The general "Have A Rant about DAPs" thread

[Beethovenian]

The iPod may be simple to use and all, but it's not as intuitive as it could be, and I don't think the HD5 is any more difficult to use. But granted, there's no better control system than the click wheel so far, just because it makes easier to navigate through long lists.

As for iTunes, I downloaded it to see what all the fuss is about and didn't like it. True, it's smooth, very fast, things you can't say about SonicStage. But it's way too oriented to song people, and not album people. That small genre/artist/album view on top helps, but I think Windows Media Player has a more logical organization in some senses, and SonicStage is nice in allowing you different views, like having larger thumbnails of your album covers and listing all albums. But that's not the problem. The problem is that I can't see iTunes as a PC jukebox simply because it's not gapless. I tried some Lame aps MP3 files of Sibelius 2nd Symphony and iTunes went crazy. Without the crossfade to zero option, it obviously played as the iPod, with a more than noticeable gap. With crossfade to zero, the transition from 3rd to 4th movements became a mess. There was no gap, but for some reason the fourth movement started before the end of the third. To check files, I played the same tracks with Foobar. No gaps, no undesired crossfades, only regular playback. Then I copied the Gloria and Et in terra pax from Bach's Mass in B minor and the third and fourth movements from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony directly using iTunes and AAC. With crossfade to zero, both had slight glitches. The transition was much smoother, but in no way was as in the original CD. It sounded as if some beats were eaten, simply disappearing. And I couldn't see any option to join tracks after you had ripped them. Is it like that? If so, then there's absolutely no difference to SonicStage's problem of only being able to offer gapless for music encoded directly from the CD. Or better, there's the difference that you lose individual track information, plus the ability to jump to any particular track.

 

[David Mackenzie]

Ah, the iPod. It depends what we mean by "hard to use". I imagine that the click wheel and single middle button would be very easy for, say, a computer/electronics novice to figure out. But that comes at the risk of it being easy to operate without going to the trouble of pulling it out your pocket and looking at the screen. I got really tired of the touch wheel, I just wanted nice buttons to press. With my new HD5 I can keep it in my pocket, and with the tactile dots on the volume buttons, can play around with it effortlessly.

I don't care too much for gapless although it's a nice feature, but I certainly appreciate the full bass and crisp treble the HD5 offers. I was sick of getting distortion.

 

[Cloysterpeteuk]

The iPod may be simple to use and all, but it's not as intuitive as it could be, and I don't think the HD5 is any more difficult to use. But granted, there's no better control system than the click wheel so far, just because it makes easier to navigate through long lists.

As for iTunes, I downloaded it to see what all the fuss is about and didn't like it. True, it's smooth, very fast, things you can't say about SonicStage. But it's way too oriented to song people, and not album people. That small genre/artist/album view on top helps, but I think Windows Media Player has a more logical organization in some senses, and SonicStage is nice in allowing you different views, like having larger thumbnails of your album covers and listing all albums. QUOTE]

What could be more intuitive about it?. It even lets you choose what you want to have on the main menu, I can't really think of one improvement I would make to it's menu structures etc. On the go playlists etc all easy to do.

I do like how itunes handles artwork, you can have it display the thumbnail (not real small) in the bottom left of the screen, clicking gives you the full size image.

One thing I would love is to be able to delete music on the go, do any DAP offer this as i've never heard it mentioned anywhere. If you go with the flash memory cards that I use in my mobiles you can easily delete music off it, as is the case with every mobile. So why can't I do this with my flash nano?, this should be a basic option. Granted I hardly ever put on bad songs, but once in a blue moon I go and whack on a batch that i've not yet listened to which I end up discarding most of.

 

[lockers]

.... thought I'd add to the fun and just compare features between the iPod 20Gb and the Sony NW-HD1, listing only those features that one or the other has and the other hasn't, or is better at:

* Colour screen
* Bigger screen

This is just a quick question, as my iPod time-line knowledge is ropey at this time of the morning but...is that intended as a direct comparison of the 20Gb iPod that would of sat on the shelf at the same time as the NW-HD1 came out?

i.e where those features available at that time or did they arrive with a later iteration?

My apologies for not knowing the answer myself but I didn't pay much attention to the iPod and its features whilst it was so bulky!

 

[Beethovenian]

What could be more intuitive about it?. It even lets you choose what you want to have on the main menu, I can't really think of one improvement I would make to it's menu structures etc. On the go playlists etc all easy to do.

