What happened to 32GB+ players?

crimsonfire

I remember back in the day when PMPs were the stuff of legend that one of your smug mates with the well-off parents had. He would sneer at your discman or minidisc player. One such friend had an old Creative Nomad Jukebox. The thing was monstrous mind you but it held something like 30GB as standard. 30-40GB was about the norm for players then. This is even before solid state storage became as common as it is today.

My question is why are players now such small capacities. I have an 8GB creative zen and I find myself changing the music on it every other week. I tried expanding it with an SD card but you can't shuffle the whole lot in one big playlist. Just one source or the other.

Always wondered why capacities got smaller instead of larger? My only theory is that hard disk-based players can hold more data than solid state ones but SS storage would make players too expensive at such high capacities. I saw a 16GB USB key though. It was no bigger than my thumb and it cost something like 30 or 40 euro. Surely that doesnt translate to a hugely expensive player??

Morf

crimsonfire wrote: »

I remember back in the day when PMPs were the stuff of legend that one of your smug mates with the well-off parents had. He would sneer at your discman or minidisc player. One such friend had an old Creative Nomad Jukebox. The thing was monstrous mind you but it held something like 30GB as standard. 30-40GB was about the norm for players then. This is even before solid state storage became as common as it is today.

My question is why are players now such small capacities. I have an 8GB creative zen and I find myself changing the music on it every other week. I tried expanding it with an SD card but you can't shuffle the whole lot in one big playlist. Just one source or the other.

Always wondered why capacities got smaller instead of larger? My only theory is that hard disk-based players can hold more data than solid state ones but SS storage would make players too expensive at such high capacities. I saw a 16GB USB key though. It was no bigger than my thumb and it cost something like 30 or 40 euro. Surely that doesnt translate to a hugely expensive player??

Larger capacity tend to be HDD players which don't like too much motion or being shaken i.e. not good for jogging.

Most people don't own/like that much music.

Solid state players get pretty expensive quickly as you go up. Most people just aren't prepared to invest that much.

I'll be buying a 64 gig Zen X-fi 2 as soon as i can afford one to replace my 32 gig model.

cnocbui

crimsonfire wrote: »

Always wondered why capacities got smaller instead of larger? My only theory is that hard disk-based players can hold more data than solid state ones but SS storage would make players too expensive at such high capacities. I saw a 16GB USB key though. It was no bigger than my thumb and it cost something like 30 or 40 euro. Surely that doesnt translate to a hugely expensive player??

Got it in one. HD storage is still a lot cheaper than SS and will probably always be so. That is why Apple still make the iPod Classic with it's 160 GB capacity. Match that with SS and it would have to cost around €400 - about double the cost of an iPod Classic.