Re: [tlug] OT: a good ogg vorbis portable player?

[dagbrown@example.com (Dave Brown)]

Hector Akamine <akamine@example.com> writes:
> Can a happy owner of an ogg vorbis portable player recommend me a good
> model that can be purchased in Japan? 

I am completely in love with my CoWon iAudio.  I feel naked when I
don't have it with me.  It's a fantastic deal, I think.  As was
mentioned in another response to this, it plays wav files just
great: it also plays ogg as well as WMA (spit!) and MP3.

Something which doesn't play ogg is just not an option for me--the
vast majority of my music files are encoded in Ogg Vorbis format,
so playing Ogg Vorbis is a flat-out requirement for me.

I got the iAudio 20G "extended battery life" version--it's "only"
20G, but the 35-hour (!) battery life is more than worth the
slight premium you'd pay for it.  It also effortly works under
Linux--just mount it as a filesystem and copy your oggs anywhere
you want on the unit.

My general rule of thumb is this: if it was made by a Korean
company, then it'll support oggs.  If it was made anywhere else,
it won't.  There are exceptions of course--the Rio Zen and the
Neuros (not available in Japan) come right to mind--but that's why
it's a rule of thumb.

> I was in Yodobashi last weekend and was impressed by the variety
> of models, but (unsurprisingly) most only support just MP3 or
> the evil WMA. Is the quality of .ogg players good enough or need
> to wait for the next generation (if there's one)?

Yodobashi doesn't, in general, now about the concept of oggs.
Look in Sofmap's used-handhelds store in Akiba, and you'll have
better luck finding players that (they actually admit) support
ogg.

--Dave
-- 
"I'm expecting Fisher-Price to bring out a brightly-coloured My Little ATM 
Backbone kit for Xmas, complete with a radio-controlled toy backhoe and a 
fiber splicing kit for the tiny tots to have Fun with just like Daddy (but 
without the Recovery at the pub afterward)."  -- Robert Sneddon