How good is a PDA for music?

Posted by: David Robert Bell on 30 May 2005

Dear Padded Cellmates,

My wife wants some new toys ie iPod and PDA.
Is a PDA a viable replacement for an iPod or are they just a joke when it comes to music playback? eg camera phones. Music will only be of occasional use so files should fit on memory cards. Headphones will probably be etymotics.

Dave

Posted on: 30 May 2005 by Arun Mehan

Hi Dave,

I think Etymotics would be overkill but you would hear improved performance than with say a set of Sony earbuds. For general use, a PDA will suffice for music. I use a Toshiba e830 (Pocket PC), CF card, and Sennheiser earbuds for hardware and Pocket Music Player for software. Background noise is terrible between tracks but otherwise MP3s sound pretty good. I have listened to the iPOD with the same tracks and headphones and during playback, the sound is fairly close in quality.

That being said, an iPOD is much easier to use but a PDA is more useful, especially when you can listen to MP3s at the same time you are reading an eBook.