Sun Apr 2 14:57:45 EST 2006

My First Digital Music Player


In a moment of weakness I've finally given in and ordered an mp3 player. At the recommendation of fellow Linux users I looked into the iAudio M5 20GB player and found very high reviews of it. I had very specific requirements I've been waiting for before I bought a player and this meets, at least on paper, nearly all of them as far as I can tell. Once I get it I'll probably post more about it. Now I just need to wait until it gets here. Why did it have to ship out of California instead of New Jersey? When I order from Newegg and it comes out of NJ it nearly always arrives the next day regardless of the shipping method I choose. Now I have to wait the full 3 business days! Oh the horror...

So, to kill time I decided to check out accessories that could be used with this. I intend to use it to listen to tunes and select podcasts in my car. So I decided to look for a nice FM Transmitter. I also tried to look around for a nice case to protect it and let me clip it to my belt if I chose. Maybe nice portable speakers would be nice too but not a high priority. So, I started Googling around and even stopped at a local store or two. You know what? Judging from the products on the shelf you'd think that iPods are the only darn players in existence! Everything is "name of accessory for iPod". Even if it can be used with different players it's always a side note that you have to read the fine print on the back of the box to find out. iPods are good players from what I hear with a nice full feature set, but it's not the end all be all of players. There are plenty of other players that are of high quality out there. Why are they ignored?

Either way, I did find out some universal accessories. The big concern for me is the case, and the one that Newegg has in their inventory was ugly as sin, didn't protect the screen in anyway, and had no clip. You'd have to take your belt off and feed it through the loop on the back. But, I found zCover has cases for the iAudio. They look pretty sweet.

Posted by Brian | Permalink | Categories: Computers and Technology, Personal | |