I'm looking for a portable MP3 player that instead of having built-in memory, takes standard USB thumb-drives. Sort of like an old cassette walk-man, but uses thumb-drives instead of cassettes. My search results have been unsuccessful. I'd like to find a player that has some sort of interface that allows browsing different folders/artists/etc.
I have 5+ gigs of music on a thumb drive and no way to listen to it...
I think I'd just buy a big (8GB+) SD card, copy the music, and then find an MP3 player that will take an SD card. It's not even like you'd end up wasting the thumb drive, as I'm sure you could find a use for it.
I had a MP3 player a while back that was essentially a USB thumb drive.
Had a display, buttons to select songs/stop/start, etc and a headphone jack, etc. You plug it in, load up the music files/folders and away you went.
Kind of like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultrathin-OLED-Screen-MP3-Player-2GB-/130616776651?pt=Other_MP3_Players&hash=item1e695dd7cb
Dell had one about 5 years ago like that...a USB drive with a battery, a screen, and some buttons...epic fail. More than half came back broken. If you find one out there in ebayland, stay away...youve been warned
usb, no, Micro SDHC, yes.
I was on a similar search 3 years ago. Swore up and down I wouldn't get an iPod. Went through a few cheapies, but got fed up and gave in and bought an iPod. 3 years of daily use and now that I have an iPhone it lives in my car. Don't take it as a recommendation for apple, but this is just what worked for me.
Oh well... I figured it was a long shot... it's just that thumb drives are so simple. And cheap. I don't know if I'd want to deal with a mega-gig ipod like set-up. I was envisioning something more simple: Iron Maiden on one drive, Metallica on another, and so on...
My kids have sansas, drag and drop onto the device, and they were like 30 bucks. And after 2 years or more- they still work!
Plus one on the Sansa. It has 4Gb of internal memory and will take MicroSD cards. Mine seems to be indestructible, just connect it to the PC every so often to keep the battery charged.
+2 to the Sansa. Woot has them on sale now and then. My Daughter has a 4Gig model (which has a 2Gig MicroSD card in it) that gets used and abused and is still running.
Really, there's two choices in the world: Ipod and Sansa. Ipod is the exotic supercar, Sansa is the faithful truck.
+3 on the Sansa. I've picked up a handful of them. I keep a bunch of different music loaded on two. I just grab whichever one has the tunes I feel like listening to and go.
I bought a cheapo touchscreen Sylvania at Big Lots for $30. 4gb internal memory and a micro SD slot to expand with. I've only had it for 3 weeks but so far so good. It's clunky but what can you expect in that price range?
Most android phones can do that. And their phones.
Sansa would work fine and its a good company.
I bought a 4gig mp3 player 2 or 3 years back... was white and similar size from the Ipod nanos of the time... I called it a we-pod because it had a speaker... I had an 80gig gen2 or 3 ipod before that and after owning a real Ipod the cheapo just didn't cut it... it was slow to respond and the firmware craped out with some regularity... so if I was looking for a real mp3 player i'd find something mid range...
but most cell phones will do mp3 these days... even most of the "free" ones you can get.... its what I use... it's not a real Ipod... but it didn't cost as much either...
Cell phone as mp3 player FTMFW...mine supports up to 8gigs of micro-sd goodness - listening to Iron Maiden as we speak (love Fear of the Dark...). Get a phone with a headphone jack and youre good to go...
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