..And the best supported hdd player for playback is? (winner: Gigabeat)

[jgombos]

I'm looking to get a hard drive model.  What I'm after is something that is the best supported for Rockbox.  Judging from the wiki, I got the impression that the Archos JBR v2 is the most reliable hardware.  It's the /only/ device that is "supported", while everything else is "usable".

The market is terrible for Archos buyers.  Even eBay has < 5 listings.  But it's not completely extinct.  I found a seller who will sell a mint condition JBRv2 for $70.

Ultimately the device will go to someone who doesn't care about feature richness as much a reliability.  Reliability is everything.  The user gets very stressed when things glitch out - and I don't want to buy her a stressor for Christmas.  I would also like some degree of future proofing, so the device will continue to work with future revisions of Rockbox.

Archos doesn't even appear in the buyers guide, perhaps because it's so rare.  Should I get the JBRv2, or are there better options?

[LambdaCalculus]

You can get an Archos; they're built like little tanks in terms of durability. But you'll be severely limited with an Archos in terms of codec choices. The Archos players are all limited to playing only MP3 and WAV files due to hardware limitations.

For a HDD-based player, search out an iriver H1x0, H3x0, iAUDIO X5, Gigabeat, or iPod. The Buyer's Guide will explain more.

[jgombos]

   Ouch.. I can't be limited to mp3s.  Part of the collection is AAC.  

I see a lot of posts from users encountering problems in all the forums.. and having to reboot.  I'm figuring that means I should get a dual bootable device so the user can revert to the OEM OS if there are issues.  Do any non-Archos HDD devices stand out as being more reliable than the rest?

Now that I'm focused on dual booting, are there any dual bootable devices such that both OSs can access the same copy of the music library?  I suspect iPods would have a problem with that, considering how factory iPods are unable to play music from the part of the hard drive that contains files that were manually copied.

[GodEater]

I see a lot of posts from users encountering problems in all the forums.. and having to reboot.  I'm figuring that means I should get a dual bootable device so the user can revert to the OEM OS if there are issues.  Do any non-Archos HDD devices stand out as being more reliable than the rest?

I can only speak from personal experience here - but I own three current Rockbox targets which all meet your HD player criteria. They are the iRiver H140, iPod Video 80GB, and the Gigabeat F40. I've found all of them extremely reliable - but of the three, the iRiver is the one I have to reboot least often. Now just to put that into perspective, because I don't want the other two to come off as poor choices - the iPod I've had to reset maybe 6 times this YEAR. The Gigabeat maybe twice. iRiver not at all.

Now that I'm focused on dual booting, are there any dual bootable devices such that both OSs can access the same copy of the music library?  I suspect iPods would have a problem with that, considering how factory iPods are unable to play music from the part of the hard drive that contains files that were manually copied.

Yes - but Rockbox is able to play music from ALL portions of the hard drive - so load your music on with iTunes if the Original Firmware is important to you, and then use Rockbox's database facility to access it properly.

[pondlife]

Generally, the older the port, the more stable it is.  

Also, PortalPlayer-based devices (iPod, iRiver H10, Sansa) have had to be largely reverse-engineered, so aren't quite as stable, and suffer from reduced battery life.

I've got an Iriver H340 (H380 now), and that's very stable indeed.

pondlife

[GodEater]

actually, I just want to add :

The iRiver Rockbox port is now *so* good, it's better than the original firmware for stability. I had to reset that a lot.

[bascule]

I'm figuring that means I should get a dual bootable device so the user can revert to the OEM OS if there are issues....

Buy an iRiver H1x0. You can then flash Rockbox directly into the ROM and then even if you have to do a hard reset, it will still revert to a good Rockbox version.

You will then have a completely stable and virtually unbreakable Rockbox installation

[Llorean]

I have an Archos Jukebox Recorder, e200, iPod Nano, H100, and Gigabeat F.

I use the Gigabeat the most.
If I had to pick one of those players to be the only one I owned it would be the H100.
The e200 is better than the Nano in pretty much every way but the physical design (in my opinion).
The Archos is one heck of a player, but too big to be comfortable for portable use relative to the others. And of course, it suffers from the format limitation.

[LambdaCalculus]

I have to agree with everyone else. If you can get an iriver H100 or H300, you're set for life.

Plus, the H100 and H300 models have FM radio, built-in microphones, and LCD remotes (if you can find those!). And as a bonus, the H100 has optical in/out ports.

jgombos, here's pictures of the H100 and H300 series, so you'll know what they look like:





H100 on the top, H300 on the bottom.

[jgombos]

Thanks for all the helpful feedback folks!  Y'all pretty much have me sold on the iRiver.  I'm thinking it might make sense to get a small HDD model (like the H320) - preferably with a broken HDD, so I can drop in an 80GB (following this YouTube video).

[evilnick]

You'll want a H340 (note the 40 part) as that has a larger (back half of the) case and the new 80GB drive would be easier to put in.

To add my own opinion;

if recording (optically) is MOST important to you - get a H1x0
if timed recording, a real-time clock and a colour screen are more important - get a H3x0
if music playback, video playback and the gameboy emulator are most important - get a Gigabeat

I've owned (still do) all these 3 and Rockbox works so well that I've only ever loaded the original firmware for troubleshooting/when I've made a mistake updating on any of them!

[jgombos]

if music playback, video playback and the gameboy emulator are most important - get a Gigabeat

The end user will only be using this for playback.  Why would you favor the Gigabeat over the iRiver for playback?

[LambdaCalculus]

evilnick mentioned the Gigabeat if you want a DAP with a fast CPU for multiple purposes. The Gigabeat is the best Rockboxed DAP for video playback.

If it's pure audio playback you want, the iriver is great for that.

[Llorean]

I'd say the Gigabeat still edges ahead even there. Nothing wrong with the iRiver's playback, but if you need to make use of several "advanced" features like parametric equalizer, dithering, or others, and want to play a fairly CPU intensive format (or even just one not optimized enough lately) the Gigabeat gives you the elbow room to be confident of skipless playback.

Though you'd be hard pressed to make *most* formats skip on the iRiver, I believe the only one at all you can make skip is Monkey's Audio on the Gigabeat.

[jgombos]

I've noticed the F40S and the H320 both go for ~$90, so since the two are very closely matched on audio playback, the F40 wins due to double the HDD space, and CPU.

I'm hoping the F40S is the F series, not the S series.