Which MP3 Player??????????

Trip Hazard

i wasn't sure where to post his tread so i just done it here,

I'm wondering can anyone help me, or advise me, or point me in the right direction if you will.

I looking to buy an mp3 player, i want to get one with alot of space, 20GB or so,

Im thinking about an iPod, an iRiver, or more so the Sony network walkman NW-HD1.

Which is said to be the best, can anyone help? cheers

Im willing to spend around E400.

Ciaran500

I went for an iAudio M3: http://eng.iaudio.com/zeroboard/product_M3_over.php?bmenu=p&id=cw5000

Its small, light, sounds great and I've never had any problems with it. Can be had for around €300

cormie

I would go for either the iAudio or iRiver, I wouldn't go for an iPod, the iAudio and iRiver are much better.

Both iAudio and iRiver have colour screen models that display photos and play video (i think the iAudio does, I know the iRiver does)

Peteee

Ditch the HW-HD1, Sony has a new model out, which (FINALLY) plays mp3 files natively (without converting to ATRAC, its drag and drop AFAIK)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006OQZNG/ref=br_lf_ce_17/026-7974461-1214846

30 hr battery life (claimed of course, people generally put it closer to 25 hours or so, but thats still miles better then everything else)

Put it this way, if i wanted a mp3 player, i'd buy this (as it is i'll be using my psp as a mp3 player, when i get one)

From the other two you've listed i'd go ipod, the iriver never looked nice imo

cormie

If you want a basic mp3 player and are willing to sacrafice extra functionality for fashion (not style) go with iPod.

If you want the mp3 player "said to be the best" go with iRiver. Although I think iAudio is the same (i personally don't like the fact there is no lcd display on the main unit) however the iAudio x5 (i think) has lcd on main unit and is the colour one I was talking about.

I don't know about the Sony one, maybe it is better? 25hr battery sounds good. I'd fear sony copyright protection however.

Peteee

As I said, it plays mp3's nativly, all your pirated mp3 stuff is safe on here.

Civilian_Target

I have a Rio Karma - it's alright, but just feels a bit flimsy. Best off with an iRiver, as has already been recommended, or if you want something a bit smaller, the Safa HMP-110 is a great little player.

magick

yup im in the same boat, im thinking of the ipod or iriver , though vif i get the ipod would have to buy the itrip for the fm radio

Trip Hazard

Cheers folks, keep the posts coming

I've been looking at them all on the web and i almost set on the iRiver, just have to start saving.

Dooom

While we're on the topic, does anyone have the Creative Zen Micro? I'm in the process of getting one and just want to know if there's something nasty about it or if it's all good.
5gb's is grand for me, I probably wouldn't listen to anything more. I know the battery life isn't massive - but the swappable batteries sounds appealing enough. Anyone know what the transfer speed is like from the pc to it? And aswell as that, how bouts the jog protection on it? Yay or Nay?
Cheers.

jozi

If you do go the iriver route here's a good site with all you need to know about them: http://www.misticriver.net
There's a new player out which i like, H10 but its only 5gig but they are going to do a 10 and 20 gig i believe.

Jozi

Dont be at yourself

The Sony HD-1 also plays mp3s natively thanks to a firmware upgrade. That said, I find the sound quality of the ATRAC format fantastic, even at 64kps, effectively doubling the capacity of the player.

Bard

The Creative Zen Micro is quite a nice little piece of kit alright. It's 5GB translates to about 2,500 songs (if you use WMA format for its extra compression over MP3) it has a digital FM radio built in that you can record from directly to the hard drive.

The transfer speeds from the PC depend on whether your PC supports USB 2 - which the Zen Micro itself does. If so, you'll be able to get the benefit of that (40 times faster than standard USB - about 740Kbps if I recall correctly). Not sure what you mean by 'jog protection' but it does have a keypad lock feature.

The battery life on it is pretty good, working for 12 hours of continuous play. Spare batteries for it are cheap and there are limited editions of it available that come with a spare battery free in the box.

Personally, if I was getting an MP3 player, I'd go for the Zen Micro - and of all the colours it's available in, I'd go for the white one... - not because it looks similar to the Apple iPod - but because I just think that it looks the best out of what's there. Frankly, if I had the money to spend (I don't), I'd probably go for the iRiver Lite 40GB Jukebox (full colour screen)... but that's a different story.

I work in Harvey Norman in Dundalk and our retail price on the Zen Micro is €279. However, unlike many other stores, we're always willing to haggle on the price and you may find yourself (if you get the right salesman) getting it for anything up to 10% less than that price.

