IPod or Other?

Gvork

My Dad wants an mp3 player for his birthday.
All he'll use it for is music and audiobooks while on holiday.
My sisters want to get him an Ipod mini but I'd prefer to get him an iriver or a creative.
Is there any good reason not to get an Ipod mini?

pauln

I'd say for ease of use I'd go for the Ipod, they don't come much easier to use then that and the itunes software is pretty good to use. I don't know much about the other makes out there.

if he likes audiobooks DO NOT get him an Ipod, the creative's have a bookmark function, which basically allows you to pause a book, pllay other songs, etc for how long you want, and when you return to the book it will still have a bookmark.

Ipod's DO NOT have this essential feature, i'm not sure about others but i know for a fact that the Zen's have it.

Gvork

Cheers for that info.Am pushing for a Zen Micro.
Bedlam, is that only on ipods that you can only bookmark audible?

hshortt

How good is your dad with the PC? iTunes is a requirement for iPODs and they use a non-standard cable to connect to the USB Port.

Creative Zen Micro, can be used without any media player software, i.e. drag and drop, it interfaces to Windows Media Player, Musicmatch Jukebox and probably others. Furthermore it uses a standard USB to Mini-USB cable and these are about a fiver, so you can have a few for extra charging/transfers when you are near any pc.

Errrmmm, Zen's battery out performs the iPods, and Zen also has a radio.

I've used a range of players and came from a 40GB iPOD to a 5GB Zen Micro and found it to be a better device.

Cheers

Gvork

Thanks again for all that.
Will use the radio as another attempt to get them to go for a Zen.

carrotcake

why are you so against getting an ipod in the first place?

lomb

the latest ipod mini has an excellent battery life and looks smart. id go with that, unless u want a bigger capacity player in which case the new hd5 from sony looks good. however i dont know if it will bookmark audiobooks. i doubt it personally. the standard ipod frankly is too large to be useable although is a very very nice machine.

leuler

The new mini undoubtedly looks smart, look & feel and build quality is second to none, but 4 hours charge to get 7 hours play from the battery is not good.

carrotcake

the new one is 18 hours