Bluetooth.

[4DThinker]

The last few years I've moved all my CD music onto a hard drive, and been exploring how to have easy access to it no matter where I am. Of course that implies putting it on a portable device, so I've been looking into the options there.

I started with a nearly free little MP3 player that uses SD cards with a 2 gig limit. It's only play option was "shuffle", and with no display I found it pretty useless. Yes, it would play music. No, you couldn't choose which of the songs you put on it would play or in what order.

I got suckered into buying a multimedia player, the Mustek PVR-A1 on clearance at HSN. It works, but is heavy and chunky, limited in capacity also to 2 gigs via SD cards, and no one makes cases for it. It came with it's own slip cover case, but no belt clip or arm band. Being too big to fit in most pockets, I never take it with me.

I went in to buy an iPod Nano (http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPod-Player-Black-Generation/dp/B000JO3N3S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200934726&sr=1-2) but bought an iPod Touch (http://www.amazon.com/Apple-8-GB-iPod-touch/dp/B000JO3Y1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200934765&sr=1-2) instead. Amazing piece of technology. I don't use it much for music, though, as it's main distraction is the wifi web browser and web applications that are available. It also must be parked in a dock or have earphones plugged into it, and those are two negatives in my book. No FM radio either. 8GB capacity isn't quite large enough to hold my entire collection.

I bought one of the new Zunes with an 80GB hard drive (http://www.amazon.com/Zune-Digital-Media-Player-Generation/dp/B000WG6XW6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200934813&sr=1-1). Like it alot. It has an FM radio which proved incredibly useful in the recent ice storm power-outage. Not an easy interface. Compared to the Touch, it takes more than twice as many clicks or strokes to get to business with. It too has to be parked in a dock or used with headphones.

Last week I added the Samsung YP-P2 8GB (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-YP-P2JCB-Portable-Media-Player/dp/B000VQ7ZK6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1200934652&sr=8-1) touchscreen mp3 player to my collection. It has built-in bluetooth and I think I'm in love. I took a trip to BestBuy yesterday and picked up bluetooth adapters (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8534062&st=bluetooth+receiver&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1188438378818)for my iPod and Zune docks, a bluetooth transmitter/receiver (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8473396&st=sony+bluetooth+ipod&lp=3&type=product&cp=1&id=1186006217582)for my home stereo and a receiver for my car. I've had a nice bluetooth headphone set (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8480413&st=insignia+bluetooth+headphone&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1185267960408)for awhile. The P2 easily pairs with all my docks, adapters and headphones. Instead of parking the P2 in a dock, I park it in my pocket. As I walk around my house, the bluetooth transmission connects to whichever device is in range, and the music continues playing in the new room. I get in my car and the music starts playing on on the car speaker system. If I'm trying to be discrete, I put on the bluetooth headphones.

Now the P2 doesn't have the best interface. It is better than the Zunes, but not quite up to the simplicity of the iPod Touch screen. Still, this little player from Samsung is by far my favorite player, thanks to it's built-in bluetooth radio. I picked mine up when it was on sale through Amazon for less than $200. Samsung has promised to keep improving it with firmware upgrades. I upgraded it once the first time I had it plugged into a PC. It's got a beautiful screen, with just as crisp of video resolution (480x272 as the Touch(480x320). The Zune is lower resolution. The P2 is smaller than the touch, and much lighter. Neither is hard to carry around, but to add a bluetooth dongle to the Touch or Zune would make them much more cumbersome. There are teasers on the internet showing an add-on device for the P2 that would add wfi, FM transmission, and an SD card slot to expand memory. If they add wifi and a web browser to this little player, I'll sell my Touch. You can use the stereo bluetooth to transfer files, transmit audio, and potentially allow a bluetooth keyboard/mouse for input and bluetooth printing. I've seen bluetooth used to share internet access too, and wouldn't be surprised if they enable that feature eventually.

4D

[Stuart Sweet]

Cool, thanks

[Pinion413]

Excellent. Thanks for the info.

[4DThinker]

You are both welcome.

I'm curious how many DBSTalk visitors have and frequently use their own MP3 player of some sort. I know there are dozens of players out there that it can be quite confusing where music money could be best spent. I've obviously bought players I won't use, but didn't know that until I had them in my hands to try them out. As such, I'm on a personal mission to reveal what I know about technology and it's usefulness.

4D

[Pinion413]

You are both welcome.

