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[csimon]

I'm after a portable music player, either an mp3 player or a phone (as I could do with a new phone anyway!), mainly for use in the car but also generally while out and about. But the main problem I have, which is why I settled on MC as an in-houe media organiser, is that I find stock browsing structures to be awkward. I've downloaded loads of apps for my iPad and Android tablet but nothing has really stood out for me, and some with some really glaring usability flaws. The old 2.2 version of the stock Android music player (I didn't like the updated version...), and Leech music for iOS seem to be about the best so far, but there are still a certain amount of gripes.

Of course, product web sites and manuals never give any information about how they organise your collection, they're far too happy to tell you all about the additional apps and functions and magic they have rather than concentrate on telling you about the core function of the device...

I've been looking at the following devices as possibles:


Sony Walkman audio/video players (screens a bit small though, and no touch);

Sony Xperia SP (phone) - or any of the Xperia range;
Sony "web enabled" players (i.e. Android devices), e.g. NWZ-F886;
(presumably their pones and Android players have the same Walkman app as well as the stock Android player?)

Samsung Galaxy S4 mini (phone);
Smasung Galaxy S wi-fi (player);

HTC One mini (phone);

Could anyone who is familiar with any of these comment on how they do the following things?  Also, if anyone has any particular player (hardware or software) that they could recommend then please shout out!

1. Does the Artists menu group items by Artist or Album Artist?
2. On displaying Albums after selecting an artist, does it sort albums chronologically or alphabetically?
3. Is there a Genres menu?
4. If there is a Genres menu, what is displayed next after selecting a genre: Tracks, Albums, or Artists?
5. Is there an on the go, ad-hoc queue/playlist and is it possible to queue individual tracks? And is it possible to reorder tracks in the queue?
6. Is Disc # respected within an album, i.e. if it's a multi-disc album are the tracks sorted by Disc # first and then Track #?
7. Are compilation (multi-artist) albums recognised in any way?


Ideally, they would also have 64GB storage, or at least the ability to plug in a 64GB SD card and put music on it, but I know this is quite rare really. Which surprises me, how on earth can suppliers think you can get away with 8GB for OS, app storage and media??

Of course, the best would be if JRiver could produce a player app with the ability to customise the views as the desktop product does.  Hmm,  "JRiver Player"....has a nice ring to it.

Many thanks for any comments.

[nitephlight]

1. Does the Artists menu group items by Artist or Album Artist?
2. On displaying Albums after selecting an artist, does it sort albums chronologically or alphabetically?
3. Is there a Genres menu?
4. If there is a Genres menu, what is displayed next after selecting a genre: Tracks, Albums, or Artists?
5. Is there an on the go, ad-hoc queue/playlist and is it possible to queue individual tracks? And is it possible to reorder tracks in the queue?
6. Is Disc # respected within an album, i.e. if it's a multi-disc album are the tracks sorted by Disc # first and then Track #?
7. Are compilation (multi-artist) albums recognised in any way?


Ideally, they would also have 64GB storage, or at least the ability to plug in a 64GB SD card and put music on it, but I know this is quite rare really. Which surprises me, how on earth can suppliers think you can get away with 8GB for OS, app storage and media??

Of course, the best would be if JRiver could produce a player app with the ability to customise the views as the desktop product does.  Hmm,  "JRiver Player"....has a nice ring to it.

Many thanks for any comments.

decided it was easier to just show you, but yes to almost every once of those questions. you design your own views, grouping, navigation structure, etc.

[csimon]

Thank you for replying, but I was actually meaning the browsing structures of the internal, native music players on these devices.  The idea being to export/sync my music out of MC onto a mobile device for use while I'm not at home. I know that MC is extremely flexible when it comes to designing your own views based on tags but this very rarely translates well to other media players.