Navigating through folders on harddisc mp3 player???

Thanks for the response, but what I'm looking for is a MP3 player that can be loaded with MP3 files with drag-and-drop (in the Windows Explorer) without the need of a proprietary software - that disqualifies apple's iPods.
And the player should be able to let me navigate through folders.

Does anybody know what players are out there that have those abilities?

I only had a player for a short time but the Creative Nomad might let you load using Windows Explorer to load the songs by using the player as an external hard drive. Apple does allow the use of an iPod as an external hard drive, but not for use by the music player. If I remember correctly, the music files are in a hidden file system within the player.

In my opinion the reason that propriety software tends to be the only way to load songs on a player is to reduce the possibility of piracy. It allows control of the music that can be placed on the player and the types of files that can be actually stored on it.

An example of this is with the Sony players. From what I understand, until recently only ATRAC files could be stored on their hard drive player. Imported MP3s were converted to ATRAC format.

In fact, the software that comes with Sony CD/MP3 players only allow the creation of ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus files. To tell you the truth, I don't know if ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus files have any advantage over MP3 (other than possibility smaller files sizes with the same sound quality).

But a possibility allowing you to use Windows Explorer (using a CD/MP3 player) is to do the following:

- Create a directory/folder on your hard drive to store the MP3s you want to listen to on your player.

- Copy the files to the directory, creating folders as needed to organize the MP3s.

- When the directory is finished, burn it to a CD and put it in the player.

- Repeat the procedure with other folders, creating a set of CDs with folders and songs arranged as you like them.

The above procedure will allow you to use drag-and-drop techniques via Windows Explorer, although it will require you to burn the files to CD in the end.

I hope that helps.

I found two companies whose mp3 players have this capability: iriver and Cowon iAudio.

Tomorrow I'll go the the cebit and take a closer look at their players.

Does anybody know another company that's worth looking at if the features (mentioned in my earlier post) are needed?

Please ignor people talking about Ipods. OK I love Ipod and my girlfriend bought one and its great ... but not for the Drag n Drop business you want.

I bought the 40 Gig IRiver H340 and its great. Its so easy to get music on. Just drag and drop using Windows Explorer.

So I copy all my music on, then days later, visit a friend. He has hundreds of albums on his system. I want them ... so ... Drag n Drop and now I have them too.

Can you get any easier than that!!! No, you cant.

What else ... hmmmmm. ID3 tags. The player lets you browse thru songs in the folder/file way. But you can also browse by ID3 information (eg artist, genre...)

If there is ID3 info, it will show while playing. If none, it will show the FILE NAME and FOLDER information. You will always know what is playing.

Other benefits of the IRiver player ... you can display song lyrics as the song plays. Visit the IRiver Korean site and you can find the free application to help you.

And IRiver plays Movies too. And photos. And text files. And records from any source. Plus its a strong player that doesnt smudge with fingerprints like the pretty/white Ipod.

In general I guess I'm saying I heartily recommend the IRiver H340 for people who want simple Drag n Drop music copying and playback.

I went to the cebit today and took a look at the iRiver players. The H320 (20 GB would be enough for me) looked pretty good, but I liked the H10 [20 GB] even more, because it has a touch pad to scroll through the songs.

With the H3x0 it was annoying to scroll through the songs if you have a lot of artists (like 100) and the one you're looking for is excactly in the middle - then you have to press 50 times the "down" button.

With the iRiver H10 you could easily scroll through the folders (very fast and exact - the scroll speed can be customized). I think I'll wait a month or so until the H10 [20GB] gets a litte cheaper and buy it - it seems like the perfect player for me.