My Actron HD200 Died, Replacements?

[Gunbuster]

the little mp3 player that could now just can't

So what should I replace it with? HD players seem to be pretty much gone apart from the iPod Classic and some import models. I'll be stuffed is I am going to go much lower than 16GB after having 20GB for so many years.

I really hate iTunes/WMP-esc only solutions so a nice wee drag and drop system would be great. Are there any daps that would fit the bill that I don't know about? I can only think of:

- Sandisk Sansa 16GB
- iAudio 7 16GB
- Trekstop Vibez 12GB
- Some random old stock model Samsung yh-j70, iAudio X5 etc if someone can find one?
- What ever this new Sony NWZ-A82# series turns out to be

[TooNice]

Various Archos or Creative could fit the bill too. You can drag and drop with players you otherwise would not be able to using Rockbox too (e.g. iPod).

[Gunbuster]

Ta, Sony just announced their new players so I will wait on them. Also I noticed the buses I commute on offer free wifi, so I may have to look at the Archos players more closely.

[G4Z]

You can in fact drag and drop with tunes as well, I hated it until I realised you can just open up your player in iTunes and then drag the files into it from explorer. I would be quite tempted by an iPod touch tbh, or maybe an Arcos if you don't mind carrying a brick in your pocket.

[G4Z]

Oh and also, I had a creative Zen for a while and imho the software for those is far far worse than iTunes and I have no great love for iTunes.

[Gunbuster]

When I say drag and drop I mean mass storage. So if I drag a file onto my player as a drive then start up the player it will see it. So no software needed other than usb drivers.

Thanks for the advice though. I really don't like music managers of any type, but I am strange like that...

[G4Z]

Well, I am in exactly the same boat mate but the trouble is that there seems to be no nice hardware out there with zero software. All the nice hardware comes with some bloated software that you need to load music on to the thing. I do know the iPod will show up as mass storage, however any files you copy to it that way won't be playable and you will not be able to copy any of the music from the iPod to a new computer. I really hate that they restrict what you can do with them but Roxxbox and other OS replacements might change that, never used them myself so I dunno.

[Gunbuster]

So far I know that Sony's new players, iAudio's and some of Sandisk's use MSC. I will report back, though it may be in April when the new Sony Players come out.

[fuddam]

Archos. no question if image quality a primary factor.

[Gunbuster]

In the end I replaced the Toshiba MK2004GAL I had in it for a used one from Ebay. Seems to be factory limited to 15GB for the old spec iPods, but seems to work fine. Will do me untill Flash catches up.