I'm looking to buy an mp3 player, and would appreciate some advice.

I want a player preferably that would play ogg vorbis and flac as well.

What methods are there for power to operate the player?
Are there players that I could recharge the battery with the computer?

I also would like to plug it into AC while at home.

My price would be within $100

Thanks

Most portable players out there have a built-in rechargeable battery that can be charged with a USB2.0 connection and (possibly) an AC adapter. Some players still use AA or AAA batteries instead of offering a built-in battery. I suggest that you browse a website called anythingbutipod.com as iPods cannot play FLAC or OGG files. Just keep in mind that they often offer very subjective audio quality claims without listing specific testing methods (which probably aren't blind).

I recommend that, once you find a player that supports OGG and FLAC (the SanDisk line of players comes highly recommended), you go to stores such as Best Buy in order to experience the players first hand. You can read all of the internet reviews that you want but nothing beats some hands-on time with a player. Just to give you some information; I spent approximately 8 hours of research before deciding on the 120GB iPod classic as my player of choice.

Thanks for the reply.

Would the players with the built in battery be a good idea; how many times
could you charge them?
I mainly wanted to use AC for listening at home so I wouldn't run down batteries.

I also use Linux for an operating system. Would this be an issue for copying files to and from the player?

I was also wondering about headphones.
Am I limited what I can use for headphones on an mp3 player;
Can I use headphones that I use for my stereo?

Thanks

Using Linux, many audio players just show up as a USB attached removable storage device, mine usually mounts with fat32 on /dev/sdb1.
I use Amarok 1.4 for my desktop music listening, and it is easy to setup my phone, and coworker's device copy a portion of my library to the device, rename it if the naming is incompatible (I have a bunch of non FAT32 compatible names), and even transcode the formats that won't work to one that will(My phone will only play wma and mp3, I have it transcode my oggs and flacs to mp3).

You may want to look into Rockbox: http://www.rockbox.org/, they provide a firmware update for a bunch of mp3 players.
Once installed, the formats playable include Vorbis and FLAC.: Feature Comparison Look under "Other Features"

They are discontinued, but my coworker has an Insignia Sport, and it plays mp3, wma, and vorbis. No Flac.

However, I believe that you may find what you are looking for in a cowon player. Here is the S9: Cowon S9 Tech Specs. Also, this S9 apparently has a builtin flash player, if flash is your cup of tea this could be good.

Hopefully this will be of some help to you...

I wouldn't worry about that. It all depends on the type of battery (Li-ion, Ni-MH, etc.) but, from my experience, the average player can be fully drained and charged a total of 500 times before the battery capacity is reduced. I have a 4G (fourth generation) 40GB iPod released back in 2005 that can still last for a little over 12 hours on a single charge (Apple rated it for 12 hours of usage) and I have a 5G 60GB iPod from 2005 that can last for about 22 hours (Apple rated it for 20 hours of usage). I know that my cases don't represent the entire portable audio community but I think you can get the idea.



You would just need to find the appropriate drivers for the portable player. I don't think that would be an issue.



It depends on the headphones. Are they headphones that use a standard 3.5mm jack or a 6.35mm jack? You can directly plug in a set of headphones that have a 3.5mm jack while 6.35mm jack headphones will require an additional cord that goes from male 3.5mm to female 6.35mm. I wouldn't worry about the headphones unless you plan on using some really high end models that require an external amp to drive. Feel free to post the headphones that you have for further advice.

You should check out the Sansa Clip+ it can play ogg and flac and has a microsd slot to expand the memory capacity here is the review from anythingbutipod http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/20...plus-review.php

Also check out the Sansa Fuze if you want a bigger screen, it also plays ogg and flac here is the review from Anythingbutipod http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/20...fuze-review.php

These both should work fine on linux as they are MSC capable.

I own a Sansa Fuze and it does most of the things you need:
-Its price is under 100$
-It plays Ogg and Flac.
-It can be charged from the computer.
-It can be accessed using linux.

The problems are:
-You can not take out the battery to avoid drain it.
-The usb cable (used to charge the player and to transfer files) is not a standard usb. So, if you are out of home without the cable you can not charge it or use it as usb memory.
-The earbuds are not really good (i dont know how good are others), may be you will end up spending a little bit more in new ones.

I'm using the Cowon D2 at the moment, and I love it. Only thing is that it's over $100.

-Plays ogg and flac, etc
-Li-Ion battery, ~34 hours battery life
-Charges via AC-Adapter or USB (AC Adapter obviously much faster)

There's the Cowon iAudio 7 8GB.


http://www.jetaudio.com/products/iaudio/7/

Features
• MP3, OGG, WMA,, ASF, FLAC, WAV, Moving Picture Playback, FM Radio listening and recording, voice recording, Line-In recording
• TXT(Text), JPEG(Image) File Viewer (Image Zoom, Wallpaper)
• Internal flash memory 4GB, 8GB, 16GB
• USB 2.0 Interface
• 1.3 inch 160x128 dot, 260,000 color TFT LCD
• Long Battery Time: Up to 60 hours (Based on company test result)
• Multi-language Support
• Enhanced Integrated Navigator
• Play/Pause during Playback, Record/Pause during Recording
• Next Track/Previous Track, Fast Forward/Fast Rewind, Infinite Loop
• Resume, Fade In, Auto Play feature support
• Search Speed, Skip Speed Setting
• Digital Volume Control :40 levels
• Various EQ and Sound Effects (JetEffect)
- User adjustable 5-band EQ
- Normal, Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classic, Vocal, User
- BBE, Mach3Bass, MP Enhance, 3D Surround Support
• Clock, Alarm, Scheduled Recording, Sleep Timer, Auto Power-Off
• Auto display off feature to save battery power
• Easy firmware download and upgrade
• Title Display with ID3Tag or File Name
• Display Product Info (Firmware version, Total Capacity, Total Usage)


The battery life is rated at 60 hours, but most people get about 48 hours. It takes about 4 hours to fully charge up.



It's available from Amazon.COM for $99.99 and free shipping, tax-free.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TB0RY4

Just wanted to agree that the Sansa Fuze seems to fit the bill pretty well

- plays ogg and flac etc
- battery life c. 20+ hours on a single charge (unless you have massive power-hungry headphones)
- interface dead simple - 'no nonsense' approach
- small and convenient
- shows up as a USB mass storage device on any PC - no special drivers needed (certainly in winXP, probably much the same in Linux)
- copy the music on and off just like any other USB drive
- charges over the USB cable
- expandable storage via MicroSD cards ( I have total 20Gig in mine)
- much cheaper than an iPod!
- SQ is competent IMO - no egregious background noise, no significant distortion effects etc ... YMMV as they say
- small, light and easy to pocket
- looks reasonably smart.

Only real downside I can see for the OP is that you can't play music while charging, but the battery is so good I never worry about it - in practice I rarely charge it more than once a week, and that's overnight. You can still use the PC to listen to the .ogg files while it's charging through VLC or whatever media software you're using.

Doesn't come with an AC charger (just USB), but you can buy them separately I think.

Regarding headphones, you can use just about any old headphones. I have some reasonable 'everyday' Sennheiser ones (CX-100) which cost around $50 and are pretty good; very comfortable, very portable. I mentioned power-hungry headphones above, and I had my 'proper' headphones in mind - a pair of Grado SR-60s which aren't great with the Sansa, simply because I end up with the volume turned up to nearly full just to get a 'normal' listening level from them; clearly that's not good for battery life.

Hope that helps...