Advice on MP3 Players?

[mi_guida]

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.

Comments

[saf2285.livejournal.com]

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.

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

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.

[hildabeast.livejournal.com]

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...

[hildabeast.livejournal.com]

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