MP3 Player (Need to buy one, need recommendations)
- Thread starter Mosquito
- Start date
Well, everyone seems to have high regards for the Zune, which is an awesome player. But i have a ScanDisk 8GB can't remember the model number, and I LOVE IT, I am buying an expansion card for it this weekend to put more songs on it. It is easy to download too from any computer, plus the screen is bright and well organized, with volume control and limiter. The rechargeable battery is the biggest plus, as it is giving me an average of 24 hours of playing time, and it recharges directly from any computer USB port
That's a GREAT feature. I actually thought of that several years ago, and I wished iTunes would do with iPod's (I'm pretty sure I submitted it as a suggestion via Apple's "feedback" site).
I have a 512MB Shuffle that I use when running, and I'd love to be able to cram a little more on it. I rip everything at 160kbps, but I'd be fine with even 96kbps on the Shuffle, which would almost double my space. I'm gonna go suggest it to Apple again, while I'm thinking about it.
Craig
KingsGene
God of Thunder
Archos FTW! I have had an Archos GMini for years and love it. Key factor is the ability to record mp3's with it, either via mic or "line in" which allows me to dub old vinyl or cassettes without a connection to my home computer (which would suck).
wow... you actually like the iPhone?
You could say that.
I had a Treo 650 before that, which I *HATED*. The interface on it is *very* dated at this point (and my brother has a 700p, which is near-identical), but the biggest problem is that it was completely unreliable. I went through 3 Treo's while it was still under warranty (with various problems), then put up with 2 years of it locking up, crashing, randomly rebooting, etc on a regular basis (ie. every couple of days). Also, the Bluetooth on it was horrible...wouldn't connect to the headset half the time, etc...and that was using the same headset that now works perfectly with my iPhone.
Honestly, the "phone" part was the worst part of the Treo...all the other Palm apps worked fine on it, but it was near-useless as a phone (which was the whole point of the damn thing!!). The iPhone is phenomenal.
Craig
Curufin
Kind of a big deal...
I had an iRiver H320 20GB player that I got from one of those "Win a Free MP3 Player" pyramid schemes, and I can safely say it was THE best MP3 player of its time (2004). My music collection far exceeded its capacity, which was a bit of a pain, but aside from storage capacity it was an amazing player. I was really bummed when it got permanently borrowed by a stranger without permission at Wacken.
I ended up replacing it with a 160GB iPod. I hate iTunes so much.
KingsGene
God of Thunder
Ha....the Treo. I still have my 180 around to keep my contacts in, plus the Palm apps. The phone was the worst...
I've had a long history of mp3 players staring off with a 32Meg yeah you heard right RCA Lyra. It was crap it was replaced by an iRiver which I got from Best Buy with a replacement plan. I've milked that replacement plan for a 128M to a 512M to a 1Gig, 8G Sansa and now a 30G Zen. All at the cost of renewing my replacement plan and paying any price difference.
Here is what I can share.
iRiver players amazingly great feature loaded units my 1G iRiver used a single AA bat that lasted 20-30 hours, it had voice recording, line in recording, FM recording, Custom EQ and a few other cool features. The units are all very solid have lots of great features the firmware is very stable. Right now the hot players to own by them are the new Clix2 there is an 8G unit which has a great user interface. The whole faceplate of the mp3 player sits on a micro switches so you just press the top of the screen to navagate the unit. The software that comes with it is simple but works.
Sansa by Sandisc this unit was a nice unit it had a small screen but it worked pretty good after a while it just started to flake out. The unit used to lock up quite a bit the firmware for the player was crap. If you get the player from Best Buy it comes with Rhapsody (not the band) loaded on the player and it will always remain on your menu system. If you try to setup the service on your PC its a huge pain to remove it from your player. It uses Windows Media Player to sync your songs to the unit or you can use its own songs.
Creative Labs, my current player is the Zen Vision M, a 30G HD based unit which I dont think Creative Labs is making the HD units anymore more on that later. This player is thicker than an iPod but its a great unit the screen on it is fantastic, it has voice recording, custom EQ, FM tuner, it supports video play back, and the usual set of features. The battery life is nothing great, compared to the flash memory based players. The thing that is awesome for the Zen VM is you can hook it up to a TV and watch videos / movies saved on it. At the hotel room at PP I had my player loaded with all these metal videos we just hung out drank and watched all these videos on the TV in my room, its also cool to take to a party too. I have a few killer shows loaded up on it that we watched at a friends party just bring your charger with. The files on the unit can be saved by drag and drop, which means you can copy mp3 files to your player and load them on another pc if you want no copy protection shit on it these units.
Give the industry another 8 months and I think you wont see any HD based players that are under 60G the reason is that flash memory manufacturing is getting tooled up to the point that we're going to see 32G based flash memory mp3 players really soon. Of course the features of these players is smaller size, longer battery life, no moving parts.
