Help Using the Desire as an MP3 Player

[The_Verse]

Does anyone use it as an MP3 player? Do you use it a lot? Is it easy to use? Should I purchase a separate MP3 player?

Does it drain battery badly?

What app do you use?

How do you add your music?


i r n00b?

 

[kungura]

Yeah that's a good question.

for now, i just download my music from a program on the App Store, and it just stores to the SD card.

I'd like to add a question to this:

Can i transfer my music from my Itunes library to my Desire? The thing is, most of my music is purchased, so is 'locked' within itunes, but i know there's an easy way around this, so i can play them, without limit on my phone.

any help?

 

[The_Verse]

I read somewhere the SD card has separate areas for files? So if I wanted a song for a ringtone I'd have to load it on twice?

 

[whitworth]

Can i transfer my music from my Itunes library to my Desire? The thing is, most of my music is purchased, so is 'locked' within itunes, but i know there's an easy way around this, so i can play them, without limit on my phone.

any help?

You mean its DRM protected?
You can get around this fairly easily by burning the files to a CD as an audio disc (not data) and then ripping them back off. If you use a CD-RW then it'll save having to use up lots of CD-Rs. This can be a pretty time consuming task; I believe some programs have been created to use a virtual burner, creating a virtual audio cd and then ripping it to automate the process.

Also, DoubleTwist (Sync Android, PSP, BlackBerry, Pre: doubleTwist with Amazon MP3) might be of interest to you, it's like itunes for android, except uses amazon as the source for buying music

 

[Banzibarn]

I just connected the phone as a disk drive and created a folder called music and dumped all the songs in there. The player just searches the SD for music and off you go

 

[The_Verse]

Via mini usb to usb?

 

[HTC_Desire]

I just connected the phone as a disk drive and created a folder called music and dumped all the songs in there. The player just searches the SD for music and off you go

Snap - Works a treat

You don't have to do anything else and you can view your music by artist/album/genre/song title etc etc

Do remember though - You must enable it as DISK DRIVE when you connect it - If you just leave it as Charge only, your computer will not let you access it as a disk drive.

Regards
Ken...................

 

[HTC_Desire]

Via mini usb to usb?

No - HTC Desire is Micro USB

Standard micro-USB
(5-pin micro-USB 2.0)

HTC - Products - HTC Desire - Specification

The lead that came with the charger (If the same as UK) is the lead you want to use - Just unplug the lead from the charger and use it to connect the two.

Regards
Ken...................

 

[hocturnalsoul]

I read somewhere the SD card has separate areas for files? So if I wanted a song for a ringtone I'd have to load it on twice?

No, if you go to settings, sound and display and then phone ringtone, a new menu pops up asking you if you want to use "com.htc.app.HtcRingtonePickerActivity"(HTC's default ringtones) or "Select Music". Once in "Select Music" it will show you your current ringtone, "System Ringtones" and "Music". Hit "Music" and you can select any MP3 you have stored on the SD card as your ringtone.

So glad Android 2.1 finally has this feature, was getting bored of copy and pasting MP3's to another folder in my SD card to set as ringtone on my HTC Hero.

 

[hocturnalsoul]

No - HTC Desire is Micro USB

Standard micro-USB
(5-pin micro-USB 2.0)

HTC - Products - HTC Desire - Specification

The lead that came with the charger (If the same as UK) is the lead you want to use - Just unplug the lead from the charger and use it to connect the two.

Regards
Ken...................

IMO i think is was a daft idea to change the USB. The number of times ive ended up crashing at friends and forgot my charger for my phone is cronic, but i was safe with the Hero because i could use any standard mini USD lead to charge it (PS3 charger lead, average digital camera lead, everyone has one)! Can't now...

 

[HTC_Desire]

I just wish that every damn phone used the same damn connector - Ditto for PSP / DS etc etc grrrrrrrr

 

[runamonk]

I use mine for music quite a bit. It's not too bad on the battery.

I have a 10gb collection of music already but I buy stuff from Amazon MP3, good selection and all drm free.

I use the standard Music App, although I have purchased Mixzing which is also awesome.

You can just copy your music right over to the phone via the USB cable after mounting the phone as a disk drive.

