New MP3/MP4 Player Recommendations

[ollietwinam]

OK, so it's time to buy a new MP3 player, after my crappy Creative Zen Micro broke again, this time outside of it's warranty.

 

Hoorah.

 

So, new player must have the following:

• More than 5gB of memory
  
• Decent sound quality
  
• Not too bulky (i.e. no Archos 7" screen jobby)
  

 

So yeah, that's about it.

 

To give you an idea of price range (though it doesn't matter TOO much), I was looking at the new 8gB Black iPod Nano, and the Sandisk Sansa e280 8gB.

 

But yeah, doesn't matter too much.

 

Thanks guys

[momoceio]

I like the SanDisk Sansa's...they're really nice MP3 players.

[Thasp]

Get the cowon A2.

 

It can be found for as low as $250, 4" screen, pretty slim, nice quality. Plays FLAC, Vorbis, MP3, xvid, xvid with ac3 audio.

 

Small screen video is a gimmick. I say this with experience in having these players, and in the long term reactions from people who have players with 1-2.5" screens. They suck. You can't watch TV or a movie on that. The 4" 16:9 screen on the cowon just about does it.

 

I can speak for sandisk sansa's flash player series, that is just for music. They were durable, reliable, easy to use.

 

I avoid Creative at all costs. From my knowledge, their players use MTP, not UMS. This locks you into specific methods of transferring files to your portable player. I put this on the same shelf I do HDCP, DRM, Windows Vista, and AACP. I refuse to pay money for something that will purposely limit how I will use it. It's one thing to be too lazy to code it to do something - it's another to actively recode it so it controls me.

 

Regardless of whatever issues I've had with the A2, it's an extension of me now. I can't make my morning bus/ferry/train trip without a TV show to watch. Music is nice, but the entertainment I get out of this thing is amazing. The price should drop even further as the company plans the A3. I've seen five seasons of 24, all of heroes, several seasons of law and order, most of house, grey's anatomy, six seasons of CSI LA, two or three of miami, five seasons of family guy, nine seasons of south park, three of the west wing, all on this device. Some I watched other places, but for the most part, I saw it on here.

 

There's always downtime in life. Whether I'm waiting for something at a job, taking public transportation, waiting for class to start, and in the last year I've managed to cram all that entertainment just into this downtime, excluding what I watch at home. Just the time I wait before I go out with people can be spent on a show or two. Good portable entertainment is worth its weight in gold, IMO.

[ollietwinam]

Thanks for the recommendation Thasp.

 

Can't find that for less than £240 in the UK though =

 

And an MP4 player is less important, I guess I've never really thought about it though.

 

I only put that in so people could still suggest the Sansa (which does play video, even though the screen is way too small for that) and other similar examples.

 

Guess I should have made that clearer.

 

I will look into the A2 more though, see if I can find it a bit cheaper

 

Thanks.

 

Any more suggestions?

[Thasp]

For music without video, I think the Rio Karma is king. It was discontinued a year ago, incase you are interested in it, and it is dirt cheap.

 

It came out in 2003, 20 gigs. It has gapless playback, a parametric EQ, MP3/FLAC/Vorbis. But this is nothing compared to the rest of what it can do. Tons of modern players lack a parametric EQ and gapless playback.

 

Of all the players I've used, it has by far the fastest navigation. Clickwheels pale in comparison to a physical wheel that has a button on it, plus a joystick. Seeking within songs is instant, loading the next song is *instant* due to smart buffering if you are scanning through a bunch of tracks, there is no lag time, it moves with you. You can scan with the wheel to exactly the second you want to hear in a song, and it loads the song quickly. It also logs each time you listen to a song so you can tell it to play songs you listen to in order of most played to least played, in order of what you've heard leas tin the last week, day, month, etc.

 

I wish I still had mine. Trying the sandisk, the cowon, and an iriver model feels like I am learning their interface and dealing with player lag/firmware. The Rio was an extension of my mind, if I wanted it to play something it was easy to find it, no lag, no latency, I could load a song up immediately without issue. The joystick is large and the wheel is at the top so I never had to take it out of my pocket to load new songs, and once I got the menus down pat, I never even had to take it out my pocket to load new albums.

