[vox] In the market for a new MP3 player

[Marc Elliot Hall]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:07:00AM -0800, Richard S. Crawford wrote:
> My old Creative Nomad Zen Xtra has been a good workhorse for about six
> years now, but recently it's started to show its age; it reboots
> randomly and the KZenExplorer software no longer talks to it (although
> Amarok does, which is peculiar). So I'm in the market for a new
> MP3/media player. My ideal player would play videos as well as MP3's
> and ogg files. Ideally there would be some desktop software which
> could manage the files on the thing, including playlists (Amarok, for
> all its coolness, fails miserably in this regard). I'm open to getting
> an iPod but I'm told the latest ones do not play well with Linux.
> 
> I'm open to all suggestions. Thanks!
> 
> -- 
> Richard S. Crawford (rscrawford at mossroot.com)
> http://www.mossroot.com
> Publisher and Editor in Chief, Daikaijuzine (http://www.daikaijuzine.com)

I recently ordered a "SanDisk Sansa 8GB Fuze MP3 Video" player:

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/ProductInfo.aspx?ID=2615

for my 15-year-old, who now uses it exclusively with the Linux 
workstation he shares with his siblings.

Wal-Mart's product page has a better technical description:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9239561&sourceid=1500000000000003142050&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=9239561

My son's experience has been largely flawless, although I don't know 
whether he's using Amarok or any other media-management tool. He is 
using Konqueror, at least, for some of the file transfers. 

In addition to MP3 audio, the player supports MP3, WMA, WMA DRM, WAV,
MPEG4, Overdrive and Audible audio files; has an built-in FM tuner, and 
will record from the built-in microphone. I have not tested whether it
will record from the FM tuner. It also supports a mini-SD card for
expanded memory.

A software update from SanDisk allegedly adds support for ogg vorbis,
although I have not verified this. 

We've only had this device for about a month, so its durability has not
yet been thoroughly tested. 

But for $90, including shipping, I'm thinking about buying one for
myself. 

-- 
Marc Elliot Hall
St. Peters, MO 63376
www.hallmarc.net