Portable Media Player instead of thumb drive

[mgriffen]

Check this out. Good price.

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[psycosteve]

Depending on how technical you want to get with your data there are plenty of options out there. I myself am not a fan of apple products personally ( too proprietary IMHO ) but they can be used as a survival media player so they do have there place. I have a belief that open source media will become its own trade in a PAW setting once things start to stabilize to the point that that society is starting to rebuild. Files like OOG or FLAC are going to be the most desirable formats to trade in as they do not have the copyright information that your MP3's MP4's and ALAC (apple Lossless Audio Codec) formats have . I use a Chinese knock off of the Ipod touch that has built in OOG and FLAC support built into it. The ability to take micro SD cards means I can have unlimited storage in 64gb increments. Using the Mini USB plug to sync and charge the player means near unlimited chances to find a charge cable nearly anywhere . Standardization is a good thing .

[gmaster456]

A generic <$100 android tablet is probably the way to go. Tucked away in a bag they're hard to break, are easy to read documents on and since they don't use proprietary inputs like apples or other device makers products, are easy to transfer files on from pretty much anywhere. Not to mention 32gb+ of storage. Just make sure you get one with a capacitive screen and not a resistive touch screen.

Something like one of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-M009-E18...item27cd6de1a6

You could even get a couple of them at that price and use one as a backup. 2 is 1 and 1 is none.

[Kingcodez]

Apple does suck with the proprietary apps and such. You used top be able to turn on a feature which would allow you to access your iPods hard disk just like a flash drive. I recently bought an iPod mini from like 2004 and put in a 16gb compact flash card and new battery. All in for $50 max, I can use this as a flash drive now too.

I like old apple products, and the old used iPod touches are dirt cheap, under $50 in some cases. A 64gb scratched iPod touch would be perfect for a disaster or whatever. Throw in some external batteries and you have a device which is cheaper and infinitely more functional than a sub-$400 android whatever.

When you get into apples ecosystem it is so easy to carry around all of your movies, music, documents, and most importantly your pictures. I never look at them, but it comforts me to know that I have every picture that I've ever taken with my wife in the five or so years that we have known each other with me at all times. All organized in their own well labeled albums and automatically synced with any new additions.

The back up iPod/document device is a great idea though, I might have to look into getting a spare Touch and scanning all of our documents.

[mgriffen]

So an iPod would definitely work. You might run into some file types that you cant read... My wife's 4th gen iPod touch does NOT accept SD cards and only has the proprietary apple iPod out plug. No mini USB, no HDMI, etc... I think I paid about 300 dollars for it a year and a half ago. It is the 64GB model.

I've been pushing the Galaxy Player 5.0 because it is much more universal.
Found one on Tiger Direct for $150
Most importantly you can plug it into any computer and transfer files like a mass storage device. You don't have to use iTunes or any crap like that. You don't have to sync it to any one computer. You can use Google play or amazon app store, or download any other apps you feel safe downloading. Instead of being forced to use apple appstore.
And it has a display which allows you to view your important data immediately, just like a smart phone.

Accepted Media Formats:
SD MMC Expansion Slot: Up to 32GB microSD Card
Video Files: AVI, MP4, 3GP, WMV, ASF, MKV, FLV
Audio Files: MP3, WMA, Ogg, FLAC, AAC, WAV
Image Files: JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG
Document Files: Word File (doc, docx, xml, txt, rtf, dot, dotx), Excel File (xls, xlsx, csv, xlt, xltx), PowerPoint (ppt, pptx, pot, potx, pps, ppsx), PDF

Connectivity:
USB 2.0: yes
USB Connection (MTP/UMS): yes
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0
Wireless Internet: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n

General Applications:
Alarm/Clock, AllShare, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Email, FM Radio, Gallery, Gmail, Google Search, Latitude, Maps, Market, Memo, Mini Diary, My Files, Navigatior, Qik, Samsung Apps, Task Manager, ThinkFree Office, Voice Recorder, YouTube etc.
(iPod does not have a internal microphone)

[ONGU]

Originally Posted by Kingcodez

Throw in some external batteries and you have a device which is cheaper and infinitely more functional than a sub-$400 android whatever.

What would some of those functions be?