 

I wish Rio hadn't gone out of business.

[kulo]

creative zen

[delemon]

I just recently ordered one from this site Uxcell.com. They have some Ipod knockoffs and several other variations. I should know in about 2 weeks or so how mine turned out. I ordered the black Glacier.

 

Here is a forum that deals with these guys so you can read up on issues (good and bad) that people are having. Personally, for <$60 for a 2GB flash based player with an FM tuner, decent sized screen, and the ability to use a Nokia cell battery (Glacier Model only), I figured I really couldn't go wrong.

 

I'll keep you updated once mine arrives.

[momoceio]

For music without video, I think the Rio Karma is king. It was discontinued a year ago, incase you are interested in it, and it is dirt cheap.

 

It came out in 2003, 20 gigs. It has gapless playback, a parametric EQ, MP3/FLAC/Vorbis. But this is nothing compared to the rest of what it can do. Tons of modern players lack a parametric EQ and gapless playback.

 

Of all the players I've used, it has by far the fastest navigation. Clickwheels pale in comparison to a physical wheel that has a button on it, plus a joystick. Seeking within songs is instant, loading the next song is *instant* due to smart buffering if you are scanning through a bunch of tracks, there is no lag time, it moves with you. You can scan with the wheel to exactly the second you want to hear in a song, and it loads the song quickly. It also logs each time you listen to a song so you can tell it to play songs you listen to in order of most played to least played, in order of what you've heard leas tin the last week, day, month, etc.

 

I wish I still had mine. Trying the sandisk, the cowon, and an iriver model feels like I am learning their interface and dealing with player lag/firmware. The Rio was an extension of my mind, if I wanted it to play something it was easy to find it, no lag, no latency, I could load a song up immediately without issue. The joystick is large and the wheel is at the top so I never had to take it out of my pocket to load new songs, and once I got the menus down pat, I never even had to take it out my pocket to load new albums.

 

I wish Rio hadn't gone out of business.

 

I bought a Karma...it died with less than 10 hours of use. Wasn't the HDD either...the firmware got all fuxored and it wouldn't let me re-flash it

[Thasp]

I went through over three of them.. HD death, headphone jack malfunction(something I have never NOT had in a portable unit, they are all soldered together like absolute garbage), wheel fell off, etc.

 

I still wish I went for a fourth. It was such a wonderful player. It wasn't an MP3 player, it was an extension of my head... I loved that.

 

As much as I loved that player, I still like video(not gimmick video, real video) too much to go back. Watching TV beats staring at the seat in front of me, or the person in front of me on the train/bus by a mile.

[Angry_Games]

just get an iPod

 

i am not really all that down with Apple nor their gimmicky crap, but when it comes to mp3 players, they are the leader, and their units have been through god-knows-how-many revisions and I have to put away my burning dislike of all things Apple long enough to tell you that you should just get an iPod and be like everyone else because they are really just the best.

 

my brother has two of them now and I've had to show him how to use them on Winamp (plug-in for it!) to be free of cRap-Tunes (iTunes for the apple lovers) and their ridiculous DRM crap.

 

We simply rip the cd's we buy (new and used ) and then load them up on the iPod. He's got a connector to his stereo in the truck that plugs his iPod right in, all that crap.

 

I don't have a portable mp3 player but if I was going to buy one, I wouldn't think about anything but an iPod honestly (and I hate them, and Apple, as I've mentioned a billion times)

[ollietwinam]

Wow thanks guys.

Yeah I reckon I'll go for the 8gB nano, seems the best option for me to be honest.

Thanks for all your feedback

[Thasp]

The look I got from people who own iPods when they saw me watching 24 at work on a 4", 16:9, decent res screen is always priceless. The look I get when I give them the price compared to their iPod is equally priceless.

 

Apple kicks butt at marketing, making good looking products, and making things easy. Beyond that... eh.