September 2, 2004

11:13 AM

I'm looking for a 256mb flash mp3 player for my Ibook, for about $100. I'm happy to take recommendations, but what would be even cooler is if someone has the link to an online database that lets you search for units that will mount as a hard drive on OS X without having to use someone's proprietary, usually crappy, software.
posted by mecran01 to (6 comments total)

It seems that there aren't any really good consumer electronic databases that have enough variables to allow one to tunnel down to exactly what you want.

Amazon's user reviews are relatively uninformed.

Cnet doesn't allow you to search for "mac compatible" among other things.

Usually I just end up reading lots of reviews and figuring things out, which will probably be the case here. It would just be so nice to just have some quality, searchable data out there, but I suppose it will never happen.
posted by mecran01 at 11:15 AM on September 2, 2004

"USB Mass Storage Device" is the term you're looking for, that means a USB device can be mounted as a drive by the OS w/o drivers.
posted by smackfu at 12:01 PM on September 2, 2004

Apple's iTunes compatible players is woefully out of date, but anything on that list is guaranteed to be iTunes and Mac compatible.
posted by nathan_teske at 3:18 PM on September 2, 2004

My recommendation (and I don't mean this in a snarky way at all) is to put an additional $25 aside every month and just get an iPod Mini when the winter holidays roll around. Seriously, why mess around with something junky when the holy grail is pretty close to being within your grasp?
posted by bcwinters at 6:30 PM on September 2, 2004

A little outside your budget, (maybe not on eBay) but I have this iRiver that fits the bill. They come set up to use the proprietary, crappy software, but you can change the firmware easily to work as a mass storage device. Al least, this works well on my PC, and I think it should also work on an iBook.
posted by dual_action at 7:28 AM on September 3, 2004

The Ipod mini suggestion is probably a good one, but I literally can't stand commuting without music any longer. Also, my house politics would preclude me from spending that much money unless I made some sort of compensatory sacrifice for the rest of the family. I could conceivably go as high as $150 and not take too much heat, but explaining $250 would be difficult.

Anyway, I bought an RCA Lyra last night for $77. It looks like crap, but sounds good. It mangles long file names. I suppose I could save up for a mini in the meantime.
posted by mecran01 at 8:29 AM on September 3, 2004