I do like how itunes handles artwork, you can have it display the thumbnail (not real small) in the bottom left of the screen, clicking gives you the full size image.

One thing I would love is to be able to delete music on the go, do any DAP offer this as i've never heard it mentioned anywhere. If you go with the flash memory cards that I use in my mobiles you can easily delete music off it, as is the case with every mobile. So why can't I do this with my flash nano?, this should be a basic option. Granted I hardly ever put on bad songs, but once in a blue moon I go and whack on a batch that i've not yet listened to which I end up discarding most of.

I think it should let you navigate clicking the forward and back buttons (to, obviously, move back and forth in the menus). That would liberate the center button for other things, like going back to the now playing screen, and you wouldn't need to keep pressing menu to move back. In other words, it would be like the Rio Karma, which had an excellent interface for basic navigation. It should make better use of its screen and differentiate more menus. The first couple of times I've used it, I had a hard time understanding how to get to the album I wanted because I didn't know if I should go to All tracks or the item below, since they're all written the same way. When I tried the Vaio Pocket, which uses the same kind of navigation scheme, everything was simples because there were very clear icons and distinctions in the menu. Also, and this is not only a problem of the iPod, it should display items under alphabetical entrances, like the Karma does. I don't understand why nobody else does this.

Lockers, the iPod 20GB didn't have colour screen when the HD1 was launched, nor had scrolling text when you were navigating in the menu. Meaning that it had a bigger screen, but that would be useless if you had long track and album names because it had also bigger font types and static track names. In other words, the bigger screen was only helpful to people with eye problems. The HD1 offered as much or more information in its smaller screen.

 

[Sasso]

Thats right compare the HD1 to the black and white 20gig Ipod or whatever was available at the time. And compare the colour 20gig with the HD5. HD5 kills it in the most important things, especially SOUND quality, the primary function of them. Its much smaller and lighter, the battery lasts twice as long, it plays gaplessly, it has built in line out (so compare it to an ipod sitting in a dock, not very portable now is it), it doesn't look like a big bar of soap, its a Sony, dedicated volume control, hard drive protection (when dropped), rotatable screen for customisation, did i mention sound quality?

 

[HMHB]

I'd like to see ATRAC available on all DAPs as well. I have over a hundred minidiscs that I'd love to be able to transfer easily over to the iPod and be able to keep the original recording format.
All recording formats should be playable on all brands of players

 

[shadowritten]

Closterpeteuk: some of Creative's DAPs let you delete stuff (tracks, albums, genres, artist, playlists) on the go; and I believe Archos DAPs do, too - though I couldn't make this happen on the Gmini XS200 I briefly owned, despite following the manual TO THE LETTER! If you want to talk about buggy software and less than intuitive onboard navigation, pick on that baby!

 

[Cloysterpeteuk]

I think it should let you navigate clicking the forward and back buttons (to, obviously, move back and forth in the menus). That would liberate the center button for other things, like going back to the now playing screen, and you wouldn't need to keep pressing menu to move back. In other words, it would be like the Rio Karma, which had an excellent interface for basic navigation. It should make better use of its screen and differentiate more menus. The first couple of times I've used it, I had a hard time understanding how to get to the album I wanted because I didn't know if I should go to All tracks or the item below, since they're all written the same way. When I tried the Vaio Pocket, which uses the same kind of navigation scheme, everything was simples because there were very clear icons and distinctions in the menu. Also, and this is not only a problem of the iPod, it should display items under alphabetical entrances, like the Karma does. I don't understand why nobody else does this.

Lockers, the iPod 20GB didn't have colour screen when the HD1 was launched, nor had scrolling text when you were navigating in the menu. Meaning that it had a bigger screen, but that would be useless if you had long track and album names because it had also bigger font types and static track names. In other words, the bigger screen was only helpful to people with eye problems. The HD1 offered as much or more information in its smaller screen.

You really couldn't have trouble finding an album, it's music > album, the item below is songs so if you wanted to find an album the title of the menu is a bit of a giveaway. Again you can pin it to the main menu.

When you say alphabetically entryies do you mean you would like a menu for each alphabetical character?, that would just make it harder for new users, much easier just having one big alphabetical list when you have a scroll wheel.

You wouldn't get much of an advantage to using the < and > buttons to move through the menu as opposed to centre and menu, you don't have to keep pressing it to get to the main menu as you can just hold it down to get there. I know I would prefer to keep using the centre button as the main select button because it's the biggest one, though a one click to now playing would be nice.