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Which MP3 player would you recommend? | ||
Tags: MP3-Player | Gadget | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5978 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 25 of 55 15 October 2009 at 11:45am | IP Logged | ||
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If you jailbreak the iphone or ipod touch, then you can use it in Linux (if it has firmware version 2 or earlier. firmware version 3 doesn't really work in linux yet). Also, you can install applications that aren't approved by Apple, like Anki.
Other than that, i just wanted to mention that you can get a lot of space savings when you rip content to mp3 by choosing "variable bit rate encoding". Language lessons like Pimsleur generally have a lot of dead air time, where nothing is said. If you use a constant bitrate like 128kbps or something, then even the silences are encoded at high definition. This leads to large filesizes. If you do VBR encoding, then the silences are encoded very cheaply and you'll get a huge space savings. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tpark Tetraglot Pro Member Canada Joined 7038 days ago 118 posts - 127 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch, French Personal Language Map | Message 26 of 55 17 October 2009 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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I use the iPod touch for language learning. Being able to pause easily (with the button on the headphone cable) is handy for Michel Thomas courses, plus having the volume control there is helpful. I load the dictionaries onto this device - this is far handier than having to drag around a dictionary for looking up words. I have used it for video playback with the TV, but generally I use other hardware for that. For the car I use the iPod Nano.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7148 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 27 of 55 17 October 2009 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been using an older Sansa E260 (4GB) (with a slot for micro-SD card to expand memory beyond 4GB) to hold my foreign language tracks. I think that it's better not to break the bank for a MP3 player for language learning. At the same time don't get something that's cheap and at the bottom of the barrel. You may also be able to get a decent MP3 player used (I got that Sansa E260 from an electronics liquidator for about half-price almost two years ago and I couldn't be happier with it)
In general, I've found that conversion of voice recordings / audiobooks into MP3s in mono at 32 kbs / sec. is adequate in most cases. On the other hand I've found that ripping voice recordings / audiobooks into MP3s at 128 kbs / sec. (as alluded to earlier in this thread) to be excessive and uses far too much space on a flash/hard-drive. Sometimes I do convert voice recordings to 48 kbs / sec. or 56 kbs / sec. in cases where I find that the converted audio at 32 kbs / sec. is too crummy. Nevertheless I definitely would NOT exceed an encoding rate of 56 kbs / sec. for an MP3 track with a voice recording. I reiterate that voice files converted to MP3 at 128 kbs / sec. are overkill and in my view waste space on an internal drive. Using the rule of thumb that 1 min. of audio encoded as an MP3 file at 128 kbs / sec. takes 1 MB of disk space, then ripping audio to 32 kbs / sec. means that 4 minutes of sound takes up roughly the same amount of disk space as 1 minute of sound at 128 kbs / sec. (To my older ears, 128 kbs / sec. is good enough for music. I can't pick up the difference between audio ripped at 128 kbs / sec. and that at audiophiles' minimum threshold of 192 kbs / sec.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ggg Newbie United States Joined 5516 days ago 8 posts - 18 votes | Message 28 of 55 18 October 2009 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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An MP3 player isn't a long term investment, so don't think of it that way. Just about all of them, bar the little AA-battery powered 1-2 Gig ones sold in the supermarket, have an internal rechargeable battery which has a limited lifespan, whether you are using it or not. The average life of an ipod is about 18 months. You might be able to make it last three years maximum if you are careful about how you use and recharge it, but that's not the same thing as carrying it with you wherever you go and recharging it when you get the chance.
You could change the battery pretty easily on early ipods (and buy cheap replacements on ebay), but with every new generation they have made that a lot harder. Check out the tutorial videos on youtube for an idea. It's just about impossible to buy replacement batteries for any other brand of MP3 palyer. The European Union was considering making it compulsory for electronic gadgets to be designed in a way that made it possible for users to be able to replace dead batteries but nothing has come of that. My tips. Forget the big colour screen as that really drains the battery (a full charge on a new battery will only give you 3 hrs or so of video. As the battery ages that drops.). And you need at least two levels of menu to flick quickly between different albums and then between tracks in that album - some cheap players drop all tracks into one big bucket which can make it almost impossible to find the one you want. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5520 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 29 of 55 18 October 2009 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is the life expectancy for an iPhone also just 18 months?
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| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6334 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 30 of 55 18 October 2009 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have an 8GB iPhone and I constantly have to delete stuff because it fills up all the
time. I used to have a 60GB iPod full of material for a wide range of languages but I do not have it anymore. Now I only upload material if I know I will need it immediately because 8GB is very little for me. Maybe I just can't use space efficiently :/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6026 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 31 of 55 18 October 2009 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Mine is 1 year old and I have no problems with the battery. However, I've read something about exploding iPhone and iPod Toch displays, hopefully it's not true. http://www.switched.com/2009/08/28/yet-another-european-ipho ne-explosion/ Apparently, they explode only in Europe ^_^. One nice thing about iPhone/iPod Touch is that you can synchronize it very easily with podcasts in the iTunes directory. There are daily podcasts in many different languages readily available for download. You can also download the mp3 files with iTunes and then copy them to a different MP3 player, so it's not a critical advantage but just a convenience. Edited by Sennin on 18 October 2009 at 6:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| habadzi Super Polyglot Senior Member Greece Joined 5566 days ago 70 posts - 106 votes Speaks: Greek*, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Hindi, French, German, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Hebrew, Arabic (classical), Indonesian, Bengali, Albanian, Nepali | Message 32 of 55 18 October 2009 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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The dream mp3 player for language learning must be able to work like one of the analog language learners sold until recently in china and in the US (http://www.multilingualbooks.com/instant-replay.html). I have the absolutely fantastically suitable BBK-BK98 that is only for tapes and even that is no longer for sale. It replays segments instantly, slows down the voice, and allows you to record and year yours after a speaker. For some reason, BBK no longer sells such good equipment.
I saw 2-3 years on the wholesale chinese market a similar good product, which I am uploading, named 'realong. It seems to have both digital and analog inputs. There are similar items, whose pictures I have also. The factory address is below. I have tried through various wholesalers and failed even to get a sample. Can one of our chinese participants help us get some pieces? Barring that, I got the tsonic 630 mp3 player, which has a slowdown function and the A-B option of repeating segments. But it's not as good as the real thing. Shenzhen Weilongxing Industry Co., Ltd. Business Phone: 86-755-27455006 Fax Number: 86-755-27455000 Address: Building 37, Baotian Industrial Zone, Bao’’an District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. China Zip/Postal Code: 518126 Web Address: http://www.realong.com 
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