What should i get IPod or something else?

xxxxx

OK so id like a device like IPod, coz my brother has hundreds of songs on ITunes on our computer both his and mine, and id like to put them on some portable device that i can listen 2 also. But what should i get?

I dont have much money so i dont know if i should get IPod the battery life is supposed to be ****e anyway. If i get Creative Zen thing then can i still easily get all the songs off ITunes onto it? Whats the best solution?

Pitseleh

I myself have got the 20Gb Creative Zen Touch - I got it last December for 279.99 which I think was 60, maybe 70 euro cheaper, nay "more economically viable" than the iPod with equivalent memory - one pays for the name. It gets my seal of approval - holds a sickening amount of songs, a tres long battery life and 'tis ridiculously easy to upload tracks onto it. More miraculously it still works despite dropping it numerous times, once on concrete.
I've no idea how it works with iTunes though - sorry. Furthermore, I remember hearing somewhere that copy-protected CDs can't be converted into mp3 files to be put on the iPod - I'm not sure if this is correct though but 'twould be a problem I'm sure with more and more record companies wishing to fight piracy.

coreilly1

yeah thats the thing about Ipod,theyre mad into keeping the whole piracy thing down so its quite tricky if you wanna go onto your mates PC with the ipod and he doesnt have i tunes.I have an archos and its as easy as dragging and dropping music files onto it.it takes WMA or MP3 and will take copy protected tracks once you buy them from the legit sites(99c a track or so I think).Theres so much hype about the ipod that people just go out and buy one without researching the competition.For conveniece sake,I would deffo consider something outside Ipod world,not everyone is gonna have i tunes on their comp,plus even if you have i tunes you could still drag your tracks from your hard drive onto your non-ipod.They are a pretty little gadget though

xxxxx

OK cool but kind of confusing posts.

If i get Creative Zen 20GB, how easy can i get all the ITunes stuff onto it? That's my main concern, i just want to get everything in ITunes onto whatever device i get.

Thank you for replies.

Mossy Monk

all the stuff listed in iTunes will be in a folder somewhere on the pc as mp3/mp4/whatever type files. iTunes is only needed for the ipod. i dont know what other programs use

Bard

I'm getting myself a 30GB I-Audio X-5 with extended battery life. They retail at 429-ish euros but I'm getting it at cost price cos I sell the feckers

iPod is over-rated.

Although... the new iPod Nano looks nice.

Makaveli

When you get a Creative player you install the programs that come with it (Mediasource) and you use this to put the tracks on the player. iTunes is irrelevant it's just a program for playing music on your pc just like Winamp, WMP etc.

Mediasource is a steaming pile of crap though. Very buggy software. I'd advise you, if you do go for a Creative player, to get Notmad Explorer from redchair, www.redchairsoftware.com . It's not free, but it's well worth it.

Alternatively go for a more expensive player like an iriver which allows you to drag and drop the files onto the player without the need for additional software.

xxxxx

OK thank you so ITunes is irrelevent does that mean Creative Zen can get all of the songs that are in ITunes, onto the Creative Zen easily?

Mossy Monk

Bard wrote:

iPod is over-rated

how so?
i bought mine to play mp3's and it does exactly what it says on the tin

lordgoat

iPod's are awful, for battery life and sound quality in comparison to many alternatives.

i have an iRiver and i love her to pie-ces...

Karl Hungus

I'd definetly go for the Creative Zen.

AARRRGH

I have an ipod. Not worth the money!

Keep your €500 for something decent. You really don't need one...

Makaveli

xxxxx wrote:

OK thank you so ITunes is irrelevent does that mean Creative Zen can get all of the songs that are in ITunes, onto the Creative Zen easily?

Yeah using the creative software, Mediasource. iTunes is only being used to play the mp3s, there is a folder on your pc somewhere that has the mp3s in it. Just go to that folder and drag and drop the files into Mediasource to transfer them to the Zen.

shuushh

get an iriver

fm radio and works as a dictophone aswell also no software required just plug it in and throw stuff on or off

also the remote control bit is rather delightful

projectmayhem

creative zen seems to be the best one on the market, or an iRiver. ipod is now too cool to be cool..

i personally couldn't be arsed having that many songs so i just got a 1gig mem duo card for my psp and i'm set

xxxxx

Makaveli wrote:

Yeah using the creative software, Mediasource. iTunes is only being used to play the mp3s, there is a folder on your pc somewhere that has the mp3s in it. Just go to that folder and drag and drop the files into Mediasource to transfer them to the Zen.

OK thx Makaveli i thought they used m3u but w/e.

Makaveli

m3u are playlist files.

thejovialhost

Choose an archos. Mine is brilliant. Simple drag and drop, no need for ANY software. Easy as fúck

Nightwish

i have a sony nw-hd and its a beauty. only thing is the software, which is sonic stage, sucks

xxxxx

Makaveli wrote:

m3u are playlist files.

