Portable mp3 player: Do you own one?

Portable mp3 player: Do you own one?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 78 78.0%

  • No, but I plan to.

    Votes: 11 11.0%

  • No, I don't want one.

    Votes: 11 11.0%
  • Total voters
    100
Ding! A thread that catches my attention!

As none of you might know, I am still a high school student. I do not live relatively near my school, so I take a 15-20 minute busride both to and from school. Also, I've been doing an internship at a local recording studio, which I walk to after school a few days a week. Using a CD player, I have become very aware of it's flaws, such as having to decide on one album to listen to for my day (I don't carry cd wallets for fear of them getting ruined, lost, or stolen), and replacing double A batteries every so often.

I am looking towards getting some form of mp3 player. Lots of people have an Ipod, so naturally I started looking into other mp3 players, since lots of people are retarded. Much to my dismay, I have come to the conclusion of two things - There's lots of mixed feedback about just about every mp3 player, and the Ipod seems to have the most battery life among mp3 players. Is there someone out there who can (please) prove me wrong on that?

Also, can you easily change the bitrates of your music files so you don't have extremely noticable reduced quality? I think 192k is a happy medium for myself, is that easily achievable without all this talk of Itunes conversion crap?
 
The only thing I've found that iPod has over most other players is the control. It's so easy to get around the menus and playlists etc. BUt other players I've had (iRiver, Creative) are far more durable and are easier to transfer music to. I think Kenneth has apoint with the iPod drawing in people merely because of the trend. I've done a little bit of market research and to me, Creative have the best on offer (though mine broke and I wasn't given a replacement which says something about their customer service).
 
Oh I completely forgot another pro of the iPod. The range of accessories, which is mind blowing. I've found it hard to locate quality accessories for my iRiver which is disappointing because the player itself is very nice.
 
Just because the iPod is a fashion trend, doesn't mean you shouldn't get one because of that.

For me, the whole MP3 player thing comes down to a few points. (in this order)

  1. Ease of use/navigation
  2. Capacity
  3. Price
  4. Supplementary features
  5. Physical size

The iPod for me, is by far the easiest to control/navigate. And to be honest, so far almost every "bad thing" about an ipod from word of mouth, has proven to be not true. I've heard they were restrictive with files, videos, they break easily, you cant hook them up to the Xbox 360, you can't use them as a portable HDD, etc etc .... ALL FALSE.

The Creative ZEN Neeon I have, gets great points for being a true portable HDD (ie: just throw MP3 files on there in My Computer and it plays them - no sync bullshit), and has some good supplementary features like a voice recorder, radio, line in recorder etc, but the way you have to navigate the thing with the tiny little jog dial is extremely poor.

Even the "random" play function is incredibly lazy, often simply playing songs in 20 song intervals (eg: track 1, then 21, the 41, then 51 etc ...) Pathetic.

It's little things like that that get to me, and make me loath using the thing.

I bought my iPod because it has a great control mechanism, a large capacity HDD, and small formfactor, and the price is reasonable. NOT because it's the fashion.

And don't worry about the white headphones, any real music fan would throw away those shitty ipod earbuds and get some descent ones anyway.
 
Those factors would probably be the same for me but in a different order. Since I have an iRiver (20GB H10) right now I'll use that for a comparison.

Navigation - terrible compared to the iPod. The intuitive wheel system the iPod uses pretty much rapes every navigation method I've seen on any mp3 player. The iRiver isn't too bad but is too jumpy and the buttons aren't touchy enough (gets to the point where I have to PUSH them with actual force).

Capacity - I'm not sure but I think I'm right in saying 20Gb is the highest capacity that iRiver offers which is far behind iPod.

Price - This is where the iRiver really worked well for me. I managed to get mine for $360 whereas the iPod of the same capacity was $440 (12 months ago). No brainer really.

Supplementary - iRiver comes with FM radio, Line in, Audio and Voice recording, picture viewer and text reader. A 20GB 4th gen iPod on the other hand has nothing.

Physical size - iRiver definitely leaves much to be desired but I'm impartial to size as I always have a backpack or am with my girlfriend so I can just stash it away in her handbag. But for the person who doesn't like bulging pockets the iPod is a good choice, with even the larger capacity players looking slim.

Just a question for an iPod owner...

What's it like using firmware with the iPod? As in downloading and installing plugins, themes etc. I've found Rockbox (which I use for my iRiver) very hard to use and way too complicated for a casual user.