Here is a great site for reviews on mp3 players.
http://www.dapreview.net/news.php
Here is what I can share.
iRiver players amazingly great feature loaded units my 1G iRiver used a single AA bat that lasted 20-30 hours, it had voice recording, line in recording, FM recording, Custom EQ and a few other cool features. The units are all very solid have lots of great features the firmware is very stable. Right now the hot players to own by them are the new Clix2 there is an 8G unit which has a great user interface. The whole faceplate of the mp3 player sits on a micro switches so you just press the top of the screen to navagate the unit. The software that comes with it is simple but works.
Sansa by Sandisc this unit was a nice unit it had a small screen but it worked pretty good after a while it just started to flake out. The unit used to lock up quite a bit the firmware for the player was crap. If you get the player from Best Buy it comes with Rhapsody (not the band) loaded on the player and it will always remain on your menu system. If you try to setup the service on your PC its a huge pain to remove it from your player. It uses Windows Media Player to sync your songs to the unit or you can use its own songs.
Creative Labs, my current player is the Zen Vision M, a 30G HD based unit which I dont think Creative Labs is making the HD units anymore more on that later. This player is thicker than an iPod but its a great unit the screen on it is fantastic, it has voice recording, custom EQ, FM tuner, it supports video play back, and the usual set of features. The battery life is nothing great, compared to the flash memory based players. The thing that is awesome for the Zen VM is you can hook it up to a TV and watch videos / movies saved on it. At the hotel room at PP I had my player loaded with all these metal videos we just hung out drank and watched all these videos on the TV in my room, its also cool to take to a party too. I have a few killer shows loaded up on it that we watched at a friends party just bring your charger with. The files on the unit can be saved by drag and drop, which means you can copy mp3 files to your player and load them on another pc if you want no copy protection shit on it these units.
Give the industry another 8 months and I think you wont see any HD based players that are under 60G the reason is that flash memory manufacturing is getting tooled up to the point that we're going to see 32G based flash memory mp3 players really soon. Of course the features of these players is smaller size, longer battery life, no moving parts.
Here is a great site for reviews on mp3 players.
http://www.dapreview.net/news.php
longshot9
Member
I have to agree with the iRiver folks, great player... my first mp3 player was one and it was great for a long time... then one day I stopped being able to send files to it, no matter what I sent to it windows explorer said the file was bad and wouldn't send it... even though the file played just fine on my pc and on transferred to any other usb device I tried it to. iRiver said it sounded to them like the hard drive had failed in it, and it was out of warranty so I didn't replace it and was too upset to buy another.
Next one was a 30gb iPod photo. I still have this, it's scratched beyond belief, but it still works great. I LOVE the ipods ease of use, and you can't beat it for accessories... but I truly missed the Windows Explorer interaction I had with the iRiver. iTunes blows, so I was always looking for something else to interact with the device... settled on a program called Anapod by Red Chair Software. It gave me access to the iPod and it's kooky databases in Windows Explorer, so it was much easier to transfer files to it that way. But after having the iPod mysteriously just decide to erase all the files on it 4-5 times, I asked for a new device for xmas. Plus I wanted one that played video as well.
Current device is a Toshiba Gigabeat S60. LOVE the player, but hate the interaction with the computer even more than the Ipod. Another thing I hate about it is the way it charges... if the battery is completely dead you cannot charge it via USB, it HAS to be charged by the wall charger which I don't always carry with me. Part of the reason I chose this over the Zune was because I read somewhere that it supports Divx video... which is complete crap, every video you want to put on it has to be converted to WMV by Windows Media Player... while it works great, it's slow. Why the @#$% do they all have to use some program to "sync" the devices with some stupid library??? I want to just keep my files stored somewhere, copy them over in Windows Explorer, and play them. I don't need a friggin library. Anyways, my personal opinion is to avoid any device that uses Windows Media Player to sync the device. I've tried using Winamp, MediaMonkey, Zortam, and a few others with all less than satisfying results. So far i've been unable to find a way to just use Windows Explorer to copy the files to the device.
I'm already thinking about buying a new device cause i'm sick of the way this Gigabeat syncs. Part of me wants to go with a Archos unit because i've heard they play Divx and Xvid files with no conversion needed, but I don't know what sort of interface it has for putting files on it. The other part of me is waiting for a 16gb+ iPhone (assuming it uses 3G). I'd love to have my mp3, phone, and email all in one device... one that will at least hold a good portion of my favorite songs.. the 8g iPhone won't cut it right now.
Next one was a 30gb iPod photo. I still have this, it's scratched beyond belief, but it still works great. I LOVE the ipods ease of use, and you can't beat it for accessories... but I truly missed the Windows Explorer interaction I had with the iRiver. iTunes blows, so I was always looking for something else to interact with the device... settled on a program called Anapod by Red Chair Software. It gave me access to the iPod and it's kooky databases in Windows Explorer, so it was much easier to transfer files to it that way. But after having the iPod mysteriously just decide to erase all the files on it 4-5 times, I asked for a new device for xmas. Plus I wanted one that played video as well.
