This is going to sound weird. I have a 6 year old iPod Touch that has been used nearly every day but now has a poor battery life, is prone to freezing and due to the ancient OS won't allow modern apps to run. Although I could get another iPod, a 32GB version is £180-£200 and is limited in use. I thought if I get an Android Smartphone, not fit a SIM and not using the phone functionality I would get a far better battery life. Would I be correct in thinking that with the phone bits switched off that firstly the other features e.g. music and video player would work without a problem and also that I'd get decent battery life. I wouldn't expect battery life on the lines of an iPod but I wouldn't want to be charging it every day either as seems to be normal with Smartphones. The phone I am looking at is the Sony Xperia M2. Although it's quite old it has 8GB Memory and can use a MicroSD card. It'll only ever be used with earphones.
Can't comment on the battery life, but my cousin bought her kids some cheap android phones to use for games. No sim cards, but you can connect to wifi to download apps, etc. For her, it didn't make sense to spend 250-300 for an ipad when they had android tablets and could get some cheap android phones for 150ish. The battery really depends on the phone. I realize im talking screen time here, but on average usage, my old galaxy nexus lasted 1 day with something like 3-4 hours of screen time, while my current moto g 2nd gen drops to 50-60% with the same amount of screen time. I do use it for music streaming for a few hours a week while I clean, and it's very reasonable. Assuming the screen is off, and the phone itself gets decent battery time, you could probably get 2 days out of it.
That's helpful, thank you. I was hoping for significantly more than a couple of days between charges using it about 2 hours a day for music playback though, something on the lines of a week, having both phone and WiFi features disabled. Might have to rethink it if it's that bad.
If you turn the phone off when you are not using it then you won't have a problem with battery life. I did the same a few years ago with a samsung galaxy Y. Used it for music when doing exercise and the battery lasted several days.
That's exactly what I wanted to know, thanks. I've just been working through the various mp3 players available for Android to find a decent one, there's a hell of a lot of crap in the Play Store. So far it looks like the Shuttle Music Player has the simple features I need. Some of them couldn't even locate albums on the MicroSD card.
the 2 biggest draws on a phone battery are the screen and network signal. Just go to a place with poor signal and see how fast it gets used up. This is due to the phone constantly having to look for a better signal. turn off all network stuff when your not using it and the brightness down you should get a couple of days out of it.
With an Android device Steve (or pretty much any other touch screen) just switch on Flight Mode and job done, the reason I say that is most handsets do require a sim be it a live or inactive one to initialize.
My wife got a Lumia 630, and used it without a SIM card for the first two weeks (my bad*) Works great. and certainly has a higher batterylife than my galaxy. Screen (gorillaglass, in this pricerange!), resolution and touch are good. There should be decent mediaplayers for Win8.1 *Bought her the phone as a gift, not realising it needed a microsim, and her old one wasn't the breakout variant. THEN I had the new microsim shipped to our old adress 100km away
Scissors do the job just fine. I've gone from mini(standard) to micro using this method and plenty of people have reported good results going to nano. Back on topic though - On airplane mode (sadly, no wifi) the battery life on phones last (comparatively) forever. As an added bonus, most countries mandate that calls to 911 (or your local variant) must get through, even on unregistered phones, so if you're ever in a pinch it could be a life saver.
I thought the nokias were known for good build quality? Certainly the ones I've used/seen have been good. Touchscreen has been fine on the ones I've used, if it's only a mp3 player then I can't imagine it being a problem.
I'm only going by reviews. The ones I've handled have felt good quality but outside my price range. I am looking to see what media players are available on MS phones but I also want a database along the lines of Sailforms or HanDBase which are available for Android. Edit: I didn't realise that the Sony Xperia I was looking at has the version of Android that's no longer supported so will rule that out.
People also made some valid points with airplane mode, that will extend the battery a crap-ton, and I'm pretty sure there is a way to use your volume keys to change songs while the phone is in standby (phone is on, screen is off). I used to be able to hold volume up or down to go forward / back, but it may have been cyanogen mod. I haven't bothered looking if I can do that with my new android phone. Edit: Turns out the volume for media keys only works with custom ROM's such as cyanogen mod, or some media players also support it, such as powerAMP (saw an article on lifehacker and that was their preferred android media player).
I've found a decent, simple mp3/mp4 player for Android in Rocket Player. It replicates much of the look and feel of my iPod Touch which, bear in mind, I've been using for just over 6 years is very simple and have got used to. I don't need anything fancy. I've been working through loads of reviews and come to the conclusion with my relatively low maximum price of £150 that whatever I get will be a major compromise in OS version/screen quality/build quality/battery life/on-board storage/optional storage/size etc. Whatever I get will be used for roughly 80% mp3 playback, 20% mp4 playback plus a tiny bit of database use so the key things are battery life, storage (on-board and expandable) and build quality. Anything else would be nice to have but looking unlikely to be available on my budget. I'll probably even have to compromise with my key requirements as well. Gone back to considering the Sony Xperia M2 again.
What about the 2nd gen moto g? Not sure on prices in the UK / Europe, but I do know they are the best budget android phone on the market. Been very happy with mine, and with my regular use, I could probably get 2 days out of it. I charge it nightly, but it's usually around 50-60% battery with 3-4.5 hours of screen time.
That is very impressive, good price in the UK (£140-150 for 8GB version), KitKat 4.4, good screen and gets great reviews but is about 20-30mm too long. Added it to my list though.
Do any of these MP3-player Apps let you sort by folder, instead of by m3u or tags? I've got a lot of audiobooks and the standart player keeps messing them up. But they're nice and sorted by folder. The 630 feels excellent, and the software version SHOULD update to Win10 in time
Almost decided on the Moto G 2nd Gen. It's a bit bigger than I want but so is the new iPod Touch. 32GB MicroSD is enough for me. The Rocket Player has options to sort by Song Title, Artists, Albums and Folders. Also includes Playlists and mp4s although they only sort by title. I don't know if it would catalogue eBooks. It's just a basic no frills player that does exactly what I want.
Thanks, I'll try So far, I've tried three, and none would work with folders. I know you're not supposed to care about folders on android, but I have them sorted anyway, and it's much easier to copy 5 folders (with subfolders) than to alter ID-3 tags for 100+ files