OK but does that mean i CANT get them onto Creative Zen? Coz Zen only takes mp3s and these are m3us?

goodgod3rd

i pods are stylish , but if your a true music fan. get one with a recorder... and lots of space, to easily share, and inter swap music, (legaly of course!)
i don't have time for downloads... too slow on me (uncultured0 dial up. so i use cd's and forget about the online stuff!

its really depends on your taste, do you want it for music playing, or Music everyting?

Makaveli

xxxxx wrote:

OK but does that mean i CANT get them onto Creative Zen? Coz Zen only takes mp3s and these are m3us?

Playlists can go on Zens but the files you are playing arent .m3u. An m3u as I said is a playlist file, the files linked in the playlist are the songs. I think you may be using .m4a files. Which means iTunes was used to rip the cds and no they wont work on a Zen or any player bar an iPod.

thejovialhost

Makaveli wrote:

they wont work on a Zen or any player bar an iPod.

Not necessarily true. Some recent players do support AAC and AAC+. Not sure about the zen though. m4a's are AAC format. Check the creative website to make sure

JBoyle4eva

For a Creative Zen Micro, do the songs have to be saved onto Pc as well as player like the iPod?

Makaveli

No.
You can stick them on the Zen and then delete them from the pc.

Mossy Monk

JBoyle4eva wrote:

For a Creative Zen Micro, do the songs have to be saved onto Pc as well as player like the iPod?

wtf?
once on your ipod you can delete the songs from the pc

bounty_hunter

Get an iRiver!
I promise you, you won't ever look back.

I'm too lazy to type out a load of pimpage at the moment, but check out this and this
(I might get back to this later aswell)

I have the H340 and I honestly don't know how I ever lived without it.

missingtime

There is another player iAudio that i was looking at. Go to advancedmp3players.co.uk.

Also you have the option in iTunes to rip a cd into mp3 format.

cormie

iRiver or iAudio are your best bets. iAudio X5 is the best MP3 player out at the moment although the iRiver H-140 with rockbox is just flawless with regards to actual MP3 playing, it's probably the best one at the moment. When the H3XX has rockbox that will be the best. But I think iAudio are getting rockbox too.

rockbox - rockbox.org

bounty_hunter

Yeah, iAudio are also excellent.

Just forget about iPods, they're a waste of time.

coreilly1

missingtime wrote:

Also you have the option in iTunes to rip a cd into mp3 format.

You can do that Windows Media Player aswell.

If you have an ipod you're restricted to using iTunes to load your music onto,Whereas most other players you can just use a drag and drop system on any Compute plus they also double up as an external harddrive for holding files

JBoyle4eva

Mossy Monk wrote:

wtf?
once on your ipod you can delete the songs from the pc

Well my brother is telling me that he has to save the songs on itunes and has to keep them there. Otherwise, if deleted from itunes=deleted from ipod

Mossy Monk

coreilly1 wrote:

they also double up as an external harddrive for holding files

as does the ipod

cormie

To rip CD's you should be using Exact Audio Copy with the Lame codec set at VBR.

If you want the best MP3 player out there, well the Cowan iAudio X5 is it. Once rockbox is out for the iRiver H3XX then that may be better than the X5. However, if you want the best device in terms of functionality playing and recording MP3's (optical in/out being a big plus for some users) then the iRiver H1XX with rockbox is the best. It can be bought much cheaper than the X5 and at the moment has more functions than the X5 in terms of MP3 playback (crossfade/gapless/replaygain support etc etc)

Get yourself a nice pair of earphones too as most, if not all, included earphones with all mp3 players leave much to be desired.

wHatsErname

get the creative zen micro i have it and its brilliant

Civilian_Target

2c.

I got a Rio Karma - and when I smashed it up in a bike accident in June, I took another look at what was out there, and got another Rio Karma. Fantastic player, good battery life,easy to use, good sound off it, nice dock and you can copy stuff back onto your computer, with the not-too-intrusive software. The only downer is, it doesn't show up as a drive in windows, so its crap for file transfer.

Honorable mentions should go out to the Iriver H-series, and the Cowon X5 - they're what I'd buy if I couldn't get a Karma.

Civilian_Target

cormie wrote:

To rip CD's you should be using Exact Audio Copy with the Lame codec set at VBR.

EAC is quite the ripper OK - and if you want MP3s, lame is the way to go. I use it with the AoutV vorbis encoder though - excellent compression quality at a good size, and much easier on my DAP's battery!

cormie wrote:

Get yourself a nice pair of earphones too as most, if not all, included earphones with all mp3 players leave much to be desired.

Mine came with Sennheiser MX400s - as buds go they seem pretty good.

cormie

Civilian_Target wrote:

2c.

