I’ve been borrowing the hubby’s Iomega Hip Zip to transfer files between my laptop and my work computer, and it works pretty slick, 'cept that the Clik disks only hold 38 MB or so–fine for file transfers, but that’s only about 30 minutes of music at good quality.
I was thinking of getting an MP3 player of my own, and I was wondering if there’s such thing as an MP3 player that you can’t use to transfer data files. Most that I have seen basically act like an external disk drive, and I wonder if they’re all like that?
Is there a name for this capability that I should look for? Or some jargon that means that I can’t use it to transfer non-music files?
Since mp3s ARE data files, only the software that puts the files might restrict non-mp3 files.
I have a CD based one, you burn mp3 onto a CD-R or RW. Of course, nothing restricts me from sticking a data file on the disc, the player simply ignores non-music files.
I guess I’m not sure what you want here. Do you want one that transfers non-music files, or not?
Yeah, I got the Hipzip too. Bloody ripped that they brought out high capacity players soon after
There are a few players out there that can’t transfer non-MP3 files, but they’re few and far between nowadays. Besides, you can use a program called “Wrapster” to diguise files as MP3s (Google it for a download)
IGN reviews a lot of MP3 players, and they’re reviews tend to be pretty unbiased. If you’ve got the cash, get the Nomad Zen. Mummm…20gig hard drive…ahhhhh…
Sorry if I was unclear, Revtim. I would like one that can also transfer non-MP3’s. I don’t want to accidentally get one that won’t allow me to do that–one the has some kind of crazy software interface that only allows me to put MP3s on it.
To go into a little more detail–I can alread burn CD’s with my laptop, but it takes soooo frigggging looong, even if I just want to transfer a couple of files. But with the MP3 player, I plug it in to my laptop’s USB port, unplug it and plug in to my desktop, and I can read the files, no problem. Takes less than half the time. Both computers just see the MP3 player as a disk drive–and that’s exactly what I want.
Thanks for the info, Squirrel. I, too, am mightily tempted by the massive hard drives . . . But I imagine I can limp along with 20 or 30 hours of music.
Why would you download software to change the file? All it looks at is the extension. You can change the extension to anything and then change it back to what it really is later.
Podkayne,
Your best bet would be to get one of the hard drive based jukebox MP3 players. These have anywhere from 5-20GB hard drives that can be connected to a USB port to transfer files. Price ranges from ~$150 (Creative Nomad, 6GB) to ~$500 (Apple iPod, 20GB)
You want a 256Mb solid state USB drive. It needs a driver for Win 9x, but W2K and XP recognize them immediately. Acts just like a fast hard drive. Try http://virology-online.com/FlashPens.htm for an example, but there lots of different brands and capacities available.
Well, pretty much every player i’ve ever seen can transfer files in some round about manner or another.
for most players the term is usually something along the lines of “drive letter support” which basically means win98 and above will recognize the mp3 player as a harddrive without any drivers.
