So What *Do* I Want?

So, now that I’m looking for a new MP3 player, just what is it I want in one?

• Capacity

  The total size of my music collection right now is just over 10 gigs. However, I don’t need access to the entire thing all the time. Even when I’m listening to it at home with the entire library accessible, I find myself skipping past files and only playing my favourites anyway. If I count only those favourite tracks, it’s then only around 3 gigs.

  It would be nice to have all of those accessible, but I’m not going to make that a hard requirement, either. I already have scripts set up to select subsets of the library to fit into a limited space and that worked pretty well for the PocketPC. The only downside was that with 256 megs, repeats popped up a little too often, and I’d sometimes get a song on the way home that I’d already heard on the way to work. For a new player, I think I’d want at least 512 megs in order to reduce the repetition a bit.

• Mass Storage
  It would be really nice if it can act as a USB mass storage device too, for those occasional times I want to haul non-music files around. I don’t want to have to screw around with custom software just to transfer plain files. My scripts also depend on being able to just copy files over directly from the Linux box that holds all my files; I really don’t want to have to run the scripts to select the playlist, copy the files to the XP system, and then copy them again to the device after fiddling with their custom software.
• FM Tuner
  It would also be a plus if it has an FM tuner built in. I’ve never really listened to the radio much, but it would be nice as an alternate source of music. I need *somewhere* I can hear new music and not just my own collection.
• Recording
  Meh, the ability to record isn’t that big a deal to me. By the time I realize I’d want to record something off the FM tuner, I’d be missing most of it anyway, and it’s been very rare that I’ve wanted to record myself, speeches, etc.
• Formats
  MP3 is pretty much a given, of course. WMA doesn’t matter, as I don’t use it. AAC would be nice, for use with iTunes (assuming they ever get around to opening the iTMS to Canada), but I know that’s pretty much iPod-only for now.

  Ogg Vorbis would also be nice, though it only really matters when the device’s capacity is limited. All of my favourite tracks are already encoded in 96kbps Ogg Vorbis format, since that seems to be sufficient quality for me given all the other noise around, and having to go back to 192kbps MP3s (the majority of my collection) would knock a 512MB player down to the same effective capacity as the 256MB PocketPC. 128kbps MP3 might be good enough with a smaller loss of space (it was primarily at 64kbps and 96kbps that MP3 started to sound awful to me), but then that’s a lot of re-encoding…

There are other factors too, like size, feel of the controls, etc., but I’m being picky enough as it is. :-) So, given these criteria, how do the players stack up?

iPod: Definitely wins on capacity, but unfortunately fails on a lot of the other points. Sorry, Apple.

Rio Karma/Nitrus: These have the capacity, a good price, and Ogg support, but lack the tuner and use some proprietary file transfer scheme.

iRiver iFP-795: Now this looks promising. Has the minimum capacity, can play Ogg, and has an FM tuner and voice recorder. Unfortunately, it’s still a month or so away from being released and it’s not clear whether it’ll be able to act as a USB mass storage device. There are other models that do, like the iFP-395T, but then they don’t support Ogg. Oh, so close… Definitely a contender, though.

iRiver iHP-100 series: This also looks very promising. All the features are here, including Ogg support (though it no longer really matters when there’s enough room) and USB mass storage. It is, of course, a fair bit more expensive and bulkier than the other iRiver players though, and has a slight disadvantage in a non-removable battery.

MPIO FY200: Has almost all of the listed features except Ogg support. Otherwise about equivalent to the iRiver iFP-395T.

I’m sure I’m missing some, but those were the major ones that I could recall.

For the moment, it looks like the only ‘perfect’ player for me is the iRiver iHP-100, which is unfortunately also one of the most expensive. For a cheaper player the alternate choice would be either the iFP-395T or MPIO FY-200, using 128kbps MP3s instead.

Ah well, at least that narrows down the choices a bit…