[tommytwotone]

So it's looking like I'm going to be doing a fair bit of travel for work in the near future, and I'm looking (unsuccessfully) for an MP3 player that's powered off batteries rather than an internal rechargeable.

Given that I'll be doing some long haul flights etc I'm thinking that my chances of charging my phone (my current option for my music playing) is going to be limited I thought a cheap player and a pocket full of Duracells would be a better options.

Back in the day I used to have a dope Creative USB stick-type thing that used a single AAA - can anyone recommend something similar available nowadays with a decent (I'm thinking 8GB+) amount of storage?

 

[Jaspersharpe]

Just get one of those things you can charge your phone off, designed for long haul flights and the like. They sell them on planes for £15 so they must be way cheaper in the real world (ebay).

[SA Chris]

Surely no one is ever too far from a USB port these days? The latest 8gb Creative quotes 25 hour battery life. That's a long flight! I think a lot of planes have power sockets for laptops etc these days? Get a socket adaptor for USB and a travel plug.

Apologies if this is stating the obvious.

[slackline]

Some airports I've been to in recent years had USB ports on tables, but travel adapter and cable should give you some charge before boarding.  Or if you're carrying a laptop for work anyway, drain the battery on the flight charging the mp3 player/phone.

A dedicated player such as the SanDisk Clip+ at 8Gb with a purported 15hr battery life (reviews I've read say it is very good on this front), would save you a fortune in batteries.

[SA Chris]

I've also seen in some airports they have phone charger lockers (probably a smarter name for them) where there's a small locker with some powerpoints and for a small fee you can plug your phone in and lock it away for whatever time you are hanging around.

[Johnny Brown]

I've got a Sony 8Gb mp3 player which quotes a 33hr battery life. I've not measured it but it coped with a round the world trip without charging. You couldn't fit an AAA battery in it, and if you did you'd need a pocket full to compete. Its a few years old now but I still use it as I prefer the interface to the android standard anyway, and it saves my phone battery, and is probably better sound quality.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

You shouldn't have a problem finding power sockets in most airports. There's a rather patchy Wiki that might help in some areas http://airpower.pbworks.com
Gate Guru App might also help http://gateguruapp.com/ but to be honest if you can't find a proper recharge point having a hunt around will turn up a cleaners socket pretty much anywhere.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

As an aside, somewhere I still have my first MP3 player, the classicly weird Nokia HDR1 (got it free with a phone contract sometime early in the '00s)



Terrible thing, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, however it did run off one AAA batt, not that it lasted very long.

This digital music player for storing and playing AAC and MP3 music files on a removable 32 MB memory card, which holds up to one hour of music.The music player also includes a built-in FM radio, handsfree headset with voice dialing and answering functionality, display for music information, USB cable supplied for downloading from a compatible PC. Self-powered from AAA battery, it can be used with or without a Nokia mobile phone.

A whole ONE hour of music! And it was super weird as you could somehow daisy chain it to your mobile to answer calls handsfree.

[Plattsy]

A dedicated player such as the SanDisk Clip+ at 8Gb with a purported 15hr battery life (reviews I've read say it is very good on this front), would save you a fortune in batteries.

+1

[SA Chris]

I've got a clip and it's a great little piece of kit. The clip for it is a bit flimsy (mine broke) but fine for a pocket.

[tommytwotone]

Cheers all - hadn't realised there would be the possiblity of in-flight power so I might just take my chances with my Nexus 7...as it goes I think I'm going to be flying business class so there will probably be a fairly decent supply of onboard entertainment anyway!

 

[Durbs]

Recently had my first “proper” airline flight (i.e. not Ryanair) and was amazed at what you got on-board.

Touch-screen movie choices, and USB & component inputs so you can play stuff (movies/music/photos) off a USB device.
Depending on power-rating might not charge your device though (if it’s only USB 1, might not have enough juice to charge a more modern device.) I didn’t try any of it though as I didn’t think to bring any cables with me… I would’ve on the return flight, but someone decided they were more deserving of my phone than me whilst in Cuba…

Also, for battery-life, if you’re in flight-mode, your battery lasts aaaaaaaaages anyway, just dim your screen a bit

[Paul B]

I've got a clip and it's a great little piece of kit. The clip for it is a bit flimsy (mine broke) but fine for a pocket.

I just bought a clip zip (the evolution of the clip and clip+), unfortunately it currently keeps freezing every time I skip multiple tracks at once.

It was very cheap (just over 4 FAs) for the 4GB model with an 8GB micro SD card. The sound quality is outstanding. Hopefully a firmware update fixes the freezing issue.