux
* Sleep timer / resume on startup
* Dedicated volume / play / pause hardware buttons
* Select-by-folder-and-file support as opposed to ID3 selection only
* deleting files on-the-fly
* At least 1Gb +built-in memory
* Ability to play back any file as "Mono" - I usually have only one bud stuck in.
*Not* so important:
* Voice recorder / album art / extras - simple 2, 3 or 4 line text display is fine
* Support for WMA / OGG etc. (nice but *shrug*)
* Memory expansion
* Gapless playback or other processing or effects.
I had my eye on a
B153 for a long time - even if it *is* AA battery driven you can't argue with that battery life - but they remain expensive and reviews are patchy.
So any suggestions? And what are people using at the moment?
