Re: Decent portable audio player, that isn't a smart phone?
Reply #6 – 2023-03-07 13:23:08
I use a generic 'AGPTEK-U3' MP3 player (using standard wired headphones with 3.5mm jack) as it's respectable for the price (if you don't mind the negatives as there are some for sure)... ---Pro's... -Price (I got mine for $26.49 total cost). bought it March 2021. but looking online it appears it went up about 10 dollars. -Runs on a single AAA. I use a 800mAh NiMh battery (it's actually that capacity to since I can check with my Powerex C-9000 charger) and battery life is good. I think on a full charge it's runtime is about 10-12hrs (you can't charge the battery from the device itself, but not a big deal as I got a quality Powerex C-9000 charger(but any generic charger will be good enough for the common person)). this is one of the primary reasons I bought it because you will never have to worry about finding quality battery replacements for it since AAA is a common battery and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future given it's been around so long already. so you can use a standard Eneloop AAA and your set for years to come. so while 10-12hrs is not a lot, it's more than sufficient as long as you are not using it for really extended periods of time. but even if you do, you can always carry more spare NiMh AAA with you. even in a emergency you can just pop in a typical Alkaline AAA from a local store. side note: it's a damn shame they don't make players like Sansa e200 and the like run on AA/AAA's as that would be great if they did. but sadly, it seems no one makes AA/AAA powered music devices (which is a no brainer to use if you ask me for long term usage over lithium), especially not at a reasonable price. -8GB built-in memory. but has a MicroSD slot, which is what I generally use and I think it supports up to at least 32GB MicroSD cards (maybe up to 128GB) which is plenty since I convert my FLAC from FLAC to MP3 @ V5 (130kbps) which I feel is good enough in general, especially for portable usage. even if it only works with 32GB MicroSD cards that's A LOT of music at 130kbps average. I currently use a 16GB MicroSD card in mine as I generally don't use the built-in memory as it will probably put less wear-and-tear on it and it will be easier to replace a MicroSD card vs if internal memory acts up. -It's light. does not weigh much. the height of it would be, counting when headphones are plugged in, is almost exactly two AA batteries stacked end-to-end. the device it self is less though. even the width is less than two AA's stacked side-by-side. ---Con's... -Pressing buttons to navigate it's menus... while it pretty much works, I noticed that it can not properly register the button presses as sometimes say you want to press the button to lower volume it might increase volume (or when trying to go forward a track it might go back or vice versa until you hit the button just right). but usually once you learn where to press it, it's pretty much okay (if you have fat fingers it might be more difficult to use). I would say this is it's biggest flaw and may deter some people from using it. but if you can work around this, and assuming there is no obvious hardware failure, it should last for a long time. I would say as long as you don't navigate the menu too often to change songs it's passable but if you are the type who constantly mess around with menus etc, I suspect that might be a problem on this as while it works, it's slower to react to each button press as there is a small learning curve. -Volume buttons. instead of having a separate knob/button for volume, it uses the main buttons to increase/decrease volume. like say a song is playing, you have to press 'r/v' button then press the left(decrease volume)/right(increase volume) arrows. -Output volume. while definitely not bad, as it's still passable, it could be better than it is. as long as you are not in a too noisy of environment it will be 'good enough' as I generally don't have to increase the devices volume to max as I would say, assuming you are not in a quiet environment I usually have the device volume output around 75% (30/40), or at least 50%(20/40) if not a bit higher. call it roughly 25-30 out of 40 max. I am using Sony MDR-NC7 headphones with it. if I am in more of a quiet environment I would probably have volume around 50% (20/40). but some songs have less volume output than others as if you got a lower output volume song, then you probably will have to have volume 75-100%. but usually not too much of a issue in general. -Menu navigation is a slow. it's like those early MP3 player types from the 2000's (it's screen is small (about the peak width of a nickle) and slower to navigate). so if you are used to say a smart phone with quick navigation and expect that as standard, then you definitely won't like this. so if you are in a hurry or change music tracks all of the time, this might become a legitimate problem. -Screen size. it's about the peak width of a nickel and in that general size range. so if you have trouble seeing small screens this could be a potential big issue if your eyes are so-so or bad. -If you are using the devices built-in memory, you have to remove the cap so the USB connector is exposed and then you can connect it to the PC. but I could see how someone could easily lose the cap if they are not careful as while mine does not fall off super easily, it would not take much pressure for it to fall off. but if you carry it in your hand or keep it in your shirt pocket you probably won't have any real problem here. I don't really use the built-in memory as I stick to MicroSD card which you can pop out from the side of device and then I just insert it into my PC's card reader to transfer music. but in regards to inserting the MicroSD card, it works about how you would expect using your finger nail to push in until it clicks into place (it's got decent pressure as I don't expect that to break). -Music is shown random order on the devices screen. but... one can fix this though as after one transfers MP3 music to the MicroSD card for example, on Linux I just unmount it (umount /dev/sdx) then run 'sudo fatsort -n /dev/sdx'. wait for it to finish then eject it and then the music will be listed how you would expect on the devices screen navigation. note: I would imagine Windows has programs for doing this to but I don't use Windows at this point so I can't really comment much here. but if you want your music in order you will definitely have to find something to sort it so it's properly displayed on the devices screen. bottom line... I mainly bought it because it had support for large enough MicroSD cards and uses a AAA battery which I think AAA, more specifically rechargeable NiMh, ensures the device won't become useless by not being able to find a decent replacement battery like is typically the case with most modern MP3 players which only have built-in/non-replaceable lithium batteries and once this goes bad, you either can't replace it, or if you can replace it, you will be stuck with cheap/generic ones that don't last as that's pretty much what happened with my Sansa e200 series player (I would consider the Sansa e200 series superior to the AGPTEK-U3 on pretty much everything besides the battery) is that it was a respectable player, but the battery is ultimately what made me dump that device since you can no longer buy quality new ones that have the life that the device is supposed to have when it was new which I think was around 20hrs (like buying a generic/cheap replacement battery for the Sansa e200 series on Ebay for example, I would guess the runtime is less than 10hrs for sure and may be well below that like say 3-5hrs to guesstimate things). it still technically worked when I stopped using it but overall I prefer the NiMh in the AGPTEK-U3 device since that's more consistent/reliable in battery life.