Portable storage + Bird ID guide

[citrinella]

Tried posting this on Birdforum and have had no replies. Any body here got any ideas ?

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Hi folks,

I am clueless about portable sound system technology. Can anyone advise me on what to look at to give me _all_ the following in one (not too heavy) "toy" :

ability to take one (or more) bird ID guide combining images and sound clips - and play them back !
CF card slot for direct download and storage of photos in the field;
robust and reliable - won't mind being carted around in a rucksack, worked with imperfectly clean hands in "variable" environments.

For that it would need a reasonable screen; battery power with worldwide (voltage) charger; and ample storage. I don't know how big the guides might be but I might well want to have both European and far east (if available) guides and don't really want to muck about swapping over. Beyond that I could see myself needing 40GB+ storage.

TIA, Mike.

[Jon]

Have you got any particular bird guides in mind? I suspect that will be the determining factor in your decision. You'll need a device which supports the control/search facilities of the application. As at least some run on iPods, they should work on most quality data storage/review devices, but I don't recall having seen any being sold independent of the iPod.

[PacAce]

I have the Epson P-3000 as my storage device. Obviously, it can be used for viewing images so if you loaded your bird images into it, you'd be able to view them in the field. It's also an MP3 player so it will be able play back your bird calls in the field, too. It also does video if your bird guide is in one of the video formats supported by the P-3000.

It's not as compact as an iPod but the iPod can't really be used as a storage device for offloading images from the camera or memory card in the field.

http://www.epson.co.uk/products/product_hub/Product_Listing_Cameras.htm