Portable audio commentary

Before I left Berkeley and moved out east I bought a Creative Nomad. It was a bit bigger than a portable CD player, had about 4Gig capacity, and cost more than it should have but probably appropriately for the time. I didn't have a stereo and I knew that I was going to be living out of a suitcase for quite a spell so I got one with the intent of using it as a portable stereo complete with most of the music I listen to. Also bought a some decent Cambridge Soundworks speakers that I still have and use. It had a clumsy interface, the software interface was atrocious (though I've seen worse), and the batteries didn't last long... but it was one of the better alternatives at the time still. It worked for a good spell, and I was quite pleased with it. But to be honest, I probably only got about a year's use out of it. After I got settled in, I found that not only did I not need it much, but I didn't like to use it anymore, even/especially on trips.

I went back to using all of my other portable devices: first cassettes, then MDs, then CDs. Cassettes went out the window pretty early but I'd been using them for so long I had a large collection of mix-tapes. I'd have to carry about 5-10 of them with me when I took a trip. CDs were better, especially once I had a computer with a CD burner on it and portable job that could read MP3 CDs. I could burn about 11 CDs worth of music on a CD and just carry that around. MD's were still better. Much smaller and definitely my favorite media type. It had awesome battery life too. I got my first one in Akihabara but bought a second one with LP4 that let me put 4-5 CD's worth of music on a disc. Now they have HI-MDs (which scregman has) but as much as I love them, I haven't gotten one for reasons I may illuminate on either here or in a separate post. Actually they all had a lot of deal-breaker features that often caused me to just not listen to anything on a trip.

I swapped back and forth between them but one thing I kind of hated was carrying around a collection of separate media. I knew one day that I would return to a more mass-storage type of device at some point but despite the plethora of models that have been out since I first got my Nomad, I refused to get one until last year. I had decided to wait until I found one that met my minimum needs, which I compile here for you now.

What I determined that I was looking for in a portable player for now:

1. Capacity: Ability to hold/play a few days worth of audio. At minimum, enough for a few cross country round-trip flights plus a mix of stuff for while I'm away. I cannot always predict what I will be in the mood to listen to so it must grant space for a wider breadth of material.
   
2. Battery life: Must last at minimum a cross-country flight including buffer time for layovers and such... say half a day at bare minimum.
   
3. Convenience: Must be quick to assemble audio onto, must have a decent interface.
4. Small: Must fit reasonably into my pocket.
5. Continuity: I must be able to resume where I left off when playing.
   

Seems simple enough, right? Yes there are other features that I would like but these are the practical ones for now. Amazingly, until last year I didn't feel like anything fit the bill. Number 5 is possibly the oddest entry. It stems from the fact that ever since the days of my driving 9 hours back and forth from San Francisco to San Diego and back, I'd grown appreciative of audio books, radio plays, and other spoken word programming. Frankly, there's just so much music one can take in a long sitting and I've grown crufty and picky in age with respect to music to boot. Well, I've always felt that music is more of a mood thing, I have to be in the right mood to correspond with what I have to play. Audio books pass the time famously and in a much more engaging fashion if the content is good.

• Cassettes - Old reliable but out of the question for obvious reasons. The sole advantages of tapes were battery life and continuity.
• CDs - Great battery life and convenient to just throw more CDs in the bag to increase the selection. But it doesn't fit in my pocket easily, require extra CDs to carry and prepping if I'm burning a playlist, and they don't have continuity. Once a CD is popped out, I have to manually remember where I left off when listening to audio book CDs.
• MDs - Great battery life, I love the media format, and they're nice and small and fit in my pocket. The new HI-MDs hold 1GB creating basically infinite carying capacity by adding more MDs. Was a serious contender but I resisted because of Sony. But practically, lack of ability to saving place after a MD is popped is the biggest hangup.
• Hard-disk based players - Astounding capacity but the deal breaker for me is battery life. They may tout 8 hours of play time but I know better (*cough* iPod). It MUST have at least half a days battery life and they don't. Seriously, this is the main thing that has kept me from getting a Nomad replacement.
  

I made due with what I had for a long long time, but were I to buy a new one it should be better and more practical than before. So later last year the Nano's came out. Fully solid state, no moving parts, and with a 4Gig variety. It's not perfect but just about meets these needs and is a pretty durn small and slick device with a great interface. After handling my downstair's neighbors one for a bit, that's what I chose. I'll write more on it later.

I have no illusions it won't last for ever but since I've decided to shift how I handle my music collection, it almost doesn't matter.