Storage Delemma....

[wmiller]

Hi,
I am heading to Fiji in March and am giving considerable thoughts to buying an Image Tank III (I have an Oly 4040-sm card). Since then I have read posts about hard drive based MP3 players which can do both-save photo's and play music. I now think this may be the way to go. But I am somewhat limited in funds because I want to buy a strobe set-up ($800.00-strobe, tray, arms). Has anyone had experiences with either the iPod or Archos units? I can get an educator's discount on Apple products. Or should I just stick with the less expensive Image Tank idea?

I do travel alot and the music might be nice.

Thanks,
Wendy

 

[chippy]

I bought an Archso AV320 just before my 2 week trip to Antigua. I found it very useful, for both storage and viewing photo's on.

The DivX movie playback was great for the journey too and the MP3 player was great for sunbathing on non diving days.

They're fairly pricey at the moment though, I paid GBP480.00 including the CF reader add on.

 

[Genesis]

has had the "cats meow" in this genre for a while, and their new storage product is quite nice.

Are you taking a laptop with you? If so, and it has a CD-R burner, consider using that instead, transferring to the disk, then burning CD-Rs. That's a much more durable media than a hard disk, irrespective of what the disk is housed in.

 

[wmiller]

I have taken my laptop on my trips to Bonaire to burn my pictures. But I would like to lighten my load and I would be royally screwed if something happened to it, even tho I do do a full backup before every trip.

 

[Dee]

I have friends who have both the Archos Jukebox and the Sandisc(?) Fast Trax. Both have viewing monitors, hard drives and have gotten great reviews from users. Neither is cheap, tho.

 

[TedJ]

I have the Archos and have been perfectly satisfied. Especially like the music feature so I don't have to carry a CD player and CDs when going on dive trips. Recent prices on eBay for lightly used units are about $225 and I've seen a few new ones for about $250.
Tedj

 

[Jonathan]

I was going to say the same as Genisis - that must be a first!

Though I will be looking into this Archos thingy as my current MP3 player is really peeing me off! The damn thing won't recognise I have the USB cable attached and I am bored of those albums....

Just back from Fiji and only managed 6 dives (well it was the honeymoon) - must do a report....

 

[domino22]

I went with the flash trax and am very happy with it. I know it can do mp3 but never have used it. 30 gb was enough for three to four dives aday. Easy to use. Started with the nixvue but came in broke and was leaving in 4 days and had to buy the flash trax local. ouch!