Best MP3 Player/Cellphone Combo + Car Listening Solution?

[email protected] wrote in news:950d2eb0-7be1-4bf2-8f2a-
[email protected]:

> Features I need:
>
> - decent MP3 player with wma and preferably aac format support.

I thought you wanted an MP3 player. You're looking for a Windows
player! I can play wma on the MotoROKR Z6m but not aac. That might be
hard to find.

The ROKR Z6m is a new slidephone, thin, long running, great phone,
acceptable music player. It actually has two players, the "sound
player" is different from the "music player". The music player plays by
Genre, artist, etc....or just everything straight, via m3u playlist or
shuffled.

> - accepts regular 3.5mm earphone jack (instead of proprietary jacks).

Z6m has regular earphone jack....one of its BEST features. It's also
LOUD, so it will drive my Sennheiser full-sized phones.

> - easy & intuitive navigation of audio lists (as few keys as
> possible).

Click the player key, point to how you want it to play and click to open
and select what you want to play. If you like playlists, pick it and
away it goes.

It has one really stupid deficiency. All my MP3 ringtones, not
downloaded but MP3 sound effects off usenet, are on the internal memory,
which is adequately large for anything in a tiny phone. All my MUSIC I
want the player to play is on the 2GB microSD card I simply copy from
the massive RAID drives on the mainframe. THE STUPID PLAYER CAN'T BE
POINTED TO JUST THE MEMORY CARD, so playing at random it plays the MP3
ringtones! Really DUMB Motorola, really dumb.

As far as operating it, I usually just want to play at random so open
music player, point to SONGS already setup for random play and press the
center button, without even opening the phone. She starts playing
instantly everything it can find in a really random pattern.

> - can be easily & simply hooked up to my car audio (my car has a

You can plug the car into the STANDARD headphone jack.....or better yet,
as the Z6m supports both handsfree and A2DP stereo Bluetooth, swap out
the FM/Cassette for a Bluetooth-stereo radio! With cassette, it's time
to upgrade. FM is mostly spam in the USA so that's wasted here. I
didn't look where you live. If the phone is already BT paired with the
car, when you turn the car on it will connect automatically with the
radio and start playing through there....right from your pocket up to 10
meters away. That's about as simple as I can give you....(c;

Now, if we're gonna do that, there's another Motorola stupidity problem
you need to know about......

I have a Motorola H300 handsfree headset, and the FANTASTIC Motorola S9
handsfree + Stereo bluetooth headset that does BOTH phone and stereo
play functions, simultaneously. Don't hesitate to get the S9. I'm very
picky about headphones that make mechanical noises. The S9 is soft
rubber and lays against your neck. It recharges from the same phone
cord Z6m does (mini USB camera port) or your computer or a miniUSB car
cord. It's rechargeable, of course.....

UNFORTUNATELY, the stupids at Motorola who won't let me play from ONLY
the removeable microSD card decided, wrongly, that I only needed ONE
pairing for an audio device. It will pair with multiple audio
devices....BUT IT WILL ONLY CONNECT TO THE FIRST ONE...dumb, dumb, DUMB
Motorola! If the H300 is paired first, then pair the S9....then turn on
ONLY the S9, the stupid phone ignores the handsfree pairing with the S9
and only gives you stereo playback. You must UNPAIR the H300 to get the
phone to connect the phone to the S9...or any other device. It's
stupid, but all you do is just pair one and it works fine and
autoconnects. I gave the H300 to a friend's teenage daughter to use.
But, if you had a stereo headset using A2DP, it wouldn't connect to the
car's A2DP radio without unpairing the headset....

If you use a handsfree headset that's NOT a stereo headset and paired it
with the car stereo....it will work fine but the car stereo won't act
like a handsfree phone because the stupid phone is looking for the
headset pairing ONLY. All the Motorolas I tried are like this.

> lighter plug, a cassette and an FM).
> - I almost forgot: accepts phone calls
>
My Z6m is on Alltel, who does NOT cripple or delete functions at all
trying to sell them back to you. Alltel is CDMA 800 Mhz and even though
the Z6m has no external antenna, it works great all over town.

The stereo output has absolutely no noise or electronic clicking caused
by the phone, whatsoever. Even plugged into my 1400 watt DJ console,
it's totally quiet.

Shop around before buying and be very careful of your carrier, whoever
that is. Carriers screw up the features trying to cripple it so you'll
buy music and ringtones from them. The Verizon Z6tv, same phone but
with Verizon crippleware, won't even copy/move/make as ringtone/copy
photos to the removable card pulling this crap.

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› See More: Best MP3 Player/Cellphone Combo + Car Listening Solution?

[email protected] wrote in news:950d2eb0-7be1-4bf2-8f2a-
[email protected]:

> Any ideas? I'd appreciate if you'd recommend a good tried-and-proven
> car hookup system (FM Transmitter? etc.). Hopefully the whole setup
> won't exceed $250, give or take.
>
>

Oops...missed this. The Z6m is $50 with 2 year contract on Alltel,
including a $100 rebate which took me 5 months to get back. That's
really cheap for a $400 phone.

You need a Bluetooth A2DP radio in that car to replace the old cassette
machine. Little FM transmitters suck. They are so low powered anything
interfers with their signal, especially those other 100KW transmitters
on the band, even far away. The audio quality sucks because they are
built so cheap. Best Buy DOES make a Bluetooth receiver addon for your
car radio for about $100, because Bluetooth licensing is expensive I
suppose. The connection to the phone's stereo output on Bluetooth will
be perfect with the phone within 10 meters of the car, especially inside
it. No analog noises like FM at all.

Z6m has a 2 megapixel really nice little camera you don't want, but will
use. It'll even make mpeg movies. On Alltel, without the crippleware,
it will take pictures and movies straight to the removeable microSD card
for transfer to your computer....your features may vary.