I'm curious how many DBSTalk visitors have and frequently use their own MP3 player of some sort. I know there are dozens of players out there that it can be quite confusing where music money could be best spent. I've obviously bought players I won't use, but didn't know that until I had them in my hands to try them out. As such, I'm on a personal mission to reveal what I know about technology and it's usefulness.

4D

That's cool by me. :righton:

I have a Zune 80, which replaced a 30GB Creative Zen Vision : M that was flaking out on me. I did like it quite a bit, but Creative was going to charge me $25 just to look at it, and then whatever else to fix it (it was only 6 months old). My response was 'The heck with that", and bought the Zune.

I use it daily (in my pocket, 1 ear wired through my shirt) while working. After the trouble with the Zen, and its bulkiness, I'm glad I ended up replacing it. Where the Zune isn't perfect (as you pointed out in your OP), I feel it is a very intuitive and solid player for my needs. Their software isn't half bad either. :grin:

I'll try just about any player out there if need be, as long as it isn't an iPod. It isn't so much that I don't like iPods themselves, because I do. They seem to work quite well. I just absolutely hate iTunes. Especially when you have a rather large music collection on your computer, iTunes is a very slow memory hog.

[4DThinker]

I'm about ready to put a comparison review of the Samsung P2 Vs the iPod Touch on my blog. Probably this weekend. I've had the P2 long enough now to understand it pretty well, and am pretty amazed. I suspect the iPod Touch is going to win, but the P2 with it's bluetooth, FM, and potential FM and Voice recording is going to put up a darned good fight!

I've already put up a comparison of the Zune 80 to the iPod Touch (http://4dthinker.blogspot.com/2007/12/zune-80-verses-ipod-touch.html). Feel free to comment, please!

4D

[4DThinker]

Samsung came up with the promised Bluewave update early the 31st. It adds FM recording, video resizing, photo scaling and rotating and cropping for use as your skin. The interface has been made a bit more consistant through menus. It appears there is more work to be done, though, as they pulled the download after several P2 owners found it crashed on their devices. I've installed it with no apparent bugs, but will look for a refined version in the near future. I did post a little review on my blog. Feel free to check it and leave comments.

4D

[MicroBeta]

I'm 6-2 305 and compared to all your players I kinda feel small with my Creative Nomad MUVO2...4Gb :grin:

Mike

[Pink Fairy]

Like it alot. It has an FM radio which proved incredibly useful in the recent ice storm power-outage.

4D

My little freebie Mp3 player lasted about 3 nights into our power outage ( I HAD to have noise to sleep)

[Richard King]

You are both welcome.

I'm curious how many DBSTalk visitors have and frequently use their own MP3 player of some sort. I know there are dozens of players out there that it can be quite confusing where music money could be best spent. I've obviously bought players I won't use, but didn't know that until I had them in my hands to try them out. As such, I'm on a personal mission to reveal what I know about technology and it's usefulness.

4D
I have one of these guys: http://www.sonicblue.com/shop/_templates/item_main_Rio.asp?model=306 that I use when working around the house that I am rebuilding. I have found that it is rather fragile though and the scroll wheel no longer functions (common proplem) after being dropped one time. It is VERY small and fit nicely in a shirt pocket.

I have one of these guys: http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/05/archos-504-pmp-reviewed/ that sits on a gooseneck mounted to the floor in my car. It's my music player when I am not listening to XM. I have 5,049 songs loaded (many duplicates included thanks to operator (me) screwups).

I have one of these guys: http://www0.epinions.com/content_183216934532 sitting on the bedside table that rarely gets used.

The one I use the most is the Rio. While it works fine without the scroll wheel, I have lost the ability to adjust volume or scroll through songs. I am pretty much stuck in the mode it was in when I dropped it. I can still turn it on and off but that's about it. Since the company that made the Rio has gone away

I have one of these guys: http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/Samsung-U740.htm as my cell phone, which has an MP3 player built in, but I never use that feature. I have a 2G card installed, but would rather just use it as a phone. When my old phone quit I went shopping for the most basic phone I could find and found that there were no just BASIC phones available anymore. Verizon had a sale on this one so I ended up with it. :( Nice, feature rich phone, but I didn't need the "features".

[Richard King]

I posted this in another forum a little while back, but I think it needs to be repeated here for those who missed it.. BLUETOOTH is DANGEROUS!!! http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21623059 :D

[4DThinker]

Good point, Richard. ;) With the Samsung P2 being used as a cell-phone transceiver, you still have to have IT up to your mouth so the mic will pick up your voice. As such it would be pretty obvious you were talking on a phone.

In any case I don't have a cell phone, so won't be using that dangerous "feature". ;)