looking for a new mp3 player...maybe.

here is pretty much the story i posted on misticriver.net

what it comes down to is if the gurus on misticriver will be able to give me some fix or not for my problem. if not, i might be out looking for a new mp3 player. I am not ticked at iriver b/c the fact that it served me a good, 2.5 years now (i think, if not longer...all original parts, even the battery still lasts a good 8 or 10 hours), many of my friends have blown through 2 or 3 ipods by now.

haha....so i guess its time to ask, what are my alternatives.

features i need:
color screen, OGG support, FM Radio, 20 gig capacity

features I want (nice to have):
picture viewer, USBOTG, microphone, rockbox compatible, video playback of some sort, battery 12 hours or longer, anything bigger than 20gb

budget: $300 +/- a hair

now this is what i've been eyeing:

Archos 402 w/cam: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16855501135
this player has everything i want (even USBOTG) but newegg doesn't say if it has ogg support, so i am wondering...ogg is a must for me. my friend had a 400 and the quality was great, i loved it, wouldn't mind owning a 402.

iAudio X5L: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16855603827
looks good, a popular model that lists on misticriver as "if my Hxxx died, i'd get it" has OGG support, everything else i need, lacks usbotg and video palyback is sub-par, but thats ok.

why is OGG absolutely important to me?
about 80 to 90% of all my music is in ogg vorbis 192 vbr ....in other words, if the player doesn't have OGG, i can't listen to my tunes. as a full time linux user, ogg is a more logical format for me than mp3 since it is open source and has wider support than mp3.

why is ipod not an option?
1 - i really dislike the scroll wheel as a navigational tool / design
2 - lack of ogg support
3 - requires itunes/ some sync program (i want it to be mounted as usb disk)
4 - no microphone
5 - no FM
6 - no integrated usbotg (there is an accessory which allows for it though...but again, extra cost)
7 - battery only 12h (i know i said 12 is fine, my H320 was rated at 16h new)
8 - from my friends who own ipods... poor construction quality
9 - all accessories are pricey extras, nothing is included in the original box
10 - does not allow for file tree navigation (another must i forgot to list)
11 - sound quality weaker (not much, but still) than the competition
12 - rockbox in extremely early stages, doesn't even work on the latest gen yet (last time i checked)

quality is said to be higher @ the same bitrate. 192 ogg (what most of my tunes is in) sounds more or less like 256 mp3... so in other words, the quality of the encoder (vorbis) is simply better when it comes to loosy formats.

i honestly don't wanna give up anything, since my H320 has every single one of the above features, and i refuse to downgrade. i mean even if i do have to forgo something...here would be my new list of merits:

ABSOLUTE MUSTS:
-- ogg vorbis support
-- color screen
-- FM
-- 12+h battery
-- mounts as USB drive / linux-friendly (no extra software needed)
-- microphone

THINGS I CAN GO WITHOUT:
-- video playback
-- rockbox support (as long as native firmware is of good quality)
-- USBOTG


and of course, with high-end headphones (ER-6 and ER-4p both on hand) sound quality is not to be overlooked.

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Porta...rddisk_Storage

found the most complete list of ogg vorbis supporting players yeppie.

i went through it....seems like the X5 is the best combination of features that i want for the price.... rockbox, ogg, and everything. reviews seem to be pretty ok too. sorta disappointed in the fact that the archos 402 (or 404) has no ogg support and the fact that although rockbox works on some archos models, the gmini series (400, 500, and 600 series) are not supported

before i say anything else.... i envy your 120...i really do.

the $100 cuts off the option to get one of those uber-sexy iriver flash players

so lets see what IS available (under $100)

Sandisk Sansa (actually getting pretty good reviews):
1GB for $57 : http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Sansa-...&s=audio-video
2GB for $80 : http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDMX3-...&s=audio-video

Sandisk Sansa C250: (nicer than the above model)
2GB for $86 : http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDMX7-...&s=audio-video

Creative Zen Nano Plus :
1 GB for $66 : http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Nano-...&s=audio-video

MobiBLU 1GB Cube for $70 http://www.amazon.com/mobiBLU-DAH-15...&s=audio-video

all of the above are a better deal than the shuffle b/c they give you more features (like the FM radio you want)... the 1GB models are also cheaper than the shuffle, and for the price of a 1gb shuffle (or just above) you get 2gb



UPDATE AS PER MY MP3 SEARCH:
-- went to a few local electronics stores.... of course all of them are flooded with ipods, and really horrible sonys... yet very few actually carry creative models, and no store that i've been to had a single Cowon/iAudio/JetAudio on display...very disappointing. Regardless I got to play around with some players just to get a feel for whats on the market. I genuinely like the creative Zen Vision M....i really do, but I can't get it because it does not support OGG (and no further plans to include that support in near future firmware updates), nor is there RockBox available for the Zen Vision so that I am at the very least able to use that to playback my vorbis files. So i hopped on Amazon to look at what they offered...and as it would seem, Cowon and iRivier are just about the only brands to feature native OGG Vorbis support. Since a new H320 will be hard to come by , and H120s, as fantastic as they are would be a slight step down from my H320 (mostly in the screen/picture/video dept....a step up in recording and sound) and again they are hard to find. That leaves me pretty much with Cowon, either the X5 or the A2... the X5 is a more pocket friendly design specifically for music on teh go. the A2 is a full blown (larger) portable media center.

wikipedia is prolly a better place to look up the technicalities but to make things simple... ogg is a file format, a shell if you will for the given file... like you can have an archive in .zip .7zip, .rar....you know? same goes for music...you can wrap it up in a neat littel mp3 package, or .wav or .ogg. The codec which is used to encode ogg media files (ogg is also used for video) is called Vorbis. The beauty of the "OGG Vorbis" package is that 1 -- its open source 2 -- it sounds better than mp3 in the same bitrate... and since i do have 2 pairs of high end headphones (ER-6 and ER-4p) sound quality is pretty much key. I got started using OGG pretty much from the get-go because my H320 was my first player so i didn't actually have an already established media collection...everything was a clean slate... but ogg made sense for me primarily because like i said it sounds better at same bitrates as mp3 and as a linux user...anything open source is better than anything closed source. Also i use allofmp3 as my music source... they offer most of their stuff in 192 vbr ogg which is what i use pretty much.