Let’s talk retro personal media players, before everything coalesced around Android and turned them all into less-functional smartphones.
Which one did you have? Do you still use it?
I always wanted pic related, but all I had was some shitty RCA MP3 player with shitty small joysticks.
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I have a Sandisk M250 that I got in 2007. Only 2GB but it has proper physical controls, and it takes a rechargeable AAA battery instead of an integrated Li-ion thing, so it didn't become useless after five years. I use it (with one of those fake-cassette-tape adapters) every time I drive, since my car is old enough to not have an aux-in jack.
I still use my zune every day
>Sandisk M250
my nigga, I used to have one of those
I switched to a phone for a while to stream spotify, but then I realised how much money I was wasting to mostly listen to the same albums I used to listen to in high school
recently I switched to an iPod 4th gen with rockbox installed. i forgot how nice having a dedicated player with physical controls is.
man, i wish i could find a good reason to use a separate media device like a zune or a pic related, but see absolutely no reason to use one and also carry a smartphone around for everything else.
old media players were kino
I’ve a few good reasons for you
>separate battery life on a dedicated player
>physical controls so you don’t need to fumble with the screen when you need to pause or skip music
>uninterrupted listening while using your phone if a video starts playing, you get a call you want to ignore, whatever
>no apps for distracting your music listening
I modded my old iPod video with a new extended battery and 1TB of micro SD cards, it’s faster and lasts almost twice as long as it used to.
It is kino as fuck
So I noticed that my phone doesn't supply enough power to my headphones for them to play back audio at full volume. If I were to get a pmp would that still be an issue? How would I be able to tell?
yup this.
and good volume controls, not that smartphone too loud and too low shit.
Pic related is my first PMP, got it 16 years ago as a kid, and had many since then.
Currently use a Cowon Plenue D, but the minidisc player still works fine.
well i've got an S9 so
>separate battery life
not a problem, i can listen to music while using my phone for 8h straight before needing to worry about my battery
>physical controls
i have some nice bluetooth earbuds that take care of that for me
>uninterrupted listening while using your phone
i have autoplay turned off across my phone, and if i get a call i don't mind being interrupted to deal with it
>no apps for distracting your music listening
i listen to music while i'm using my phone, or while i'm doing anything really
if using a dedicated discrete player fixes these problems for you, then good for you and i hope you have a good one. i just don't think it's for me, but i like threads like this so i'll contribute as much as i can
That’s sick. I always wanted a minidisc player. Live in japan now and thought about picking one up.
Pic related was my first PMP. I got it 14 years ago when I had hour+ bus rides to high school, I was the most popular guy on the bus cuz we could watch movies to kill time.
>20GB HDD
>5hr battery life
>output to TV
>could play divx videos
It was so sweet.
those are all valid points user, I can definitely appreciate using your phone. the S9 has great battery life and audio quality, still has a headphone jack too.
i still think physical controls are better than headphone line remote, but it’s a matter of preference at that point.
then again, i also use a typewriter for writing with isolation, so I’m a bit of a retro tech faggot
I followed Rockbox from the very beginning with my Archos Jukebox, and later bought some other compatible players. I moved on the Zune in part because of the nice hardware and UI focus on album art. I still use that and my Zune HD occasionally, but now I mainly use my LG V30, which actually sounds pretty great.
I just use those cheap ones on amazon that take a sd card
You elitist faggots have fun with your 2gb storage lmao
I always wanted a creative zen nano plus. even ran on a AA battery.
these days I kinda want to get an iPod shuffle, either the weird 3rd gen without any buttons, or the small 4th gen.
>retro
>zune
dude the zune was beautiful. I was always wanted one of those. do you still have to use the zune media center, or are there third party app support?
I have the official Zune software installed, it still works. As far as I know, no third party every made compatible software.
that era of microsoft mobile design language was ugly as sin IMO
I started out with a Panasonic CD player that would read mp3 CDs. Then I moved on to an RCA Lyra with 256mb internal storage with an SD card slot. Comfy memories.
that whole era of handheld devices was so comfy. they felt more like items you really owned and could carry around without worrying about them breaking on you. I remember my mate getting an Archos unit that looked so much nicer than my Lyra, and he could install custom firmware (probably rockbox), but I still thought mine was better because it had a bigger screen
comfy memories
I used this thing
>Pic related
I have used this thing for years and still do it's great with rockbox on it.