I got a Rio Karma - and when I smashed it up in a bike accident in June, I took another look at what was out there, and got another Rio Karma. Fantastic player, good battery life,easy to use, good sound off it, nice dock and you can copy stuff back onto your computer, with the not-too-intrusive software. The only downer is, it doesn't show up as a drive in windows, so its crap for file transfer.

Honorable mentions should go out to the Iriver H-series, and the Cowon X5 - they're what I'd buy if I couldn't get a Karma.

Rio Karma has a beautiful gapless playback feature too, changing tracks is a pleasure. Before RockBox hit the iRiver H140 (the model I own) everyone on the iRiver/misticriver forums were always going on about gapless playback and how much they wanted it, even over on the fly playlists. I never saw what the fuss was about until I heard my friends Karma changing tracks. Then RockBox introduced gapless/crossfade to the H1XX and I haven't looked back since. Listening to music without gapless/crossfade just isn't the same. I was at a party the other day and somebody had their iPod hooked up and everyone was dancing away, you only notice how good gapless is when you don't have it, if I had my H hooked up the music would have been non stop, woooo! It's like an endless, non stop mix of your entire music collection.

Even though the H140 is about 2 years old, amongst all the advances in MP3 players since it was released, I'm still not tempted to upgrade (and I'm a big upgrader when it comes to MP3 players, I've had loads of them, I upgraded an mp3 discman I had after about a month of owning it, and I'm not well off either, it's just something I like to keep on the edge of because music is a big hobby of mine). I am tempted to upgrade to the 60GB iAudio X5 if it's released though. But until a 60/80/100GB MP3 player with the functionality of the H1XX and a firmware as good as rockbox, at a decent price is released, I'll be sticking with miRiver;)

melekalikimaka

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

bounty_hunter

melekalikimaka wrote:

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

Ditto. I'm so stunned I can't even bring myself to argue with them.

cormie

I think a good fact to go by is the way that iPod have the biggest name in MP3 players but yet most of the suggestions here are against them. It just goes to show that it is just their marketing that has got them the name, I mean people don't know what an mp3 player is but they know what an iPod is. Fair play to them too, good business. For the consumer however, it's bad as there are much better players for better value.

Civilian_Target

melekalikimaka wrote:

i cant believe there are people trying to defend ipods...

They're not a bad player - easy to use, pretty, fashionable, robust, very portable and they do a good job of playing MP3s. They're just not the best at playing music.

Mossy Monk

JBoyle4eva wrote:

Well my brother is telling me that he has to save the songs on itunes and has to keep them there. Otherwise, if deleted from itunes=deleted from ipod

missed this

tell him go to edit >> preferences >> ipod and change the setting so that he can delete the mp3's once on his ipod

why are people horrified that someone might defend the ipod? they are made to play mp3's and guess what? you can guess

Doctor J

Got an ipod as a present a few weeks ago, have to say I think it's fine. Sound quality is good, you can manually set the volume of individual files in playback (very, very important), itunes is piss easy to use (especially when you look in the menus ) and yeah the battery life could be better but I can just charge it up off the PC in work so that's no biggie, overall no complaints here.

melekalikimaka

Civilian_Target wrote:

They're not a bad player - easy to use, pretty, fashionable, robust, very portable and they do a good job of playing MP3s. They're just not the best at playing music.

in all fairness very few players aren't fashionable, robust, very portable and do a good job of playing MP3s, only they cost less, sound better, and ipod haters wont snigger at you and stick 'kick me i've an ipod' pages to your back as you walk around :rolleyes:

Mossy Monk

does it really matter what someone buys

i bought an ipod to play music and guess what it does, plays music. the sound is good (once you replace those awful headphones) and it is portable. who gives a flying **** if it is fashionable or not. whats next, people looking for a yellow mp3 player to match their watch

coreilly1

But its the extras that count.It might look good and play music but the fact that you can't go onto a random PC and nab MP3s off it makes a difference.i like to like to nab MP3s off my buddy's comp after he has downloaded them as he does with mine!

Doctor J

And I have no issue with paying people for their work.

The ability to preset playback volume of any track is the best feature I can think of when it comes to an mp3 player.

Jimi-Spandex

Nightwish wrote:

i have a sony nw-hd and its a beauty. only thing is the software, which is sonic stage, sucks

Have to agree there, sonic stage is very annoying to use. As for the player itself, I must say I'm quite happy with mine, damn good sound quality, astounding battery life.

cormie

Doctor J wrote:

And I have no issue with paying people for their work.

The ability to preset playback volume of any track is the best feature I can think of when it comes to an mp3 player.

This can be done with the iRiver H1XX series with rockbox too using replaygain. Rockbox can do almost anything thinkable when it comes to playing MP3s. You're basically paying more for less for an iPod.

melekalikimaka

I think we are getting off the point, a simple answer to your question is
SOMETHING ELSE