Help with buying Portable Media Device

Pat Mustard

I am looking for a portable media player that will fulfil a few different functions.

It must:
1. Be portable.
2. Play movies (preferably in as many formats as possible)
3. Play music
4. Have a long battery life.
5. Have a lot of storage, 32G minimum.
6. Be extremely reliable.
7. Cost less than €350 (possibly flexible)

Bonuses would be if it:
a. Has wifi (major bonus)
b. Is rugged and hardwearing
c. Can read ebooks, .pdf etc
d. Can read comics (.cbr etc.)


I searched, but nothing seemed to meet all my requirements.

Ipod touch has a lot of what I want, but it plays mp4 only. Music playback time is described as 40 hours on apple.ie. Video playback time is described as 8 hours. It's also extremely portable.

The Kindle Fire HD looks good, but it’s getting very mixed reviews on amazon. Also, it’s restricted to 11 hours battery life for mixed tasks, which will obviously be significantly less for watching movies only.

Cowon products were described as having reliability issues in several amazon reviews.

Tablets, in general, have too little storage space, are less portable, and the batteries don’t last as long as I’d like.

There are a number of movie players by Archos, but most of these seem to have a 5-7 hour battery life or less, which is topped by the ipod touch. That said, they have a greater range of movie formats.

At the moment, it looks to me that my favourite option is to buy an ipod touch and convert my existing movies to mp4 for viewing on it.

I would be very interested in hearing opinions or suggestions.

c-note

i bought a samsung galaxy s "wifi". its just the galaxy s without the phone for about 200? from pixmania and 50? for a 32gb card, the galaxy itsef has 16gb for a total of 48.

it runs on android and has wifi and gps so you can dl apps like skype/facebook and sat nav progs etc etc etc,

The battery is great esp if you turn off wifi when not using it. i watched 4 films (maybe 6hrs) on one battery charge. it'll play all my music (mostly mp3's)

its prob not really rugged, typical smartphone type thing, but its not delicate either. i think its great it was just what i was looking for,
an i pod touch would be just as good but i dont use itunes so i would not consider one myself. getting your media on is as simple as drag and drop.

Pat Mustard

Thanks, that very helpful and pretty interesting too.

I wasn't even aware of Samsung media players competing with the ipod touch.

I presume that this is something like what you bought.
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/9584910/art/samsung/galaxy-s-wifi-4-0-16-gb-m.html

TPD

I got a Pantech Element for €180 as a refurb from America a while back. 8-ish inch tablet, water and dust proof, with (I think) 16gb onboard storage and a microsd slot. On a recent flight I watched six 25 minute episodes and then a 2 hour film on one charge, with some game playing and wifi use, and the battery didn't die.

File formats change with the app you're using to play them, I've found VLC plays anything I've thrown at it. There are dedicated ebook and comic apps. The aspect ratio isn't the usual 16:9, it's closer to 4:3. This means older movies take up the full screen and books are more natural in portrait mode, but widescreen content will have letter-boxing.

cnocbui

I personally would still look at the cowon Z2. All the reviews on Amazon are very positive: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cowon-Android-Gingerbread-Player-Screen/dp/B007S6KI38/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1352203555&sr=8-2
.
The latest Touch is very compelling and might be worth converting media for.

Pat Mustard

Thanks for that suggestion. The z2 has a lot going for it alright. It's worth considering.

just get a Galaxy S3 as your phone.....

cnocbui

glasso wrote: »

just get a Galaxy S3 as your phone.....

Good idea. Or the Note 2....for that bit extra.

note it cool. but s3 is big enough. bigger than touch. note won't fit in your jeans pocket that easily!
get s3 and buy an extra battery I say.