*Edit* iPod info taken from Apple iPod (4th Generation, 20GB) Review - MP3 Players.
 
I dont even consider iPods to be "fashion statements" anymore, and I think not buying one for such a reason would be ridiculous anyway. Why do you even care who has what MP3 player? If you don't want an iPod because you think its not as good as something else fine, but to not get one because "everyone else is getting them" is just childish. iPods are becoming like coke really. People I know just called mp3 players in general iPods, just like many people refer to cola as coke. So i can't even call it a fashion statement; it's moreso synonymous with MP3 players.
 
narcoleptic haze said:
downloading and installing plugins, themes etc ??

I was unaware you could do this.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not sure but I think Rockbox is the only program you can use.

Rockbox.org has all the information you need if you're interested as well as the download. The Misticriver Forum is where I learned how to use Rockbox a little. I'm sure if you ask nicely you can too! The site is dedicated to iRivers but you might be able to find some links to iPod pages.
 
i can't imagine listening to music through some ridiculous headphones, encoded in some ridiculous non-vinyl format, and no artwork to boot? hah! that's not even music :nfu: :mumblefood: :etc:
 
:mad: This thread fucking jinxed me! Yesterday, I was listening to Daylight Dies on my iPod, and all of a sudden, in the middle of a song, it cuts to the middle of a Vintersorg song! But the iPod still said it was playing Daylight Dies. When I stopped it, it freaked and died. All it did was give me the URL for iPod support. After a long time of trying to revive it, reset it, restore it, and going to various forums (or fora, if you're going to be a nerd about it), I've pretty much given up on it. I think I'm going to have to have it serviced.

I got an unknown error 1418. I hate that shit. Unknown?! Fuck you. I also found out that the new version of iTunes is fucking up a lot of people's iPods. So, it may not even be my iPod that's to blame. Ugh.

I blame it on this thread....
 
That same thing happened to me. It also would play in some sort of scan mode,where it would play the first 30 seconds or so of songs. It was impossible to change it and then it just stopped working. That's my biggest beef with iPods. They do everything else just fine for me, but they break down too often.
 
soundave said:
:mad: This thread fucking jinxed me! Yesterday, I was listening to Daylight Dies on my iPod, and all of a sudden, in the middle of a song, it cuts to the middle of a Vintersorg song! But the iPod still said it was playing Daylight Dies. When I stopped it, it freaked and died. All it did was give me the URL for iPod support. After a long time of trying to revive it, reset it, restore it, and going to various forums (or fora, if you're going to be a nerd about it), I've pretty much given up on it. I think I'm going to have to have it serviced.

I got an unknown error 1418. I hate that shit. Unknown?! Fuck you. I also found out that the new version of iTunes is fucking up a lot of people's iPods. So, it may not even be my iPod that's to blame. Ugh.

I blame it on this thread....
Click to expand...

Hummm, you have the latest firmware aye?
 
Sadguru said:
Hummm, you have the latest firmware aye?
Click to expand...


Before it died on me, it did. This sucks. :Puke: My wife has a 4gig nano that momentarily had the same problem when I tried to sync my music to it. But I kept trying and now it works. I have no idea what I even did.

I think I'm headed to the Apple Store to see what they tell me (on a weird note, the pastor from my church works there... it's a joke waiting to happen, right? I just can't think of what it is.) I certainly don't have the money for a new one. Any extra money was supposed to go towards building a project studio... and, trust me, as a stay at home dad with another baby on the way... shit is tight right now. Crappy timing. But, I guess it's never good.
 
soundave said:
Before it died on me, it did. This sucks. :Puke: My wife has a 4gig nano that momentarily had the same problem when I tried to sync my music to it. But I kept trying and now it works. I have no idea what I even did.

I think I'm headed to the Apple Store to see what they tell me (on a weird note, the pastor from my church works there... it's a joke waiting to happen, right? I just can't think of what it is.) I certainly don't have the money for a new one. Any extra money was supposed to go towards building a project studio... and, trust me, as a stay at home dad with another baby on the way... shit is tight right now. Crappy timing. But, I guess it's never good.
Click to expand...

If you restored, downloaded the last firmware/itunes and the thing still doesn't work, your best option is indeed to go to the apple store. Hopefully they'll find a solution. Ipods sure are expensive, I wouldn't be able to buy another one either.

Best of luck man.
 
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