Flash-based personal media player that plays standard audio/video files?

[MichaelD]

[boris karloff] Good evening....[/boris karloff]

My 5-year old Rio Cali MP3 player has served me well, but it's beat up and dying. Time for something new. So, I might as well join the masses and get a player that does MP3 and video. iPODs are OUT. No iPOD for me...besides, it's proprietary and that's the debil.

I want a player that will play the files in their original format (drag and drop, Mass Storage Class type thing). Mostly all players will do MP3/.wav/etc in their native format, but from what I've seen, most require you to use the proprietary software the player comes with to reformat video. I don't like that.

I've been looking at the Sansa e280. and it's looking like a good buy even though you have to reformat video. (User-replaceable battery FTW, though!) but would like to hear some other suggestions.

Needs to be:

Smallish (will wear on armband when running)
Flash based (no hard drive players)
Non proprietary

Thanks!

 

[coolVariable]

Get a pocket pc ... or better yet. A windows mobile phone with an SD card (or mini-/mico-SD) slot.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I have the 2gig version of that Sansa one and like it sofar. I bought it refurbed from buy.com a couple weeks ago. I haven't had any problems with it yet but I haven't and probably never will bother with the video or picture parts of it. I bought it for the expandable memory, FM tuner, and the price.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input.

Originally posted by: thedarkwolf
I have the 2gig version of that Sansa one and like it sofar. I bought it refurbed from buy.com a couple weeks ago. I haven't had any problems with it yet but I haven't and probably never will bother with the video or picture parts of it. I bought it for the expandable memory, FM tuner, and the price.

Yeah, I'm with you there. I just pulled the trigger on the 8GB version I linked to in the OP (except I got it from buydig.com...$15 cheaper, shipped).

Being that you've got to transcode the video and pics, I'll probably just load up a few of each just for the hell of it. 8GB of tunes to start out with sounds plenty good to me. I didn't get a Micro SD card b/c I'm sure 8GB will be plenty for the meantime. My current MP3 player has 768MB capacity. The added space will be really nice.