Any advice on MP3 players?

Post by **Ivo** » Tue May 02, 2006 8:44 am

I'm considering buying an mp3 player. I think I'm going into some sort of budget option flash based, 512MB. I don't necessarily want to go into Apple (etc) branded stuff if that makes me pay more for the same thing, nor am I looking to have a hard drive on the go at the moment.

Something that quite spiked my curiosity was that some players (the ones with an actual screen, I think those are the ones that are MP4 players as well?) have "Games" as one of the features - and aren't that much more expensive. What games do the things actually let you play?

Ivo.

Post by **racketboy** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:53 am

I have an iPod Shuffle and love it.
the 512MB is dirt cheap -- you don't really pay much more for Apple.
The iTunes support is phenominal.
Interfacing with iTunes is the MAIN seller. If you don't think that's a big deal, you probably haven't given iTunes enough of a chance.

Post by **jemsic** » Tue May 02, 2006 10:30 am

I don't really like interfacing with programs they force you to use. I have a 20gb sony nw-hd1, and I HATE sony's sonicstage program. The next player I'm getting will be flash-based, and be able to transfer songs as easy as putting mp3s on a usb-drive. But the problem is, is that all my music is encoded in sony's format (atrac3). It sounds better than mp3s (at the same bitrate), but it can't be used or read with anything but sonicstage.

Post by **rattboi** » Tue May 02, 2006 11:17 am

jemsic wrote:I don't really like interfacing with programs they force you to use. I have a 20gb sony nw-hd1, and I HATE sony's sonicstage program. The next player I'm getting will be flash-based, and be able to transfer songs as easy as putting mp3s on a usb-drive. But the problem is, is that all my music is encoded in sony's format (atrac3). It sounds better than mp3s (at the same bitrate), but it can't be used or read with anything but sonicstage.

Well, iPod isN'T *totally* forced to use iTunes. It's got the best support, but you can use winamp and a lot of others now.

Post by **Majors** » Wed May 03, 2006 11:31 pm

I got the Creative Labs Muvo 256 and it's great for the g'f. I also picked up a cheap-as-hell 512M from Toys R Us on clearance, it has some issues like randomly shutting down. But for $40 and it works as a flash drive I cannot complain.

Post by **Saraph** » Thu May 04, 2006 2:15 am

I just got a Sandisk Sansa m240 1 GB for my birthday. I've been using my mothers iPod Shuffle for school all semester and my parent's figured it was time for me to stop mooching. I tell ya, this thing is a sigh of relief compared to the Shuffle. Create your own playlists, it supports ID tags (attributes) is key to this player's functionality. With tags, you can filter all your files by artist, title, album, genre, and year. This spares you from scrolling through hundreds of files just to pick out the one song you want. It doesnt have one feature that I grew used to however, the song limiter from iPod. I get a little carried away sometimes when adding songs that I totally forget I have 300 MB of school work on it and suddenly I have to erase a song or two to save my project. It's not a big deal I suppose. Just my one con, that and the half moon shape. That's two, ok. I'm done.

Post by **bawitback** » Thu May 04, 2006 11:28 am

I, like yourself Ivo do not like iPods. I've bought an iRiver 700 series 1GB which works fine. Its also equipped with many excellent features; radio, line-in, strap, mic, usb-cable, battery-life, back-light, and the diverse languages. I would recommend this MP3 player to anyone who wants a well built, small, sleek, and affordable device. Prices range from $60-130 depending on the size.

iRvier 700 Series Official

Post by **Ivo** » Thu May 04, 2006 5:07 pm

bawitback wrote:I, like yourself Ivo do not like iPods. I've bought an iRiver 700 series 1GB which works fine. Its also equipped with many excellent features; radio, line-in, strap, mic, usb-cable, battery-life, back-light, and the diverse languages. I would recommend this MP3 player to anyone who wants a well built, small, sleek, and affordable device. Prices range from $60-130 depending on the size.

iRvier 700 Series Official

I don't necessarily "not like" iPods. I just don't see the point in paying EXTRA for LESS features. I guess what you are paying for is iTunes (and I guess the major point of it is the 0.99 per song - which is not much cheaper than buying a CD with 16 songs, but I haven't bought a CD since... Erm... I don't know actually)

I don't intend to do much more than use my old CDs to make .mp3s (heh, retro music as well as retro gaming). I'm not much into music actually, and less so into modern music (taking the risk of sounding snotty, I like classic. My fave is actually Jarre but I digress).

I hope it wasn't a mistake, but I actually decided to go "unbranded". I like the design of the player I got, it was cheap, is small, has decent more than 13 hours battery life and a bunch of other features (FM, Voice recording, USB in the thing instead of a cable - that's important to me as it will be more of a USB pen with mp3 player than mp3 player with storage for data files I think).

I'm still really curious about the games in the MP4 players (anyone???), but for now I think I made the right choice for my usage.

Ivo.

Post by **CurulleanCat** » Fri May 05, 2006 12:33 am

I own a Creative 40 gig Nomad Zen Xtra. Havent had much problems with it. Well besides the shitty program it uses.

Post by **Niode** » Tue May 16, 2006 8:12 pm

I have a Creative Zen Xtra 60gb modded to 80gb

76~GB of physical storage. Yummy!

For adding mp3's as easy as adding files to a flash drive you can't go wrong with Notmad explorer by Red Chair Software. RCS's mp3 player software is fab and they support nearly every brand name hard drive/flash based mp3 player. It works just like windows explorer does, just drag and drop the files onto the icon of your mp3 player and thats it. Easy as pie.

Edit: BTW the red chair software programs do cost a little extra but it is peanuts for the amount of stress free operation and time it'll save you in the long term. It's less than £10 for the program for your particular model or slightly more expensive if you want the universal software that works with everything.