mi_guida | Advice on MP3 Players?

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Advice on MP3 Players?

I freely admit that I know nothing about MP3 players. Usually for technological things I don't understand I'd turn to my father, but given he's just bought himself a new record player, he knows less than I do.

Here's the situation:

I currently own a 64MB player, which will take around 15 tracks, or one album. It's a dear little thing, but pretty feeble really.

I would like to own a larger one that actually carries sensible amounts of music. I have 7.3GB on my computer; the question of how much I want to carry round is probably semi-answered by... What sizes of memory do these things come in? And for how much?

Also, which makes are good/bad/realiable/hold battery charge/anything else I ought to be asking?

You are all wise people, and if you can offer any advice, or point me towards any website offering advice, I would be very very grateful.

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4GB and 6GB are the normal ones. They do go up from there though.

Cliche as it sounds, I'd recommend an iPod. Whatever you do, do NOT buy a Sony system. The software they come with is bloody awful, and they're full of bugs. The device to slow and uncommunicative, and I really hate mine. The battery life isn't bad, so long as you don't skip through songs though.

A friend recommended a Creative player to me, but I've never used one so can't comment. Apparently they're a bit cheaper than iPods, but I can't vouch for how useable it is.

But please, oh please, don't get a Sony.

Creative are good, slightly more reliable hardware, but the user interface is a total b0rkfest, on the other hand Apple support for ipods is atrocious so if anything does go wrong you are screwed, but don't know hogood creative are for that either.

Overall, the ipods UI works and makes sense and is easy, which counts for more all other things being equal.

i've got a few friends with iPods who seem to spend their lives getting them fixed... i bought mine from amazon, it's this one, it's 256MB which is about 124 songs and was only £15. or you can get 512MB ones (250 songs) for £24. which IMHO is waaaaaay better than what you pay for an iPod. it uses batteries though, so i bought rechargeable ones and a charger (if you get them on amazon too they're really cheap), but i needed one anyway cos my mouse uses batteries too.

the downside is obv. that you can't have as many songs as on an iPod, so i just pick my favourites or make playlists to put on it and keep switching them round, and it doesn't bother me at all. but then i didn't have any music player at all beforehand, and just wanted some music for work & holiday, whereas you might want something that you can fit more of your music on...

also, i forgot, my favourite thing about it is the screen background changes colour when you click anything - it's really pretty :)

I'd recommend one like my Samsung. It's tiny, it's shiny, and it works like a USB pen (ie just drag and drop files onto it, there is no need at all for complicated software or things being fixed - you can indeed use it as an USB file carrying device generally). In addition you can change the external colour and make it RED. Mine is 1/2 GB, which doesn't look much compared to an IPod, but is I think 6 hours of music - and the battery only lasts for 10 hours so you've got to plug it into the computer and charge it then anyway and you can change the music then. It also comes in a 1 GB version. I have no idea what it cost however, as the gorgeous Duncan gave it to me. In fact, I may just be sending this to brag about the fact that Duncan gave it to me. How dull. But, in my defense, I had very little sleep last night. Was on a sleeper train. I was going to actually put something on my own LJ but I can't be arsed (this may be a theme with the dear thing). Ah, my washing may be done. Goodbye.

Mine's an 'MPman', just a cheap one, 1gig memory - it does me fine, I've got no real complaints about it, and to use it, you just drag music files onto the icon, same as moving files about on your PC...

tbh, I think that more than 1gig is unneccesary (sp?) for music, mine fits about 10/15 albums on, and I can't see ever needing more than that... if you want videos etc, you might want more, but otherwise, IMHO, it's really just an extravagance.

Neil's Generic Advice:

If you're going to be away from a computer for appreciable times, or keep your music collection derives mainly from purchases and downloads then get a high capacity player (as a backup, although even if you do have the CDs it's still a drag to rerip everything).

If you purchase a lot from iTunes then get an iPod as this is the only play (that I am aware of) that can play iTunes tracks. However you can't* take music off an iPod, so its not so useful as a backup.

*Actually I imagine you can, but as far as I know the file storage and music playing components are seperate therefore meaning that if you want to both transfer and listen to music you need to haver two copies stored.

Anyway - so says the man who has neither an mp3 player nor an iPod. (Well, my phone will play mp3's and my brother has an iPod so I'm not a complete ignoramus).

How do you mean 'take tunes off itunes'? I can drag from itunes and drop into mine's directory, and it's not an ipod...

I mean those tracks one has purchased which have the protected coding on them.

"purchased"?

Ummmmm....

I'll take your word for it.

Purchased from the iTunes Music Store, that is.

I have a 20GB iRiver, and love it dearly. Like

half_of_monty's Samsung, there's no need for specialised software to take things on and off - you just use standard file-copying commands. As well as simplicity, this has the advantage that they can't tie you down with evil Digital Rights Management (spit!) restrictions. The interface isn't quite as shiny as an iPod (no clickwheel, but I think they have something similar on later models). Claimed battery life is 16 hours - I don't think it's that good in practice, but you may remember that I left it running overnight once and still had half the battery left in the morning. I see that this place are selling the 20GB model for £139 - you might be able to do better elsewhere, or on eBay.

As for capacity, big is definitely good, for all the reasons that

neoanjou says. Frankly, I wish I had the 40GB model.

Another point in the iRiver's favour is the unrivalled number of different formats it will play - mp3, ogg, wav, wma, and a couple of others, if memory serves. I don't think it will play DRMed tracks from iTunes, though.

I also like the built-in FM radio.

Not unrivalled - my Samsung plays those formats too! After all, the thing was chosen by Duncan. (Actually not sure about wma, never had one. Nor about itunes, ditto.) And it has a built in radio. And it's shiny and RED. So nerr!

I did actually have a point, though, which was the headphones that the things come with are typically shite. If you're spending 100 quid on the player, spend an extra tenner on some comfy headphones with decent quality sound. Big difference.

I keep logging on with the intention of updating my own LJ... I will now think about actually doing that.

WMA is Windows Media Audio - it's the default ripping format for Windows Media Player. I've had occasional need for it, but I'm guessing you live in an entirely Linux-based computing environment now.

I've always converted all my WMA tracks (And set WMP to rip as mp3) so that's not a problem, really.

I think I'd probably get the 20GB one. One query: With an iRiver, does it come with charger? Or would I have to add the cost of buying that separately to the cost of case and decent headphones?

The other option is that I get a smaller one and just cycle my music onto it... it's semi-birthday present, so I suppose it depends on cost a bit.

Yes, it comes with a charger and a leather case - well, mine did, at least. And the headphones that came with it were pretty decent, but your mileage may vary.

Mother is in favour of the 20GB idea, so I'm going with that size (slowly making decisions, huzzah!). The place you linked to - does that look to you like it comes with charger and case? I couldn't make out that it did, but maybe I'm missing something...

I have no idea, I'm afraid - mine came from Hong Kong. You could email them and ask...

Sounds like a plan. This is why I dislike internet shopping - I seem to lose all my logical faculties (all the more so when shopping for things I don't know much/anything about!).

That website wouldn't let me email them to ask questions unless I had an account number or order number, gah.

However, this definitely comes with a case and computer charger - in technical llanguage, does "Power supply unit" mean a mains charger, or a battery?

Sorry about all the questions...

I've had my iPod for an age now, and I think it is the best one on the market for easy of use and the like. I've also found no issue with battery life.

If you do get an ipod remember apple give you some money off as a student if you shop through apple.procureweb.ac.uk which also helped.

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