I use a program called Media Monkey to sync my music to the phone. It syncs music and creates playlists for me.

 

[tbl]

Micro USB is to be the de facto charging/sync standard on all new mobile phones.

The reason they apparently agreed on Micro vs Mini is that Micro USB is rated for more disconnects/connects than Mini USB (odd, given that it's smaller)
It's also engineered in a more robust manner.

However, I think it's more likely that they wanted people to have to buy one last charger before standardisation set in!

 

[eske]

@runamonk i was reading through this thread and thinking I'll have to mention mediamonkey but you beat me to it

not sure if you're aware of this
but it shows how to get mediamonkey to see your Desire as a media player not just a USB drive - allowing more complex syncs

Mediamoinkey really is the best music manager I've come across - it's just a shame they dont' do video and I could ditch itunes completely

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGE4OugQMIA

 

[marky9074]

Has anyone worked out how to get the coverflow view working on all music put on the phone? I can only get it to show all the tracks in an album once I select the first track... but somehow when the card was 'preparing' after I copied some files the coverflow worked (i.e. flicking between CD's), but the tracks were not in the right order... ??

 

[phlebas]

I've used Mixzing as a player. There's a free trial and I upgraded to the paid app. The one thing I don't like is that it doesn't play FLAC files. I had to download the andLess application to play those.

Battery life is poor. I get through a morning's use (email, web, a couple of albums payed) and the battery is half-full. Luckily I can just plug it in to my work PC at lunchtime and recharge.

MediaMonkey works well as an iTunes replacement but usually I just copy music across from my PC directly to the phone's card.

 

[tuatha]

I like the stock player, don't see any reason to upgrade. Didn't think it was too harsh on the battery life either.

I'd highly recommend getting the last.fm widget too. It's very well put together. The scrobbling and radio streaming work perfectly.

 

[NZtechfreak]

+1 for LastFM, even if you don't subscribe to their fantastic service the scrobbling works well and the icon in the notifications tray lets you look up the bio etc for the group thats currently playing. Brilliant.

Tunewiki is also great.

 

[Celox]

Does anyone use it as an MP3 player? Do you use it a lot? Is it easy to use? Should I purchase a separate MP3 player?

Does it drain battery badly?

What app do you use?

How do you add your music?


i r n00b?

Have been using my desire as my mp3 player this week and I think it is great! The stock music app does a good job but if you are looking for something more advanced you should check the market for 'mixzing'

It does not drain the battery badly, not at all as a matter of fact! I was quite surprised by this myself.

As I said I either use the stock app or mixzing

I created a folder on the sd card in the map 'media' called 'Music' that's where I add all my music (also organized in folders). The music apps will automatically scan your sd card for music so it doesn't matter where you put it

and last, no you are not

Celox

 

[lekky]

Good to know it doesnt drain much battery. Just ordered some bluetooth headphones and planning on dropping my ZuneHD for a bit and just using my Desire.

 

[Banzibarn]

No, if you go to settings, sound and display and then phone ringtone, a new menu pops up asking you if you want to use "com.htc.app.HtcRingtonePickerActivity"(HTC's default ringtones) or "Select Music". Once in "Select Music" it will show you your current ringtone, "System Ringtones" and "Music". Hit "Music" and you can select any MP3 you have stored on the SD card as your ringtone.

So glad Android 2.1 finally has this feature, was getting bored of copy and pasting MP3's to another folder in my SD card to set as ringtone on my HTC Hero.

I don't get the "System Ringtones" and "Music" choice, just goes straight to system ring tones.....

 

[lekky]

Open the music App

Play the song you want as a ringtone > Press Menu > Press set as ringtone

if you want a bit of hte song then press trim it.

 

[PJD]

I use the MP3 player a lot with my bluetooth headphones (Motorola HT820) work like magic

 

[vicedens2002]

Finally the thread i was looking for...
how about the sound quality comparing to walkman phones of sony ericsson..?

 

[NZtechfreak]

Check the GSMarena review, the SQ is top notch - equal to Sony's X10 but with louder output. You can compare it to their walkman phones at GSMarena too, all with nice objective measurements, not some idiot declaring that it sounds good to him!