Does anyone have the Agptek G05 MP3 player?

[haertig]

I am currently experimenting with my old Sansa Clip with Rockbox firmware for listening to audiobooks. So far, I am very impressed with this setup. But looking forward, it is only a matter of time before my Sansa Clip dies (it's got to be about ten years old!) So I'm looking for my next MP3 player for audiobooks so I'll know the market when the time comes to buy my Clip. The Agptek G05 looks interesting to me, and is certainly priced inexpensively.

One feature that I do not understand from their manual, and it's an important feature for me, is bookmarks. I want the ability to set at least one bookmark for each file (in my case, "file" = "complete audiobook"). For audiobooks that come as multiple files, I am converting those into one large MP3 file. So far so good in that experiment.

Back to my question: Do you manually set bookmarks using the standard Agptek firmware, or are the automatically set for you when you pause playback, change to a different file, power down the device, etc.? The description from the manual below doesn't really say how/when they are set:

Bookmarks

It is marked by the stopping time as “hh:mm:ss”.So you can set the stopping time before you
add it for continues playing next time conveniently.
Maximum number of bookmarks supported by each audio file is 10. You can also cover the
previous bookmark with new bookmark, and then the old one will be replaced by the new.
You can find the bookmarks you saved with the option “Go to bookmark” under item
“Bookmarks”, and you can delete them with the option “Delete bookmark”.

Another question: Since I looking at having my audiobooks as one large MP3 file each, this implies some rather large MP3 files. A 1Gb file is not unexpected. So when you are holding down the fast forward or rewind button on the Agptek player, does the speed accelerate the longer you hold it down? If not, I can imagine holding down that button for an hour to scroll through a large file.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Also, I see that Agptek now has a newer model G6 payer. And also a G15 player. The G6 adds about $5 to the price of the G05, the G15 adds about $10. Does anyone know what all comes with the price increase? I think for the G15, you get more internal memory and (???) bluetooth. I think the G6 adds bluetooth. Are there any other features, useful for audiobooks, that either of these players offer over the G05? I definitely want to have independent bookmarks per file, so if either of these newer players gets rid of that feature it is a showstopper, regardless of what other features they may add.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by haertig

One feature that I do not understand from their manual, and it's an important feature for me, is bookmarks. I want the ability to set at least one bookmark for each file (in my case, "file" = "complete audiobook"). For audiobooks that come as multiple files, I am converting those into one large MP3 file. So far so good in that experiment.

Back to my question: Do you manually set bookmarks using the standard Agptek firmware, or are the automatically set for you when you pause playback, change to a different file, power down the device, etc.? The description from the manual below doesn't really say how/when they are set:

Another question: Since I looking at having my audiobooks as one large MP3 file each, this implies some rather large MP3 files. A 1Gb file is not unexpected. So when you are holding down the fast forward or rewind button on the Agptek player, does the speed accelerate the longer you hold it down? If not, I can imagine holding down that button for an hour to scroll through a large file.

I have the G05W. I never use bookmarks--I just pause and let it shut off, and I don't change to another file--but I tried playing around with the bookmark feature, and it looks like you can manually set 10 bookmarks per file.

I don't know about fast forwarding through large files--I chapterize my files, or else I'm listening to library mp3 files, which are around an hour long. The fast forwarding does seem to speed up, but I have no idea what it might do with, say, a single 10-hour file.

[haertig]

Thanks for the info! First hand experience with features always beats what you read in a user manual (assuming you can find a manual online in the first place, and the translation is at least remotely understandable). For the most part, I shouldn't need bookmarks either. I usually start an audiobook and then finish it before bouncing to other files. However, what I am worried about is the accidental things. Say I meant to push and hold a button to rewind a few seconds, but accidentally tap the button instead and thus jump to the very start of the file. I do stupid stuff like that. Appropriately set bookmarks might protect me from myself in accidents like this.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by haertig

Thanks for the info! First hand experience with features always beats what you read in a user manual (assuming you can find a manual online in the first place, and the translation is at least remotely understandable). For the most part, I shouldn't need bookmarks either. I usually start an audiobook and then finish it before bouncing to other files. However, what I am worried about is the accidental things. Say I meant to push and hold a button to rewind a few seconds, but accidentally tap the button instead and thus jump to the very start of the file. I do stupid stuff like that. Appropriately set bookmarks might protect me from myself in accidents like this.

You'd have to set the bookmark first, before you did the rewinding. You have to pause, then bring up the menu, find the bookmark feature, set the bookmark. Then you'd return to the file and you could rewind or go to another file. So it's kind of cumbersome.

Why do you prefer to have one long file?

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Why do you prefer to have one long file?

I may change from this in the future.

But with one large file you don't have to worry about what convention any particular MP3 player or audiobook app uses to connect the files in correct order during playback. Some software depends on filename sorting order, some depends on what data is in the tags of the file (you'll see discussion of "file mode" vs. "database mode" when looking at MP3 players). This is fine if you only use one player that uses one convention that you are aware of. But generically, it could become an issue (albeit a small issue, but none-the-less...) if you use different players that use different conventions for stitching multiple files into one audiobook.

With one single file per audiobook you don't have any of these issues. But you do have the issue of a large file, which could create problems of its own (hence my question about rewind/ff acceleration on the Agptek player). A single file is also easier to handle than multiple files when moving them around. And a single file can be the name of the book, not a bunch of separate files with the the book name plus "01", "02", etc.

It's really just personal preference.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by haertig

I may change from this in the future.

But with one large file you don't have to worry about what convention any particular MP3 player or audiobook app uses to connect the files in correct order during playback. Some software depends on filename sorting order, some depends on what data is in the tags of the file (you'll see discussion of "file mode" vs. "database mode" when looking at MP3 players). This is fine if you only use one player that uses one convention that you are aware of. But generically, it could become an issue (albeit a small issue, but none-the-less...) if you use different players that use different conventions for stitching multiple files into one audiobook.

With one single file per audiobook you don't have any of these issues. But you do have the issue of a large file, which could create problems of its own (hence my question about rewind/ff acceleration on the Agptek player). A single file is also easier to handle than multiple files when moving them around. And a single file can be the name of the book, not a bunch of separate files with the the book name plus "01", "02", etc.

It's really just personal preference.

I've only used various Sansa Clips and the AGPTek; my method is to create a folder named with the book title, which includes the chapter files. I just make sure they're numbered 01, 02, etc., and they play in order just fine.

If I have a chance, I'll try to test the AGPTek with a single long book file in the next couple of days.