Dooom

Thanks for the info Bard. What I meant by jog protection was (can't remember what it's called..damn memory) if you're walking or running does the music skip or jump. Any ideas on that?

I know cd players have it, but I'm pretty sure I read something on mp3 players suffering from it...might've been something else though.

J-blk

Running with a Zen Micro? You probably wouldn't want to do that with it or any other hard drive based MP3 player (or Micro Drive like the Zen Micro is). Hard drive based players can't take really hard shocks (imagine exposing your PC's hard drive to continual shocks) and so are not a good idea if you want one for jogging, etc.... The music never skips on these things (I have a 60GB Zen Xtra as well for the bucket loads of MP3s) but if the unit is heavily shocked, you may end up with a broken MP3 player...

Walking should be fine - I've had my Zen Micro since December and even speeding up to catch the bus in the morning is typically fine.

If you want an MP3 player that won't go faulty on you because of shocks, go for a flash based one - there are tons out there from different manufacturers. I think they're limited to 1GB max though for the most part at the moment....

Bard

The Zen Micro doesn't suffer from the music skipping or jumping in any way. They're hard drive based and have good internal memory (so as to avoid constant disk access) - they're not CD Players. They simply don't skip! Frankly I think MP3 CD players are a fairly silly hybrid - using a basis of old and unreliable technology (CD) to make use of newer technology (digital music files) in a machine that will still skip and jump... kinda negates the whole idea of MP3/WMA files... anyway...

However... it IS a hard drive based player, so it would be prone, as any computer hard drive would be, to any serious kind of hit or shock, but I don't think jogging with it clipped to your belt would qualify for that.

As J-blk says, if you're really worried about causing damage to the player from shock, go for a memory based one, such as the Creative Muvo TX FM, which is available from retail outlets in Ireland in 128Mb, 256Mb and 512Mb 'flavours' and includes an FM radio. The 1Gb version should be out soon, if not already. It's definitely available in the US (see creative.com). Considering that they're memory based players and not hard-drive based ones, they're unlikely to get any larger than that, capacity wise, any time soon. Naturally enough, if you want a larger player, you want a hard-drive based one.

Think about it though... if you're going jogging with it - do you really need a high capacity player? - Will the 250 or so songs that a 512Mb player provides not suffice?

Frankly, I'd still go for the 5Gb Zen Micro. And I'd go jogging wearing it.

(If I could be arsed jogging...)

SpooN_9k

magick wrote:

yup im in the same boat, im thinking of the ipod or iriver , though vif i get the ipod would have to buy the itrip for the fm radio

iv a 40gb ipod that i picked up cheap in the States a few weeks back and id recommend them to anybody but the itrip is meant to be fairly crap unfortunately

or so iv been told at least....

carrotcake

Bard wrote:

The Zen Micro doesn't suffer from the music skipping or jumping in any way.

all hard disk mp3 players do. it's got a 20-minute buffer, i've read, so jog for longer than that it's gonna skip

Matt Simis

Peteee wrote:

Ditch the HW-HD1, Sony has a new model out, which (FINALLY) plays mp3 files natively (without converting to ATRAC, its drag and drop AFAIK)

30 hr battery life (claimed of course, people generally put it closer to 25 hours or so, but thats still miles better then everything else)

Put it this way, if i wanted a mp3 player, i'd buy this (as it is i'll be using my psp as a mp3 player, when i get one)

Errmm.. not quite. The 30Hrs figure is when playing 32KBs ATRAC (its still the preferred format). When playing 128KB/s MP3 the figure is far lower. The Zen Touch gets over 24hrs battery life playing 128KB/s MP3, a far more impressive feat.

In regards the PSP, I have one and its great, but its not as good as a dedicated portable audio player. Compared to a microdrive MP3 player its big, drinks battery and just not as disposable. Much like Mobile Phone-MP3 Players.. dedicated still beats convergence!

I take it your a Sony fan ( )?


Matt

ubu

SpooN_9k wrote:

the itrip is meant to be fairly crap unfortunately

or so iv been told at least....

Yes, yes it is

Matt Simis

carrotcake wrote:

all hard disk mp3 players do. it's got a 20-minute buffer, i've read, so jog for longer than that it's gonna skip

The reasons why that statement is technically incorrect are long and boring, but suffice to say running with a HDD player isnt a good idea (this is what flash memory is for). The newer generation are more robust as the drives are infact designed for portable environments, but still, running isnt the biggest killer, its the sudden stop when it falls from sweaty hands and hits the ground.



Matt