Newbie buying new player

[Mizutsuki]

Hey all.
I'm a long time FLOSS fan and this site came to my attention a couple of months ago when OSNews did an article about it.
My old Creative Zen Xtra is about on it's last legs so I want to get a new player, but I'm not sure what to get.  I looked at the manual here and it looks like the firmware has a fairly small roster of compatible devices so I wanted to make sure I bought something I could use.  Also, when I looked those devices up on buy.com and newegg it looks like other than the ipods, none of them are being sold.
So my question is two-fold:
1. How strict is the compatibility?  If I bought a SanDisk Sansa e280 is that compatible enough with the e200? Etc...
2. What device would y'all recommend?  My criteria are as follows:
* 100% feature compatibility with rockbox and linux/gnome/ubuntu/banshee/amarok
* Preferably not a mac product
* > 5G storage
* storage medium is unimportatnt
* video is less important than other features
* price is less important
I'll be using it in my car for music and audiobooks. (by the way, I heard I'm going to have to jump some hoops to make audible files work with rockbox, any comments on that?)

Thanks so much for your time,
Stephen

[krazykit]

1.  e200 refers to the e2x0 family, so the e280 IS an e200.
2.  Check out the BuyersGuide page.

as for your stars...
All the devices act as an external drive, so any program that can manipulate that will work.  The rest is on the BuyersGuide.  As for Audible files, I'm not familiar with the DRM restrictions, but the crippled files themselves cannot be used.  If you're allowed to burn them to a CD, you could re-rip them, losing audio quality in the process.

[scorche]

Also, when I looked those devices up on buy.com and newegg it looks like other than the ipods, none of them are being sold.

Actually, the only ones that are actively being made at the moment are the Sansa devices.

The best place to get most devices that will run Rockbox would be ebay.  (much cheaper place too)

1. How strict is the compatibility?  If I bought a SanDisk Sansa e280 is that compatible enough with the e200? Etc...

Well, we typically mention family names when we can.  So, for your example, there is no such thing as an e200.  This is a family name meant to refer to e250, e260, e270, and e280.  The R is a special designation that we typically say separately from "e200".  This refers to the rhapsody versions which differ in the software and packaging and has a slightly different install method (for now).

2. What device would y'all recommend?  My criteria are as follows:
* 100% feature compatibility with rockbox and linux/gnome/ubuntu/banshee/amarok
* Preferably not a mac product
* > 5G storage
* storage medium is unimportatnt
* video is less important than other features
* price is less important

There are still many devices this could encompass, but the Sansa e200 series is likely the easiest to get.  Do you prefer flash, or a hard drive?

(by the way, I heard I'm going to have to jump some hoops to make audible files work with rockbox, any comments on that?)

Well, audible files are encumbered with DRM, so something likely needs to be done with that.  This, however, is off-topic here.

[Mizutsuki]

Thanks to both of you for your advice.  I took a look at the buyers guide, and I think I'd like to go with this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-gigabeat-MEG-F40S-40-GB-10000-Songs-MP3_W0QQitemZ330176888500QQihZ014QQcategoryZ73839QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Unless there's some reason you can tell me I shouldn't.

Again, thanks for your help.
Stephen

[markun]

I also have a F40 and am very happy with it. Since you didn't mention radio nor recording as your requirements I think it's a good player for that price.

[Mizutsuki]

I also have a F40 and am very happy with it. Since you didn't mention radio nor recording as your requirements I think it's a good player for that price.

Purchased...
Thanks for your input.
Stephen

[scharkalvin]

More of the plugins work with the Gigabeat F series than any other player.
Also from the data for the mpegplugin this player has the fastest video playback
(handles the most fps) thanks to it's 300mhz cpu.  Nice color display too.
I'm waiting for the one also I just bought on ebay.  I have a Sansa E207 too.
Nice player with a built in fm radio as well.   Finally, I have a iPod mini that I plan on upgrading to 16gb with a flash module.  

[AlexP]

More of the plugins work with the Gigabeat F series than any other player.

This isn't really true, for instance all colour targets will share the same plugins (perhaps with some delay for porting after a new port).

Very CPU intensive plugins such as MPEGPlayer work better on the Gigabeat owing to it having a faster CPU, but the plugins all work.