im sure i dont get full use out of my desire, plus ive never really understood all this sync stuff with ipods and itunes and not being able to use different pc’s with it etc, so im just wondering if my desire will do everything my ipod does. then i can mebbes bin the pod and have one do-it-all device. i must admit i hardly ever use my classic so if my phone will match the quality, id rather use that instead. especially as i can just drag and drop albums onto it which i cant do with an ipod.

ok, my htc hasnt got 160Gb but then again i dont use that anyway. basically, will my desire be able to connect to my hifi and sound as good as a pod? will it sound as good through earphones? or is the quality limited? im sure the battery life will shorten drastically through playing music, so is there a way of it charging at the same time as playing music?

whats the pro’s and cons of them both as music players?

cheers

can htc desire be used as an ipodMP3 player?

Not sure, but I run my Crackberry as a MP3 player, with a 16gb memory card in there. More than enough music for most of the time, and easy to drag and drop new music in and out. Sound quality is fine, and I can drive it through a “proper” stereo as well. I’d be amazed if your phone can’t do the same.

Is it the desire HD or the standard Desire, the Desire HD sounds very good for a phone with its built in Dolby SRS processor. Much better than my 4th Gen Nano.

Though, I mainly just use my Sansa Fuze for music these days

yes it can be used as a music player. I just dump the tracks on to it and use it as a spare drive. The system detects music for you.

you can also setup win media player on your pc to do the sync thing i believe, though i’ve never tried that, and it sounds as though you just want to drag and drop, which is very straight forward.
you can connect to your stereo, of course, just use an Aux in and 3.5mm jack to phono, or 3.5 to 3.5 if your stereo supports such a connection ( don’t use a mic input though ).
just plug the phone into the charger at the same time if you need to.
i’m still using a creative stone as an mp3 player, as it’s small and simple and i don’t care about it much. only 4Gb capacity but i’ve yet to fill it with music i’d actually want to cart about!

its the basic desire, so prob not as good sound quality as the HD then. ill try and hook it up and compare, see if i can tell the difference.

not sure about all this aux in and jacks to phono lark, not very hifi minded. i think the only lead ive got is usb that plugs into a normal plug for charging. do i need a different lead then to plug into aux on my amp?

thanks

just been playing, and think ive found the solution. as del says, i took the 3.5 jack out of the ipod dock and plugged straight into the top of the desire and played the same song on both setups. i couldnt tell the difference, wife reckons ipod probably a bit better quality, but basically, for the sh*te i listen to its gonna be good enough 🙂
and as i upgrade phones it can only get better id have thought. desire HD for example.

so……..look out for an ipod classic on the classifieds any time soon. maybe 🙂

just as an aside, whats the biggest memory card i can stick in the desire, what sort of card will i need, and how much are they generally?

thanks for your help chaps

if you’re paying ‘standard’ .mp3 files then I wouldn’t worry about sound quality of the hardware…

Need a microSD for the Desire – according to specs will take up to a 32 gig card.

slainte 🙂 rob

Have a look at PowerAMP on the Market. It’s not free, but it’s the best playblack app I’ve found.

Another tip – if you have all your music in iTunes, you can also install DoubleTwist.

Create a playlist in iTunes called ‘Desire’ with all the music you want on your phone.

Then tell DoubleTwist to sync that playlist with your phone.

Works pretty well – you can also get apps that will do with wirelessly so you don’t need to plug in. There are alternatives to DoubleTwist too.

Also, if you already have a computer with your library in iTunes, you could just connect that straight to your hifi, then use TunesRemote+ on your phone as a powerful remote control.

Another option, as long as you are on your home wifi, if you install AirBubble on your phone, you can enable it as a ‘speaker’ and stream all your music wirelessly from your computer to your phone and listen to it on headphones or through your jack plug. This works with TunesReomte+ too, so you can wander round home and have access to your entire library without being limited by the size of the memory card.

AirBubble
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1051623

ooh blimey chaps, thanks for all those tips. just on my way out now, so ill catch up with them tomorrow and see if any will be useful for me. after a quick read, i dont think id like anything that syncs, i just dont get on with it.

as itll be replacing my pod, which sits in a dock connected to my amp with 3.5 jack, im looking at replacing that dock with an htc one now which charges at the same time as playing. yet they all seem to be usb connected rather than 3.5 if you get my meaning.

i havent seen yet if any of the above tips do as ive just said, but if not, is there anything out there thatll alow me to play my desire music through the amp while charging at the same time? had a quick look on android forums and it seems a lot of people are complaining that there isnt, so itd be great if you could come up with one 🙂

thanks again, and ill catch up with this again tomorrow.

I’m not sure what’s stopping you from doing just that, unless I’m misunderstanding the question. You supply power via the microUSB port at the bottom, and play music via the 3.5mm jack on the top; no reason I can immediately see that’d stop you from doing both at once.

