Mp3 players - help!

[dreampolice]

Can anyone give me some advise re mp3 players, reliability,best brands,price ranges, thanks!

 

[Desredandwhite]

Some names to look out for...

Apple iPod, Creative Nomad Zen, Archos Jukebox

I'll recommend the iPod till I'm blue in the face, but they are expensive. (I'm assuming of course that you mean hard-drive based players, not solid state memory players). There's not really much between them, you have to try to get your hands on them and check them out yourself.. they all have different features etc.

 

[dreampolice]

thanks des!

 

[Desredandwhite]

I can probably help narrow the choice down if you provide:

a) price range you're willing to work in
b) preference - Hard disk or solid state
c) size? weight?
d) connectivity preference - ie: USB, USB2, Firewire

mp3 players are great

 

[KingyOrTheKing]

Theres usually three types of mp3 player:

-CD based MP3 players

-solid state MP3 players (meaning they use a stick of memory inside the mp3 player.

-hard drive based mp3 players

Hard drive mp3 players are expensive, can skip i believe (??), are alot larger and heavier, but you can fit an entire mp3 collection and then some on them.

solid state mp3 players are very small and completely shock proof, cheap etc. They are up to about 512mb now.

I've got an iriver IFP180, which is a solid state player, and its bloody great. mines only got 128MB memory but it does the job. Very small and excellent for running or just taking anywhere.

If you like to listen to alot of songs at once and dont mind the extra weight and size, then go for a hardrive player. The ipod is good but expensive, and there are other players similar to the ipod that are alot cheaper....

Iriver now has a good range of solid state players if you are after solid state....

 

[Desredandwhite]

Good suggestions KOTK... The CD-based mp3 players are the best value, you can just burn a CD full of mp3s whenever you like. Unfortunately they are also the bulkiest and the worst with battery life.

The hard-drive based players are more prone to skipping than solid state, but anything new will have shock-protection anyway - my iPod has something ridiculous like 30 mins of buffer memory.

So to summarise:

CD-based players- Pros: Cheapest (I've seen one for $80) and convenient to burn your own CDs. Cons: Bulky, less battery life

Hard Drive - Pros: Best value $ per MB, small, Cons: expensive ($500+), more fragile than SS

Solid State - Pros: Smallest and lightest, Cons: storage is expensive

I'll do my sales pitch for the iPod now

1) The size - look at a deck of cards. That's the size of the iPod.

2) Brilliant user interface. 5 buttons and a scrollwheel, that's all you need.

3) syncs with your address book and calendar

4) Fast transfers via firewire (new ones have USB 2 as well). I can fill up my 20GB iPod in under an hour (4500 songs - about 9.5 days of continuous music!)

5) Works with PCs. Yes, they play nicest with Macs, but I used mine with a Windows XP machine for months before I bought a mac.

6) prices? 10GB - $600, 15GB - $800, 30GB - $1000

Having said all that, it will all come down to how you listen to music, and your particular needs.