The first test of the Zoom F1 as a music player was brief and frustrating. With many songs failing to play with an "Invalid File!" error, and others had multiple minutes of silence following the track. This was infuriating as I was trying to work and do things link weld upside down in the dark. Taking off heavy gloves to try and skip the track was a massive interruption. With the latest updates to my Zoom_Converter script, I have solved these massive issues. For full details, see the previous log. I have listened to almost 300 songs on the device without a single issue or interruption. This is the exact experience I was looking for from my audio player. With some Amazon Basics rechargeable AAA batteries and an extra SD card, I can have an endless stream of audio wherever I go. Having an SD card that can be swapped quickly is very helpful. I keep different playlists on different cards, and just take them with me. I got tired of music the other day and swapped out the card for one with some fun interviews and podcasts on it. This was more pleasant to me than switching apps and playlists on my phone, as I do not like getting my phone out during the work day. The removable batteries are more pleasant than I thought they would be as well. It's so nice to be able to just take 30 seconds to have a fresh set of batteries installed. So far, I've been getting nearly a full day of playback from a pair off 800mah batteries. I work 10 hour days, so this is good. I usually have to swap out once towards the end of the day, but I do also listen to music in the morning, on the drive to work, and on the way back. Many days the Zoom is playing for well over 12 hours a day.

At this point in time, I still recommend the Zoom F1 as an audio player if you can live with the weird file names, converting files, and no bluetooth support. It makes perfect sense for a professional environment or user, as far as I can tell. The average user may not find the lack of luxury features worth the reliability and simplicity, but I certainly do.