What you can’t do, as far as I’m aware, is stream audio over the microUSB connection (unlike the Apple connector which will direct power and a Line Out over the same wire). (I don’t think it’s actually a technical limitation per sé either; I’m reasonably sure I had similar functionality over miniUSB on my old WinMo devices, though I might be misremembering. It’s simply not something that’s been implemented I think.)

hi mate, no youre not misunderstanding the question, your quite right. i spose theres nowt to stop me doing just that. its just i was mebbes thinking of it looking better to have a ickle dock as part of my hifi set up so that i can just plug the desire into and play music, rather than the messier version of phone lying on the carpet with power lead one end, 3.5 jack out the other. spose youd have to know my living room to see what i mean 🙂

but yes, i can play and charge at the same time.

btw, that powerAMP you recommended. why is it so good? what makes a good playback app? does it actually make the sound better or is it just interface and ease of use?

right, just gonna check out those suggestions above.

thanks

just been looking into those suggstions.

doubletwist – looks good for what it is, but i dont like sync’ing. i prefer drag and drop, manually deleting and adding stuff. im mebbes being a bit stupid but i just dont ‘get’ sync’ing at all. seems to cause more problems than solve them. to me anyway.

airbubble – again, not really what i want. i cant remember ever thinking id like to hear my pc music on my phone 🙂

tunesremote – sounds handy to have your phone as a remote control, but i think im just not gonna use itunes any more, so pretty pointless for me in that respect. think im just anti-apple/itunes at the mo and ready to use more simple drag and drop.

altho the tunesremote idea has made me think about whether or not i can use a wireless or bluetooth receiver plugged into hifi and play my phone music wirelessly. if such a thing exists i wont need to look for a dock 🙂

thanks

PowerAMP gives you tone controls and a full graphic equaliser to tweak the sound, and integrates with the lock screen. Lots of other features too, but they’re the two that did it for me.

There’s a trial version, so you can have a play before you spend any money.

I have desire hd and use it as my music player. Download Winamp app for the phone and the prog for the ‘puter and then set up wireless sync. Job done.
As for a dock, I bought a Bluetooth dock from play and I connect wirelessly (is that even a word) which means I can still use the fone around the same room. Can’t fault it.

Sorry, just read you don’t like sync. Simply use the computer file to drag and drop the songs you want on the fone and the sync will pick up these changes only.
You can just drag and drop to the fone if you wish and Winamp auto finds any songs on the fone / SD card.

you got a link to that bluetooth jobby kevj?

and does it lose sound quality at all? i know i tried one of those bluetooth dongley things for the car radio a couple of years back and it was crap. hopefully they may have improved by now. 🙂

cheers

Sorry, just checked and it was mobile fun. Link;

Samsung bt dock

To be honest, if you are running mp3 then you have already lost all the quality it is going to and any further distortion is down to the quality of the speakers. That said, the quality is very good especially if playing full quality media. The only constraint is the distance between the fone and the dock.

ah ive just looked and its a speaker in itself isnt it. i just wanted a bluetooth connection to the amp, so i can play the phone music through the hifi speakers remotely. if that makes sense 🙂

ta

I run my Crackberry as a MP3 player

Sidenote: if you’re running BB OS6 you can apparently sync over wifi now. I don’t have OS 6. 🙁

Yes is the simple answer. You might need to buy a bigger memory card if the one currently fitted in your phone is smaller than the music you wish to carry with you. 16 and 32GB cards are cheap these days. Music can be dragged and dropped from the PC, you don’t need any special software. The built in music player is lovely.

You can stream audio over the micro-USB connection. We have a cheapo £75 JVC stereo in the car with a USB input on the front. Phone can connect to car stereo using standard USB – microUSB cable.

The car stereo can browse and play all the music on the SD card (phone is HTC Legend) and it charges the phone at the same time.

Note that the standard ipod dock setup does not allow digital streaming for copyright protection reasons. It only allows analogue output with digital control of song selection. You need something expensive like a Onkyo ND-S1 to fix this.

If you are into hifi or value audio quality you will find the HTC options cheaper as you don’t need an Apple licensed DAC.

Ah, good point. That’s using the head unit to ‘pull’ music from the phone, yes? Makes sense, the SD card is ostensibly removable storage, it’s like plugging a USB pendrive into it. All the intelligence there is in the car stereo.

What I was talking about was ‘pushing’ from the phone instead, using the handset to control what’s going on. This way you could send audio to a passive (‘dumb’) device; I don’t think that’s possible (but I could be wrong).

think you guys are talking about stuff waaay over my head now 🙂

pushing and pulling?? DAC?? im not understanding these technical terms, but mebbes i dont need to 🙂

a few people seem to have mentioned streaming now, and its something i havent come into contact with. am i right in thinking you mean spotify or something? constant data being fed from an internet connection but the songs dont stay on your phone? cant say as id use that unless im missing something.

i like the idea of using it with car radio but mine doesnt have usb connection so thats a nono for now.

as for the hifi thing i think ive accepted now that to use it itll just have to lay on the floor with 2 leads stuck out of it.

thanks for all your help.

after reading android forums, this seems to be the latest idea ive got.

a bluetooth jabra ‘clipper’ plugged into amp, with phone being used as a remote to send music through that and hence the speakers.

sound feasible? bluetooth up to the job you reckon?

or is the micro usb/streaming suggestion better? i didnt really understand that so if you think its better, ill look into it a bit more. i dont understand how my hifi amp could work with micro usb unless theres some sort of dongle/adapter like that jabra thing.

cheers