I’ve been without an audio player since my Samsung YP-F1 was a victim of the ETAP hotel room robberies at the GUADEC conference in Birmingham. Well, I haven’t seen it since then anyway. The YP-F1 was small, pretty, it worked like a USB memory stick, played Ogg Vorbis (essential for me), and recharged without disposable batteries (also essential). But they don’t make them any more.
The YP-F2 doesn’t look too bad. They don’t make that any more either but I think I can still get them here in Germany.
Now there’s the YP-U3, which is not pretty, though not awful. But it seems to need the MTP protocol instead of allowing music to be loaded as a USB mass storage device. Apparently the YP-U2 had the same problem. (Update: Apparently the YP-U2 works fine as a USB mass storage device.) How confident can I be of MTP support in, for instance, Rhythmbox? Even if it works it would annoy me to have to use music player software just to transfer files to the device.
I find just about every other audio player large and ugly.
Update: I bought a Cowon iAudio 7. It plays everything but I hate the interface. It’s very difficult to know what the buttons might do at any time, it’s far too easy to brush the buttons accidentally, and touching a button for a moment extra will cause it to recognize a long press, which generally does something unrelated and unexpected. I also miss the belt clip for running.
Hi, I’ve got a Samsung YP-U2 which I regulary use with Linux and Rhythmbox. Using the MTP protocol is apparently an option if your a windows user, but under linux it’ll just show up as a mass storage device. Here’s my mini-review of it:
http://daveg.outer-rim.org/entries/2006/04/24/recent-acquisitions-part-2-samsung-yp-u2-mp3-flash-player/
Hey, I’ve bough one of those Little Samsung YP-U3 players.
I’m very happy I did. If you’d like to chat about it mail me.
It is MTP only. Trying to put the firmware for the Korea UMS version will not work. I’m still hopping they release a firmware that can turn this into a UMS device. One thing that I find wierd is that it supports ogg even though it’s an MTP device.
You’ll love the way they designed the usb terminal, its pretty nifty. The led on the other tip is useless but you can turn it off.
My iRiver S7 is a perfect player, small and beautiful. It plays ogg. It uses builtin battery and use USB to recharge. The sound quality is good. Maybe S10 is more suitable for you, because it has a screen. :)
http://www.iriver.com/product/p_detail.asp?pidx=80 S7
http://www.iriver.com/product/p_detail.asp?pidx=78 S10
Just as daveg mentioned, the YP-U2 works just fine as a mass storage device on Linux. I own a YP-U2R (which has an radio as well, which is nice) and it works just perfect for me!
What do you think of the iRiver S10? See this page here http://www.iriver.eu.com/flash_player.html?p_id=764&L=1&view=features I’ve been trying to get one those for over a year now. Seems like iRiver only recently started exposing themselves to the german market too. Sadly this particular device does not seem to be “in stock” currently, if one tries to order it from their german page.
Hi
I had a Samsung which was robbed as well, and I’ve substituted it with an iAudio U2 (from Cowon). It’s cheap, small, it has 1GB and plays Ogg.
I have a 4GB Samsung YP-U3 and it’s very nice for a basic audio player. MTP support in Linux works fine for me using libmtp0.2.1[1] (which is in Ubuntu Gutsy as of about 2 weeks ago). Earlier versions of libmtp don’t support it. The “Portable Players – MTP” plugin for Rhythmbox uses libmtp so it seems to work fine.
[1] http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/
I’d say the iRiver Clix2 is probably the best “small” audio player available… pretty sure it supports ogg, thought not 100%.
What about those from Cowon? Like the iAudio, they have Linux support, but not like “it works” way but official support though they do not ship any software for linux or mac they say their products work just fine with linux, i guess as Mass Storage Devices.
Ohh yes, they play OGG just fine too :)
Oh im sorry, forgot the URL:
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/
There you can check their products
personally, I’m a big Cowon fan. Maybe they have something you’ll like: http://www.cowonglobal.com/
Yes, these cowons seem not too awful. It’s a pity that they are hard to find in white. Also, I want the moon on a stick.
Try out the Trekstors the I.beat organix or the vibez. The last one even plays flac. I have he organix which is pretty small, has awesome sound and fantastic battery life (+/- 25h as advertised) I usually only need to charge it once every two weeks and I use it daily for the ride to and from work.
As Trekstor is German I expect ot should be easy to find. Website: http://www.trekstor.de/en/products/mp3.php
Cyberport has the S10: http://www.cyberport.de/item/1171/1009/0/84235/iriver_S10_2_GB_FM.html?APID=1
I own a Samsung YP-U2R. I’ve used it a lot with Linux, and never run in to trouble (no special software required). It’s only weak spot is the radio receiver/antenna; it seems to require a very solid signal if you want noise-free sound (compared to other USB audio players that I’ve owned).