The Portable Device Revolution

Here's a little post that has nothing to do with web design.

Unlike the masses who run out and buy an overpriced iPod and have it good from the start, I like to find the cheapest set-ups and see what it takes to get them going.

Hence, when i decided i wanted portable video too, buying an iPod or getting a Verizon cell phone was out of the question. I decided to focus on two of the most promising looking items with the lowest price tags:

• The Sansa Clip e280 - 8Gig MP3/MP4 player, $49.00 (refurbed)
  
• The Sony PSP 3000 - MP3/MP4/Skype/Internet Radio/Web Browser/ PSP games and Movies. $169.00 at BestBuy.
  

Hands down of course the winner was the PSP, but first the short review of the Sansa Clip:


It's a neat little unit. I don't think i need to list the pro's for an MP3/MP4 player with FM radio and a voice recorder, so here's the cons:

• If all your MP3 ID tags are not version 2 (IDv2) the player can get locked up and you need to go through a painful process to force the player to wipe the memory and reinstall the OS (yeah, i mean it, my jaw's still on the ground)
  
• You need to use a proprietary video converter that rotates the video 90Deg to fit the widescreen that runs from top to bottom. not side to side. Hence you watch a video holding the player on it's side.
  
• The now converted videos become useless on any other platform
  
• Unless you have superman vision, forget watching video's on this.
  

The PSP is pretty impressive. Being a Sony they had to find a way to give it a drawback and that would be the memory stick for memory expansion. But I found a way around that!!!!


The PSP 3000 is fairly cheap. It plays converted videos very nicely (but getting to a "converted video" is a learning process)
It has a mryiad of features that i like:

• The screen size is just right so us old types can enjoy video on it.
  
• It plays video games (umd)
  
• It plays movies (umd)
  
• It's an MP3 player
  
• It's an MP4 player
  
• It's an image viewer
  
• It has a fairly decent browser (even FaceBook recognizes the PSP and serves up a modified page)
  
• It does Skype flawlessly
  
• The internet radio is slick
  
• The wireless network set-up is pretty easy
  

The Cons:

• Memory stick (See my solution below!!)
  
• Your sort of left hanging for how to properly convert videos (A++ Solution)
  
• If you want to use poster files for you lists in the player make sure the image is named the same as the video, put in the same folder with the video and a width no greater than 160px! (thanks for not telling me that anywhere sony!)
  
• Memory Stick (sorry ;-)
  
• There's not a lot of movie selection for the UMD format, but with the MP4 player, so what??
  
• The internal speakers could get a little louder.
  

So tell me about this Memory stick issue????

Here's the problem. An 16Gig memory stick costs like $100 bucks. can you say OUCH!!!
An 16Gig Micro sd card can be had at Amazon for $35.00 bucks!!!!

Labels: ipod, mp3, mp4, playstation portable, portable, psp, sansa, video

posted by Adam Signore @ 7:41 AM