What is the "Flagship" player for Rockbox?

[Wrathernaut]

Firstly, great appreciation to all those who make Rockbox possible, I'd still be using my old Rio Karma if it weren't for this project... which brings up my question:

What player runs Rockbox perfectly?
By perfectly, I mean that everything is as responsive as a good "Stock" player (Karma is my measuring stick here).
#1 You can skip to the next song after hearing the first couple seconds of a song several times before any delay is noticed.
#2 Power-up is just as fast or faster than the factory firmware.
#3 Battery life is just as long or longer than with factory firmware.
#4 Easily playing/browsing music by artist, genre, album, etc... should feel like the purpose of the player, rather than browsing files on a computer.

[Febs]

Iriver h100 series.

[Llorean]

I'd say the iRiver H100/H300, iAudio X5 and M5, and Gigabeat F players all meet this requirement. As well, if you don't mind MP3-only playback (within the full playback system) all the Archos players also meet these requirements.

[Mad Cow]

I'll have to agree with Llorean here, although I've only used the gigabeat out of all those players. The gigabeat port is very stable and mature now, it boots incredibly quickly and the CPU is the fastest out of all the rockbox targets. For non-reording targets I would say the gigabeat is the best, for recording I would say H3xx.

[Llorean]

I'd say h100 trumps the h300 for recording. Digital options for one. And I think I was told the screen takes less work to update. As well, if I recall correctly, it shows better battery life when both have the same capacity battery.

[LambdaCalculus]

I agree that the H100 is the better choice for recording. Having digital in/out makes quite a difference.

[Mad Cow]

Sorry i wasn't clear, I meant out of all the DAPs that can record.

[Llorean]

I was comparing the H300 to the H100 which most certainly can record and in more ways than the H300.

[AlexP]

The H100 is the recording gold standard.

[Wrathernaut]

I'm not interested in recording, and although the features of Rockbox on the Gigabeat F series is outstanding, the slight lag time in switching songs coupled with the non-tactile buttons really hurts the experience.

[sammage]

Another vote for H100 series...would still be using my H120, but had to go to an F40 for more capacity.  (damned hard to find an H140 for cheap)

[Llorean]

There's no more lag on the Gigabeat than any other disk-based player when switching songs. When buffered, there should be none. When unbuffered, a slight lag for the first song because of disk spinup, then almost none as long as the disk is spinning.

Flash based players of course don't suffer from waiting for a disk to spin.

[freeway986]

I'm selling my iPod to my wife, and in the market for a new player.  I used Rockbox on my iPod and didn't like the slow interface or short battery life, but definitely put up with it in order to have FLAC and OGG support.  If I must, I'll just buy a new, bigger iPod.  I looked through the options listed above, but none are particularly big (or available, for that matter).

Any recommendations for someone looking for an improvement on the iPod port and a giant hard drive?

[psycho_maniac]

Buy an F40 and then go hunt down a Ata 80gig for it. It will be amazing

[freeway986]

Forgive my cluelessness.  By the sounds of it I could stick my own hard drive in there, yes?  If so, it sounds bloody perfect.

Does the drive have to be smaller than 80GB?  I currently have this drive which I could use:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=576184

If I could use this drive, I would be on cloud nine.  Fantastic!

Thanks in advance.