MP4 Player recommendations please

Jay D

Had one of these until I had to get rid of it, it was like a life or death situation and I chose life:

Was 80gb and I loved it, many a moment cherished with it and it always drowned out the ****e people talk on trains buses or any other public transport where people like the sound of their own voice too much, survived many a fall to the ground but above all it was excellent for sound and visual...

What's hot atm? No Ipods.

bennyx_o

Probably best off here. Not up on whats out at the moment, but I do like the look of the new Creative ZEN XFI. Comes in 8, 16 and 32GB.

Jay D

funnily enough I was browsing Creative's site looking at a few...
Any experience? Looks excellent.

seannash

why are people so against ipods?

Jay D

Because if I want to put music on I don't want the poxy hassle of having to convert to i tunes, get a license or permission and whatever else is involved. If I download a mix tonight, I want to be able to put it on my player in the morning for work, which I will likely be rushing to.

bennyx_o

Jay D wrote: »

funnily enough I was browsing Creative's site looking at a few...
Any experience? Looks excellent.

No experience with them, no, but I agree it does look excellent.

Jay D wrote: »

Because if I want to put music on I don't want the poxy hassle of having to convert to i tunes, get a license or permission and whatever else is involved. If I download a mix tonight, I want to be able to put it on my player in the morning for work, which I will likely be rushing to.

You can get plugins for Winamp and the like that allow drag and drop onto iPods

Wertz

Hard to beat Sony's current range of flash players in terms of usability and sound quality, and prices have fallen since their new X series models have went on sale.
I have two...an older nwz-a808 that has been stood on and dropped into cans of paint at least twice and still works and a newer 16gb model with drag and drop (nwz-829).
The only thing I could find that compared on SQ/price/features was the cowon iaudio7 at the time.
The screen is a bit small for prolonged viewing of videos but it is sharp and the picture is great.
Mine are used for 99.9% music playback.

ED E

Creative get my thumbs up. First MP3 player was a Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB HDD. I bought it just as Ipods kicked off here, cost 220. The ipod 15GB was 400. There was a small sacrafice in style(below) but it was worth it for the saving and better features. Full EQ and CMO which trumped iTunes 110%. Still have it, but cant use it as they have discontinued support. I now have a 2GB Stone which I got for 20 quid, used it for a bit but now I have an 8GB card in my phone(C902), does me grand for when I'm out and about. Just shuffle it regularly.


Sony, watch out. My brother had a sport one, complete rubbish. It was also NWZ series, but I dont know what model. Also, some of their players require a certain piece of software to transfer music. Somebody will know the name, its atrocious. Converts every file if I remember correctly. Used to take half an hour to put 40 or 50 songs onto it. Ahh, found it. Sonic Stage.....


Anyways, back to creative. Friend has the X-Fi, he likes it, I dont. Buttons are weird and you cant manipulate them while the player is still in your pocket.

I would suggest: Zen MX

16GB from creative is €150. Could get it cheaper elsewhere I'd guess. Also, SD slot means that for another 20 you can add 16GB more(And sandisk at that). 32GB is ok, you could get an Ipod with more but it will cost more, need itunes and last most likely a maximum of 2 years.

Wonder would it support a 32GB card...

Wertz

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Sony, watch out. My brother had a sport one, complete rubbish. It was also NWZ series, but I dont know what model. Also, some of their players require a certain piece of software to transfer music. Somebody will know the name, its atrocious. Converts every file if I remember correctly. Used to take half an hour to put 40 or 50 songs onto it. Ahh, found it. Sonic Stage.....

Yeah sonicstage sucks, even for battle hardened users, but the NWZ-A### series was the last to require it's usage...all sony players since then have utilised uPnP USB mass storage under windows...the only downside for some users being the drop in suport for atrac3 codec, which was handy for ripping mixes containing individual tracks (truly seamless) and had outstanding quality V compression.
I've never heard of a sports model NWZ...I do have an old sports netMD player that lasted me over 4 years (still works), oh and a Vaio Pocket that now get's used as a cradled music player for my AV set up...both Sony as well.