I still have a Lyra (not the original, a 512mb version) but sadly it won't even power on. I should take it apart and see if there is any hope for it.
>that whole era of handheld devices was so comfy
Also, you didn't have an all-in-one device like now. You had a music player, a digital camera, a flip phone, a pda and a mobile gaming device.
we weren’t plagued by the paradox of choice. I think there’s something to be said for that.
sometimes I’d bring my gameboy and phone with me, other times my iPod and phone, but rarely all three
>that iPod photo
man, I haven’t seen one of those in years. how is the battery these days?
they need to make one of these that runs on a n 18650
the battery life would be sick
It's still the same old battery probably gonna replace it but it's actually pretty fine for my use.
I would say it's maybe 80% of max capacity maybe.
>it's maybe 80% of max capacity
That's impressive. My Palm battery is toast these days. Barely get an hour out of it.
>tfw we’ll never see this made
you’re right, that would be amazing. now I’m sad at what never will be.
>someone actually saved my photos
Neat
Would it be worth it to get an iPod Mini (the 2nd gen one) and put in an SD card in it via CF to SD adapter?
I remember being a kid and seeing this getting advertised, I thought it was super cool because I thought it ran basically full XP instead just looking like XP.
In hindsight, what the fuck were MS thinking? Did they really think people would want a machine dedicated to running Media Player on a bulky piece of shit with a Windows logo, over an iPod?
Kinda still want one though..
I found this
aliexpress.com
unfortunately it's got useless shit like a flashlight and a speaker which you would never need but no proper interface
I have an iRiver PMP with the same UI and the similarities were amusing but the bottom line is that it's just a media player that sort of looks like Windows XP. Nonetheless it was a great PMP, having a 20GB HDD was great at the time. I've been meaning to toss in a 120GB SSD and see if I can get the firmware flashed
Definitely. The form factor of the mini is great, and adding CF or a larger SD would be pure kino.
>that fucking size
What the fuck, this looks so useless. Great idea, but horrible execution. When will chinkshit finally figure out how to invest in decent UI?
I want to build one, that would be sweet.
>What the fuck, this looks so useless. Great idea, but horrible execution. When will chinkshit finally figure out how to invest in decent UI?
pretty sure that's just bad chink photoshopping
It's just a bigger version of those AA and AAA flash drive players that used to exist. I'd definitely be interested in an 18650 version
Boomer
Something about this thread makes me feel very sad and nostalgic. I'm remember being excited about all the different media players and installing Linux on my iPod photo to play uncompressed family guy videos that were over a gig each with terrible audio.
My main setup is still a Sansa view and fiio e5 I got back in 2006-ish. Headphones I use now are the takstar m82(way more portable than the hd280, and imo sound better)
my big two are
>Battery life
I have a Ruizu x02 that lasts something like 30 hours on a charge and uses micro USB, so I put it on my charging station with my phone and tablet.
>Physical controls
When I'm driving, I can change songs without looking down, that's a big one. I can operate it if im wearing gloves too.
I had a zen. it's a piece of shit.
Huge as fuck, but the software was absolute crap. Worse than iTunes.
The software both on the device and syncing software on PC were the absolute buggiest pieces of shit a chinese code monkey ever shat out. It constantly lost songs, reset playlists, froze up in the middle of playback and in the middle of syncing. Great sound quality but absolutely shite software.
I use it with a single realistic minimus 0.6 to listen to podcasts while folding laundry etc.
The best DAP ever made, the Rio Karma.
Bow down, you lowly maggots.
That's a DAP, you ignorant bastard, not a PMP.
DAP = Digital Audio Player which is all the MiniDisc could do.
PMP = Portable Media Player, audio, video, etc
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE YOU IGNORANT BASTARDS
>the berbe
Mein negger.
That album got me through the early 2000's, through thick and thin, good times and bad (mostly bad). I would not have survived boarding school without it, A Northern Soul and A Storm In Heaven (and Digital Love now that I'm at it).
It's always been on one of my music players, from my first cd walkman to this nomad II MG, to my sharp minidisc to my first ipod and now my phone.
Based unix philosophy poster.
