MP3 Player Suggestions?

[RedWolf]

Alright - I'm finally considering moving into the 21st century and buying a portable MP3 player.

For years I turned up my nose and thought that CD's were for REAL listening and MP3's were for casually playing on my PC. Why would I want a portable player?

However after discovering the joy of legal digital music purchases (www.puretracks.com) online I've found my collection of files growing and growing. Tradionally, I've always wanted music on a whim - "just THAT song" so this delivery method is very suitable. And the price - $1 per song is so insignificant it may as well be free.

So I've been looking at those cool little flash MP3/WMA players and have discovered that there are MANY different brands selling these things besides the traditional audio equipment manufacturers. I've never heard of most. The problem of course is that I now have nothing to measure their quality against (reliability and sound quality)

What do people here reccomend? I've been seriously considering both Creative and Sandisc - probably in the 512 or 1 gb size range. What have your experiences been (good and bad) with all of these different brands available?

What should I look for and consider? I know that I need one that supports WMA (DRM) and I'd prefer one with AAA batteries (or at the very least a removable battery back). I hate disposable electronics....

 

[nonconformist]

How capitalistic

The Creative Zen range is quite decent..good battery time etc, though I managed to fall off my bike and break mine.
I-river also do some good ones.

 

[farting bob]

I like the zen as well, and depending on your budget, i would say the sony walkman is very nice (big capacity, small, good looking) as well. I won the walkman, and love it.
Of course, theres the ipod, but they suck and everyone under the age of 25 owns one.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

My personal favourites are iRivers- they have good sound quality for an MP3 player.

Though there 20/40GB players are better than there smaller ones (I think).

EDIT: If you want, I can find you some model names.

 

[The Yankee]

I'm under 25 and I don't have an ipod! But I don't have an MP3 player either, aside from my craptastic desktop that has some files on it.

If I were to get one, I'd like it cheap, straightforward interface, and long battery life. The extras I won't care about.

 

[Keirador]

512 MB to 1 Gig? I fell for that too, at first. However many songs they claim to hold, they're lying. I tried four different smaller-sized MP3 players (Creative, Sandisk, Motorola, and Rio) and returned each one after less than a month. I finally caved in and shelled out the money for a 20 gig iPod. Never been happier about a purchase. Had some initial technical problems with it, but they're pretty good with customer support.

 

[farting bob]

I would say look at how many CD's you own. You#'ll want to put them all on this thing. Look at how many CD's you buy and how many songs you download a month.
If for exampl you come out at 1 gig of music, with 100mb a month added, go for at least 2.5gig
I used to own a 1.5gig rio, and i filled it up much quicker than i thought.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

I got a free 512 MB Ipod Shuffle as a gift from my workplace. I’m not too demanding so it does its job well but there are several potential problems with it. First and foremost, you cannot replace the Lithium-Ion battery by yourself. You have to send it in to Apple (depending on the warranty) and they will send a brand new one. It’s very wasteful. Second, there is no LCD screen so if you want to choose a specific song, you have to scan through your entire play list.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

I don't listen that regularly so I got a MP3-readable Sony portable CD player and burn MP3 CDs instead.

 

[WildFire]

Of course, theres the ipod, but they suck and everyone under the age of 25 owns one.

Great argument about why iPod's suck! I personally think the iPod is a lot better then the mp3 players out there on the market right now. At least, the iPod mini is.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

Ive used an iPod 20gb for a year now, youll need to buy new headphones if you want to enjoy the music properly but other than that Im happy about that purchase.

 

[nonconformist]

Great argument about why iPod's suck! I personally think the iPod is a lot better then the mp3 players out there on the market right now. At least, the iPod mini is.

:shakehead And I thought you were better than that.

 

[RedWolf]

512 MB to 1 Gig? I fell for that too, at first. However many songs they claim to hold, they're lying. I tried four different smaller-sized MP3 players (Creative, Sandisk, Motorola, and Rio) and returned each one after less than a month. I finally caved in and shelled out the money for a 20 gig iPod. Never been happier about a purchase. Had some initial technical problems with it, but they're pretty good with customer support.

Honestly - I don't have THAT much music... Although it's not ALL going to fit on a 512 or 1 gig I know that I can get a pretty good variety on there - I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with it as long as it sounds relatively good.

I have at this time less than 100 digital music files... I maybe download 5 - 10 a month. Add to that my CD's that I own (a lot more but I like far from all of the songs on every CD) and I figure I'll be ok.

Besides I'm not THAT big of a music person - this is more for when I'm on trips, doing laundry at the laundramat etc... I'm simply not willing to pay the prices for the Hard Drive machines so for me it's these or nothing.

 

[RedWolf]

I like the zen as well, and depending on your budget, i would say the sony walkman is very nice (big capacity, small, good looking) as well. I won the walkman, and love it.
Of course, theres the ipod, but they suck and everyone under the age of 25 owns one.

I love the looks of the sony flash players but I have two problems with them - steep PC system requirements due to the compression they use - otherwise transfer is slow... (I also have an old decrepid PC). Also they don't play DRM WMA's... Which means all my purchased files have to be burned to a CD in WAV format... and then ripped to MP3 format. Pain in the arse.

 

[Keirador]

Don't flash players lack accesable internal organization? Meaning that if you want to find a particular song, you actually have to scroll through ALL of them individually until you find the right one?

 

[farting bob]

It depends on the product keirdor. Most of the good players now organise into albums, artists, genres, playlists (usually compiled on PC and moved across) or individual tracks.

Dont get something without a screen. The apple shuffle may be cheap and small enough to float away in a stiff breeze, but for those times when you want an artist, or a particular song, searching through 100 or so others before you find it will be a pain.

 

[Gabryel Karolin]

Also remember that when the companies advertise about how many songs fit into their mp3-players they mean songs in mp3 format. You dont want mp3 format, its very bad quality.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

Also remember that when the companies advertise about how many songs fit into their mp3-players they mean songs in mp3 format. You dont want mp3 format, its very bad quality.

They also mean at 128kbs.

I have everything on CD (a very substantial collection), but rip it all to my PC at 320kbs MP3 (I know I can get better quality sound, and I normally would only go for the best, but until I get my PC hooked up to my amp there is no point as the speakers aren't up to it).

320kbs is also convenient for calculations- 1 minute = around 1mb.

I figured I would need two 60 gig players for all of my music, and I would want all of it, as I love all of my music, so I don't have one at the minute, though I used to own an iRiver, and it was fantastic (I sold it, as I kept wanting to change the songs on it and I needed the cash).

 

[nonconformist]

128 kbs is fine-I've noticed no drop in quality at all.

 

[I am the Future]

I would go all out and buy a iPod

I couldnt live without mine