My new favourite MP3 player

[andrewducker]

I've had a range of MP3 players, starting off in 1998 with the first ever portable MP3 player - the MPMan F10 (32MB of memory!), and going through a variety of different ones since then.  Until recently my favourite was the iPod Nano, which took a decent amount of music and had a lovely interface.

After that I had a Sandisk player which was _almost_ great, but let down by some terribly shoddy interface choices (the worst of which was that if it put itself into low power mode then it would forget where you were up to, meaning that when I came back to my player I'd find myself back at the start of the album.  This is _unforgivable_).  Oh, and when it's charging it can't also play music.  Which is ridiculously dumb.

Anyway - I decided to give my Nokia N85 a go as an MP3 player.  I could, at the least, use it as a backup when the Sansa was charging.

And it's great.  It has the nicest possible interface for finding a track I want - text input.  No more scrolling up and down until I hit the right track - just type "L", "E" and then I'm sitting on Lemon Jelly.  It has volume controls on the side of the phone, and music controls on the other end from the keypad, if I just want quick access to play/pause/next/prev.

The only disadvantage it has so far is that it's only 8GB.  And I can upgrade that to 16GB for £44.

Dunno why I didn't do this months ago.

Comments

[andrewducker]

Oh, and I only have to carry around one device, which is also terribly handy.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

As long as 'flight mode' is easily available for those times you want just music and not interrupted by txts/calls.

[andrewducker]

Yup. I can go "Offline" if I want to.

Handily, you can still use WiFi while "offline" - it just turns off the GSM/3G connection.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Thank you, a wonderful review of one of our products :-)

I have on the desk next to me an E71 and a 5630 (slim, light, standard headphone socket, up to 16Gb card, "Say and Play" voice selection of tracks, text to speech for email/messages, voice dialing, quad-band, 3G, wifi etc. 12mm thick and under 85g ... dedicated music player keys, side mounted volume up/down (which double as zoom for 3.2Mp camera with proper focus), combined inbox for SMS and MMS messages, IMAP/POP/SMTP. Audio .mp3, .wma, .aac, eAAC, eAAC+, MIDI, WAV etc. etc. etc. ... when did light simple phones become so complex?!)

And yes, flight mode etc. ... when you've got your notes, music, photos, address book and calendar all on your phone, you don't want to have to switch it off on the airplane!

[andrewducker]

See if there were 32GB cards available...

And yes, I love that I'm basically carrying around a tiny computer with me. It's very handy.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

I had a Diamond Rio - I wish I knew what I did with it, I'm sure I kept it somewhere. Currently using my OK ish Sony Ericsson W910i, although Work just got me a N85 and it's aaaamazing, or I'm sure it will be when I understand how it works.

[andrewducker]

I love my N85.

If you'd like some help getting it set up nicely then shout :->

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

yes please! It's my work phone so currently I am capable of looking at emails, getting confused every time I want to send a text, and trying to work out how to set it to silent.

[andrewducker]

Simple one first. Click the "on" button - i.e. the one on top of the phone that's black and slightly recessed. This allows you to choose different modes, including "silent" and "offline".

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

My button is red, but otherwise, aha! Brilliant :)

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

OMG! It's not an N85 AT ALL!! It's an E71! How rubbish am I? pah.

[andrewducker]

Pretty much the same OS - just a different box for it :->

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

brilliant! so how do I access my outlook contacts on it?

[andrewducker]

With the Nokia PC Suite, which came with the phone and is also available on the Nokia website. It will synchronise your Outlook contacts and your phone contacts.

[matgb]

This whole 'buying MP3 players' thing? Never done it. Last two phones I've had were specifically chosen because they were good MP3 players first, they have a phone attached, it does phone stuff.

It's nice to have a Walkman that works reliably.

[andrewducker]

Wasn't enough memory in my previous phone to do that - it maxed out at 2GB. This one goes to 16GB so far (and presumably to 32GB when MicroSDHC gets that far).

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

What happens with a band whose name begins with The? Is there an option to ignore indefinite articles?

[andrewducker]

Even simpler. Searches operate on the first letter of every word. So K finds The Kaiser Chiefs and The KLF, which C finds Covenant and The Kaiser Chiefs...

[avatar.livejournal.com]

That does sound good. I've been looking for any player that is good enough to replace my 16GB iPod Touch, which has itunes crappiness all over it, but the real thing that keeps me on the ipod is a few of the applications which are a little too addictive to ditch. Oh, and movies, but I'm pretty sure your phone could do that.

[andrewducker]

Not played around with video much. The screen is a bit smaller than an iTouch though.