The brown zune came out in 2006
Have one of those in storage. I wish I could Rockbox it.
Looks like a dildo
>implying that a PMP has to be able to play all forms of media
Audio is a type of media, so any portable device that can play audio qualifies as a PMP. That's aslmost as bad as saying a DAP has to be able to play all audio formats.
Loved my MD player. It seemed like some future tech back in the day (like how Neo trades mini-discs in the start of The Matrix) and was smaller and more durable than CDs. It was great to make live recordings with them too.
Been through a few media players since then. Old iPods were great, and I installed Rockbox on mine because I hated iTunes. Used a Cowon C2 for a while, which had great battery life but then it just bricked one day. My Onkyo DP-X1 was super comfy but it ran out of juice quickly. Currently using a Fiio X7 Mk2, which is good but something about it feels a little soulless, and now the volume wheel only works when I want to turn down the volume.
I feel like there is at least one more media player I'm forgetting...
pic related was one of the firsts i had. literally nothing special but it took a damn beating. plus the line - in for recording was based back in the day. did a lot of ripping music from games, shame its storage was so small.
is there any way to really have any sort of line-in or even mic recording with an ipod video ?
>being that autistic
Anyone /Dell DJ/ here? I loved this thing
I used my 20gb up until last December. I never replaced the battery, and it would only power on if I had it plugged in. It was basically my car stereo for13 years.I plugged it in just for kicks, and it won't power on at all now.
You should see if you can repair it. They have repair guides and parts for them on ifixit.
Notoriously easy to replace components in these old iPods. If you want to gut it you may as well upgrade the hard drive or go with an SD card adapter and load Rockbox on it.
Who else still /sansa/? Used to have a Clip+, then the screen died, "Upgraded" to a Clip Zip and the buttons were too stiff and screen began failing, now I've got this unit.
>Dell
More like Incell
I still want this thing. Can i slap my 128gb sd in it with rockbox? Got over 7k songs and nothing aside from ipod has done well with the collection. I'd actually think of getting one if it worked
Any size card will work with rockbox as long as it's formatted to FAT32. Most cards ship formatted to exFAT but any partitioning software will do the trick.
>recently I switched to an iPod 4th gen with rockbox installed.
Are there any great caveats to putting rockbox on say, the last gen of ipod? (classic 160).
Is it a finicky thing that can fuck up and brick your shit, or is it relatively painless and stable?
I only ask because I rockbox'd a sansa clip once and that did not last long.
Holy shit I forgot about that one. Loved that thing.
This was my first, got it back in highschool and used it for almost 4 years, I think it was just a 2GB version but it was plenty for the time.
The fact that you could use it as a USB flash stick compact storage drive as well as a walkman was pretty slick at the time, too.
How much you paid in the fiio amp?
Hmm, not entirely sure. I owned a 160GB iPod Classic (Gen 6) in uni, but back then the bootloader was locked so I couldn’t put rockbox on it. Googling online seems to say they’ve cracked the bootloader, and it seems pretty simple. Check it out here:
iflash.xyz
It doesn’t seem likely to brick your device, or finicky at all, but I can’t confirm for sure.
I’ve never had any issues with Rockbox on my iPod 4G or 5.5G, though.
>*pssht*
>sip
the iPod classic was a good device
Thanks. I'll dig deeper to see if there's any fuckups to report.
I had an iRiver H10 running dosbox.
shit was great
by dosbox i meant rockbox
I actually upgraded from that to the view()
It was $25 when I bought it off deal extreme back in 2006. Its been discontinued since like 2008 tho. The e6 is still sold in some places, and I think uses the same amp. The outer case is plastic tho.
PMP stands for Portable MUSIC Player.
Same, still my favorite music player ever.
music is media though
Battery life isn't really an issue, even with an iPhone I can use an external battery. Mics have controls and I can't think of any phone that doesn't have volume controls. You probably want to be interrupted, I don't use a workphone for music. Friends and girls are more important than chink headphones with chink phones.
it's got a speaker
you can drop sick base while it's deep in your rectum if you want - great multifunctionality
>running dosbox
Damn that would be sweet.
I still have an old Clip+. Would installing rockbox on it make the battery last a little longer?
same but with normal OS. And I really enjoyed
music at that time.