Someone above asked why people are so against ipods...for me it's the sound quality issues from about 3-4 yrs back (when I was moving from MD to HDD player)...I simply couldn't live with the sound they put out, coupled with having to use itunes at the time, and of course the fact that everyone and their little sister has one. I don't subscribe to this style over substance bullsh*t....a music player is for listening to music, not a style accessory. For me the sony pipped almost everyone...cowon and iRiver were close seconds.

Scubadevils

Jay D wrote: »

Had one of these until I had to get rid of it, it was like a life or death situation and I chose life:

Was 80gb and I loved it, many a moment cherished with it and it always drowned out the ****e people talk on trains buses or any other public transport where people like the sound of their own voice too much, survived many a fall to the ground but above all it was excellent for sound and visual...

What's hot atm? No Ipods.

Ah the old X5, was a bloody great player... I still miss mine dearly!

I'm using the I7 16GB at the moment and love it but had been seriously tempted by the new Sony X Series, especially the 32GB model. What is putting me off somewhat is the fact that it doesn't support FLAC and I have about 500GB of music encoded in FLAC :mad:

Video though is not that important to me so maybe I should look at a cheaper flash player from Sony. I wish Panasonic would put something together, they made some serious portable audio players back in the days of cassettes and always gave Sony etc a good run for thier money in terms of features, sound quality etc.

Scubadevils

Have you still got your X5 Jay, good deal here on Advanced Mp3 Players for a discount when you trade it in, even if its not working... you can get the new S9, looks slick...

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/MP3_Players.1/Cowon_iAudio.15/S9-32GB-EXCHANGE/Cowon_S9_32GB_Exchange_Discount_for_X5.3865.html

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/MP3_Players.1/Cowon_iAudio.15/S9-32GB/Cowon_iAudio_S9_32GB_MP3_Player.3754.html

ED E

Another point on iPods is the black market for them. If a little thug nicks one it wont be hard to pass on. I've been told that pickpockets/muggers look for those classic white earphones, I beleive it.

milltown

Jay D wrote: »

Because if I want to put music on I don't want the poxy hassle of having to convert to i tunes, get a license or permission and whatever else is involved. If I download a mix tonight, I want to be able to put it on my player in the morning for work, which I will likely be rushing to.

I got an ipod for ease of integration with my car, full stop. Apart from the odd podcast I don't go near itunes. www.getsharepod.com ftw! Lets you do whatever the hell you want with your files, including having them on multiple computers.

Decent pair of earphones makes all the difference too. Sennheiser CX300 made all the difference for me and can be got for <€30 nowadays.

You can also put www.Rockbox.org on it if you really don't want it to be an iProduct!

I got Mrs.Milltown a Creative X-fi for last christmas and it is a decent player with great sound quality and fiddly controls. Also, if you think itunes is bad, watch out for the amount of bloatware Creative ask you to install!

Jay D

It's gone man. That was defo a happy purchase. I emphasized it to the supplier afterwards even!! Bloody melt but it's gone over a year now. I did get a good run out of it all the same.

I've held off a new one and tbh I guess MP4 feature isn't essential although it's handy to have for long trips all the same. I am using my N95 for now. Handy enough and holds 8gigs. But I do want an upgrade, just watching the schillings. Want to get Serato as well.... decisions decisions...

Felixdhc wrote: »

Have you still got your X5 Jay, good deal here on Advanced Mp3 Players for a discount when you trade it in, even if its not working... you can get the new S9, looks slick...

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/MP3_Players.1/Cowon_iAudio.15/S9-32GB-EXCHANGE/Cowon_S9_32GB_Exchange_Discount_for_X5.3865.html

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/MP3_Players.1/Cowon_iAudio.15/S9-32GB/Cowon_iAudio_S9_32GB_MP3_Player.3754.html