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1. No Wireless (wifi or bluetooth)
   • Radio would be nice, HD preferable, but not required
2. No recording ability. This includes:
   • audio
     and
   • video/still photography
3. No Male USB plug.
4. No removable media slot.
5. A larger screen would be nice (to use as a quick and dirty ebook reader), but rather low on the priority list.
6. I'd prefer to not get an iPod

Does such a beast even exist anymore?

Most likely your cell phone can play music, if it was made in the last 5 years. Yes, even if it's a crappy little flip phone.

Think he's looking for a device that's not a phone for business or personal reasons.
Such a device does not exist anymore. Mp3 players are still sold but finding one with a screen that can be used to read text? Does not exist.

Dominus Atheos wrote:Most likely your cell phone can play music, if it was made in the last 5 years. Yes, even if it's a crappy little flip phone.

Yes my Samsung T401 can play music, but it's a camera phone, and therefore runs afoul of 1, 2, and 4.

Mr Bean wrote:Think he's looking for a device that's not a phone for business or personal reasons.
Such a device does not exist anymore. Mp3 players are still sold but finding one with a screen that can be used to read text? Does not exist.

Yeah that (text reading) was a long long shot. What opens up if I drop that feature set?

Mr Bean wrote:Think he's looking for a device that's not a phone for business or personal reasons.

Oh, that makes way more sense.

I think this is what you want, assuming you live in the US.

Or here's one from a more reputable brand (Coby) with an FM radio and a screen that can display text files.

It doesn't exactly match the criteria, but I have and recommend the SanDisk Sansa Clip. Its the best fucking mp3 player EVER. With good headphones it will blow any iPod out of the water sound quality wise.

Out of curiosity - what are your needs? I can understand saying "I don't need feature X or feature Y"; but I'm confused that you'd say "It should not have feature X or feature Y".

Sela wrote:Out of curiosity - what are your needs? I can understand saying "I don't need feature X or feature Y"; but I'm confused that you'd say "It should not have feature X or feature Y".

He probably works in a company where no such features are allowed for data security reasons.

Sela wrote:Out of curiosity - what are your needs? I can understand saying "I don't need feature X or feature Y"; but I'm confused that you'd say "It should not have feature X or feature Y".

Mr Bean nailed it earlier in that it's for business reasons that certain things are verboten. If it has removable media, a male USB plug, wireless, or any recording ability it's of very little use to me. This is why a ZuneHD (with wifi and bluetooth), ipod touch (with a camera and wireless), or ipod nano [5th gen] (with a camera) are of little use to me, but an ipod classic might be.

salm wrote:

Sela wrote:Out of curiosity - what are your needs? I can understand saying "I don't need feature X or feature Y"; but I'm confused that you'd say "It should not have feature X or feature Y".

He probably works in a company where no such features are allowed for data security reasons.

I don't work there yet, but I've got a really good shot at working there, and I'm going to replace the current mp3 player anyway so I'm figuring I should just replace it with something comparable with the security policies.

It's looking more and more like I should just suck it up and get an ipod classic.

A good alternative to the iPod Classic, if you can find one and don't mind buying used, is the ponderously-titled Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra.. All the features you're after (except the radio), masses of storage space and better software than iTunes. Their one drawback is that they don't use SSDs and thus aren't very tolerant of rough handling.

Zaune wrote:A good alternative to the iPod Classic, if you can find one and don't mind buying used, is the ponderously-titled Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra.. All the features you're after (except the radio), masses of storage space and better software than iTunes. Their one drawback is that they don't use SSDs and thus aren't very tolerant of rough handling.

If it's onboard software that's an issue, you might look into upgrading the firmware with something like Rockbox. I bought a Sansa e260 with that in mind, and it served me well until I dropped it and the screen broke.

Dave wrote:If it's onboard software that's an issue, you might look into upgrading the firmware with something like Rockbox. I bought a Sansa e260 with that in mind, and it served me well until I dropped it and the screen broke.

No disrespect to the people behind Rockbox, but it would have to be a pretty special MP3 player to be worth buying it even if you have to replace the firmware. Besides, unlike iPods, the Creative Zen series works perfectly happily with Windows Explorer once you install the drivers.

TimothyC wrote:

1. No Wireless (wifi or bluetooth)
   • Radio would be nice, HD preferable, but not required
2. No recording ability. This includes:
   • audio
     and
   • video/still photography
3. No Male USB plug.
4. No removable media slot.
5. A larger screen would be nice (to use as a quick and dirty ebook reader), but rather low on the priority list.
6. I'd prefer to not get an iPod

Does such a beast even exist anymore?

An iPod Nano 6g possibly doesn't quite fit the bill (it's capable of recording audio, but only if you plug in a mic). Also, tiny ass screen. Oh, and it's an iPod. Everything else is good.

Beowulf wrote:

TimothyC wrote:

1. No Wireless (wifi or bluetooth)
   • Radio would be nice, HD preferable, but not required
2. No recording ability. This includes:
   • audio
     and
   • video/still photography
3. No Male USB plug.
4. No removable media slot.
5. A larger screen would be nice (to use as a quick and dirty ebook reader), but rather low on the priority list.
6. I'd prefer to not get an iPod

Does such a beast even exist anymore?

An iPod Nano 6g possibly doesn't quite fit the bill (it's capable of recording audio, but only if you plug in a mic). Also, tiny ass screen. Oh, and it's an iPod. Everything else is good.

Yeah, short of getting some old refurb job it looks more and more like I should just suck it up and get an iPod classic.

My company has the exact same policy, we might be coworkers!

Might be too late for this, but such devices as you want do exist:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6855616129

Here's the product's home page:
http://www.cobyusa.com/?p=prod&prod_num ... at_id=1001

It covers everything except, perhaps, the book reading, the website does state it can open text files but no information about what formats.
It's also pretty cheap, I've had a few Coby players, they're OK, never had one malfunction, just the one i dropped 5 feet from the ground.