Current device is a Toshiba Gigabeat S60. LOVE the player, but hate the interaction with the computer even more than the Ipod. Another thing I hate about it is the way it charges... if the battery is completely dead you cannot charge it via USB, it HAS to be charged by the wall charger which I don't always carry with me. Part of the reason I chose this over the Zune was because I read somewhere that it supports Divx video... which is complete crap, every video you want to put on it has to be converted to WMV by Windows Media Player... while it works great, it's slow. Why the @#$% do they all have to use some program to "sync" the devices with some stupid library??? I want to just keep my files stored somewhere, copy them over in Windows Explorer, and play them. I don't need a friggin library. Anyways, my personal opinion is to avoid any device that uses Windows Media Player to sync the device. I've tried using Winamp, MediaMonkey, Zortam, and a few others with all less than satisfying results. So far i've been unable to find a way to just use Windows Explorer to copy the files to the device.
I'm already thinking about buying a new device cause i'm sick of the way this Gigabeat syncs. Part of me wants to go with a Archos unit because i've heard they play Divx and Xvid files with no conversion needed, but I don't know what sort of interface it has for putting files on it. The other part of me is waiting for a 16gb+ iPhone (assuming it uses 3G). I'd love to have my mp3, phone, and email all in one device... one that will at least hold a good portion of my favorite songs.. the 8g iPhone won't cut it right now.
MetalPrincess8
KEEP IT METAL!!
rms
Active Member
For those of you with a scratched up ipod get this stuff.
http://www.applesaucepolish.com/
And anyone looking for a good protection skin for your player, phone or other this is awesome.
http://www.bestskinsever.com
Here is a review for the Clix2, I so want one of these but I'm pretty spoiled with the 30G of which I only have 6 free. When the clix hit the 32G mark I will be getting one. Also Anything but Ipod has a lot of other good things on their site like message boards for all the other players on the market.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2007/08/iriver-clix2-review.php
LOL the video review of that they did for the Clix2 the guy has Brainstorm on his player.
http://www.applesaucepolish.com/
And anyone looking for a good protection skin for your player, phone or other this is awesome.
http://www.bestskinsever.com
Here is a review for the Clix2, I so want one of these but I'm pretty spoiled with the 30G of which I only have 6 free. When the clix hit the 32G mark I will be getting one. Also Anything but Ipod has a lot of other good things on their site like message boards for all the other players on the market.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2007/08/iriver-clix2-review.php
LOL the video review of that they did for the Clix2 the guy has Brainstorm on his player.
Diamond45
Terminate Bad Music
I have a 5th generation iPod. The only reason I have one is that the iPod series is by far the largest in terms of capacity. The 5th gen one I have holds 80 GB, while the new 6th gen one holds 160 GB. Wow!!!
SkiBumMSP bought the new one and he loves it. I've seen it and I'd like it too, but my 5th gen one is only a few months old.
But for small MP3 players - I've had good luck with the Creative Labs series. I have a 2 GB one now. Its a flash drive too.
SkiBumMSP bought the new one and he loves it. I've seen it and I'd like it too, but my 5th gen one is only a few months old.
But for small MP3 players - I've had good luck with the Creative Labs series. I have a 2 GB one now. Its a flash drive too.
I have a 60GB iPod and that happened to me once. Hold down the center and menu buttons down at the same time for about 5-6 seconds and the Ipod will reset itself. Other than that I've had no problems with mine at all.
Dominick_7
Member
Sweet. They have high quality products across the board it seems. I thought SOMEONE had to have had an Archos on here
shaq
Demon of the Fall
I used to have an Archos GMini, had it for a few years and it handled itself well. However, a couple years ago I ended up replacing it with a 5th gen iPod (the newest at the time) and I've liked it quite a bit. That being said, I'm still a big fan of Archos products
Locust0311
Shopping Ape
I picked up an Archos 605 wifi last week and its fantastic. 160gb, great looking video, great web browser (costs extra though) and acts as a DVR (also extra).
I have a Sandisk eSansa 280 that I'm pretty happy with for a flash-based 8GB player to keep some MP3's on. What I'm looking for now is a HD-based player (the bigger the capacity the better) that can play FLAC's. Any suggestions?
I have a 60gb ipod video and have had it since it came out and I had it replaced once(after having it for a couple months because it flew across a room onto the floor(long story)) for free from the Apple store and I haven't had any trouble at all with it and love it. Well, my headphone jack only lets me hear out of the left ear but I use the remote/radio thing anyways so it doesn't bother me one bit. I mainly use it in my car and occasionally at work. I do wish I had the money to upgrade to a bigger capacity because i hate having to take things off to put new things on there all the time.
