Too many things are killing my appetite for ANY of the newer DAP's out there:
1. Proprietary software or drivers needed. This is especially true for those DAP's which require Win XP with SP2 or higher. I've read far too many reviews or seen specs which indicate this as a prerequisite. And as someone whom intends on buying a Mac in the near future, the chances of even reviewing a product are slim. I do not want to be forced to use ANY particular operating system, let alone any Windows version, since XP will eventually be pushed out of existence, and replaced by the biggest POC I've seen, being Vista. Can't wait to see how badly OS 7 will be in comparison, in terms of invasion of my privacy.
2. When will these chimps EVER learn, and get it straight that it's not only easy to implement, but people WANT to be able to have a dynamic playlist creation ability on board their DAPs ! ? This has to be
one of my biggest annoyances (aside from #1 above) with DAP companies today. Based off of this information, I think it's relatively safe to say that :
Every new DAP I see being released today, is almost an exact replica of every other DAP which is already out. No new exciting feature sets, or useful features for that matter... Just more of the same "we'll thrill you with our expanded number of lines of resolution per pixel" or " look at our shiny new AMOLED screen, it's nicer than yours because it's.. um, yeah, we said shiny already, right ?"
I'm sorry but, with the ever increasing demand for internet scanning abilities and music store syncing on every tech device known to man, the most basic and rudimentary feature sets are being left to rot in the cement shut cellars, rather than making it to one of THE most widely spread and ideally simplistic devices out there... A means to get music from point A to B to your ears. And I thought that was what this was supposed to be all about, the music ? But instead, it's about crippling a device in order to lure people into the proprietary clutches of those who know absolutely nothing about ... music. At least, that's how it seems to me, and how I feel.
Why in this day and age, where CD's are purposefully cut to have NO gap in between certain songs, is it not important to these DAP co's to acknowledge this, and make sure their devices are capable of playing back music the way it was intended to be ?
And why make it so that I have to install bloat ware, just so that I can create a useful playlist ? It's so, not necessary.
3. Radio and recording features... Radio is a fine feature either to, or not to have. I don't think that anybody really has a "to die for" need where FM radio is concerned these days. FM radio to be blunt, really sucks. Whether it be HD or not. If these people really cared so much about content and what will bring them numbers, why not integrate a semi limited wi fi feature, which would enable internet radio streaming ? There are more than a few ways to go about doing this, and it's hardly a big task.
As for recording... It's part of what makes or breaks my decisions these days. For the price being asked of the E100, I would have been able to overlook its shortcomings such as lousy playlist abilities (or lack thereof on the player) and even lack of gapless playback, since no other dAP has this feature these days anyway.. But when considering the purchase, and seeing that it could not record to WAV via line in, I dropped the thought of buying it immediately.
There are a lot of other factors involved in my decision process, but omit too many features or functions, and there's only so far I can be pushed...
I'm crying for a non proprietary, file tree browsing, playlist on the fly, gapless, multi-codec playing, high capacity (flash or standard hdd) DAP with a true Line OUT and good line in with an above average DAC DAP ! I don't give a rats balloon knot about video even.. just give me music !
It's why my H120 STILL remains Emperor of any DAP I've ever owned, own, have given away or have smashed with the weight of my purdy little foot.
/rant.
Had to get that off my chest.