Handheld mediaplayer device tips

[Edward Yee]

not much point since youtube videos are so appallingly poor quality, but hey.

I concede this part in the entirety. Certainly true, but I find it useful if I ever wanna see a particular video (whether for file size reasons or being only on YouTube) on the go, or even just to archive it.

Isn't the PSP limited by the size of memory cards? 4gb makes a pretty worthless media player.

It's true that the PSP is limited to its removal media, but if the issue is removable storage vs. internal storage, I'll concede that I'm biased towards the former for media players.

My MP3 player is a small $30 one from RCA with 512 MB internal plus whatever SD card I put in, but while I have a 1 GB stick... I don't have enough of a playlist to even fill up the internal memory. Maybe that's where my issue is?

I still can't believe there isn't anything with PSP-style screen that just plays media. Remember all those discman-like DVD players?

Those being the $80-$150 ones I've seen some people use on the subway or street, square-shaped laptop style?

PSP and iPods play the same formats. But the iPod has quite literally hundreds of times more storage than a stock PSP, and still easily over a dozen times the storage of a maxed-out PSP.

I concede this, and I admit not knowing about the iPod's formats.

There are portable screens for $99. I've seen them at Best Buy; there's a device with a 7" screen that has an iPod slot and DVD slot, so you can use it as a portable DVD player or portable iPod screen. Buy you might as well be lugging a small laptop...

Seen those two, but don't they have better battery life? (Especially compared to a HP QuickPlay laptop.)

Honestly, I found the iPod's screen size just fine. But I have 20/10 vision. Try it out yourself.

My vision's a lot more myopic, but next time someone has a video iPod I'll give it a look.

[Praxis]

IIRC the Zen Vision M and iPod screens are almost identical (same resolution and specs and all that). The revised 5th gen iPod screens are a tad brighter, but I've got the old one.

I think anyway. I'm asuming you have an M.

It might just be my good eyesight in that case. There was a period of time when I had 3 hours in bus travel every day, and every night I would rip a DVD with Handbrake and every morning I would watch it on the bus ride.

[Lisa]

There's a linux based game/video portable player, can't remember the name off the top of my head

[Lisa]

Update http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3181126600.html

the GXP2.