I don't think I'm the only one around who uses their Nokia N82 as their portable music player, their point-and-shoot camera, as well as a phone. Yes, I know, it can be used in many other ways too, but that's not the point. The point is that with a 8GB memory stick, I can probably fit 1500 songs in the phone, before running out of space for taking photos and storage for other stuff too.
What, only 1500 songs, despite compressing the music files to 128kbps, MP3 files?!
It so happens that there's another format to optimise your music on the N82. Instead of transferring MP3 files over, next time you might want to consider eAAC+ files (.m4a). AllAboutSymbian has a great article introducing users to the eAAC+ format and how you can fit plenty of songs easily on a 8GB stick - so you can basically take your entire library out when you're out of town. I quote:
My collection of mostly 320 kbps encoded mp3's (some are 192 kbps) on my home PC requires about 26 GB of diskspace. Converting it into eAAC+ at 48 kbps reduces it into 4.65 gigabyte. Not bad for 'good' not excellent rated compression. We are talking here about 9 days of continuous music.
It just seems too good to be true.
Update: I've decided to do a complete, in-depth review of this trick on my N82, so you can head over the Part 2 to see how well it fares in real life and decide whether you do want to shrink your entire music library in to your smart phone.
Indeed. I have 880+ songs on my N82 encoded automatically into "mobile optimized format" by the Nokia application, and it takes up about 1.5 GB on my 8 GB card leaving space for 7000+ photos and whatever else.
im an audiophile so i sacrifice some space for better sound quality but have still managed to fit 667 songs at 2.2gb on my 8gb card, i still have 5gb left for whatever else and if i ever run out of space i can just buy a 16gb or 32gb card when they come out in the near future
I crammed 4000+ songs onto my 8Gb card (using 32kbit/s). It used about 5Gb.
This is not to recommend though, the music player is not handling this amount very well. The phone became sluggish and unresponsive and more or less useless.
I'm quite fed up with my Nokia N95 8GB. I've already got 1488 songs on it taking at least 6.3 GB of memory. Furthermore, the music player is slow to navigate and is prone to occasional crashes.
I recently got a TomTom 720 PNG and have been copying songs directly to a 8GB card (not all songs though). It handles it fast and smooth, but album art and the ease of use and commonality of the music player is another thing.
I'm waiting for the N96. Perhaps I'll pop in a 16GB of memory for music, since reviews suggested that 2MB/s is the max transfer speed via USB to it's internal 16GB memory.
Also, if it's fast and doesn't lag like the music player on the N95 8GB, it's going to be a sweet deal.
No iPod. I prefer everything in one.
Typo: PNG = PND
nope, less songs for me is the only way
nothing less than V0 rips here, there's no way i'm listening to 48 kbps songs.. no way
this is a ridiculous idea. why bother listening to music if youo make it sound like crap
sorry, but it's true