Buying a new MP3 player. Suggestions?

[MC_Kejml]

So, my old THOMSON LYRA 2601, which I had for two long years, finally died ( RIP ), and now I'm deciding to buy a new music player.

 

 

 

First, I was searching for the lyra succesor, also from THOMSON, with same design, and with 2GB. I didn't succed and searching, since thomson stopped making these players. Dunno why, they seemed pretty good to me :notalk:

 

 

 

Secondly, I was thinking about EVOLVE DREAM 2GB, but got convinced by a friend to buy a EU3C INFINITY V500 2GB. That one simply DRAINED MY BLOOD with it's touchpad. I mean, when I put a player into my pocket, I don't want to switch 5 songs forward/back ?

 

Sure, you may argument with the "Block" function, but after a full minute of adjusting volume to suit my needs, do I need a "default" volume to rip my ears off and not being able to do anything with it?

 

(/angry)

 

 

 

So, today I've changed it for a EU3C INFINITY V100 2GB, since it had no goddamned touchpad, but simple buttons.

 

I'm currently uploading songs into it and frankly, I HOPE it'll do.

 

 

 

I may change it too, though :/

 

Which player would you have, if you hate touchpads and are not a rich person? Also, when you want a clear menu from which I can manage folders and choose songs?

 

 

 

Thx

 

 

 

EDIT: The V100 is crap.

[D Jay99]

I personally have a Creative Zen 4GB, and it's great. Easy selecting songs/playlists, some kind of joystick instead of a touchpad and two convenient 'back' and 'play' buttons. The joystick thing makes it able to skip/repeat a song even while the player is in your pocket.

 

 

 

The volume button is on the right side, easy to use even while the player is in your pocket too.

 

You can also put photos on it (altough it has terrible quality) and you can record conversations and other stuff. Making a playlist is best done with the computer program you have to install, but if you want to make your fingers feel numb from all the clicks you can do it on the player itself too. The program you get with it can be a bit buggy sometimes (randomly shuts down once in a while), but it's easy to use.

 

 

 

I can really recommend it, here's a link: Creative Zen V

[Sbrideau]

Sandisk Sansa MP3 players are very good as well, I'm very satisfied with the one I have. You can also choose different Sansa models as well, the one I have is a 250, which is 2Gbs, but there are some with 5 as well.

[highlanders]

You have a lot of choices available to you. There's a lot of good stuff being made with flash memory(2-16GB).

 

 

 

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/7

 

Cowon has smooth and "warm" sound. You can play with the settings and get all sorts of effects done to the sound. Great battery life: 60 hours. You can look through their products, most of them are good.

 

 

 

http://www.iriver.com/product/p_detail.asp?pidx=82

 

Iriver is a pretty good company. Their best product is the Clix 2. Great sound, beautiful screen, overall very good.

 

 

 

http://us.creative.com/products/welcome ... tegory=213

 

Creative has a lot of good products. Most notably the Zen, the Zen W, and the Zen X-Fi. All of their Mp3s have good sound but these three are best. The Zen X-Fi has a new sound technology in it, but you can only really see the difference with very good earphones. X-Fi has more of a "crisp" sound, say compared to Cowon who has more of a warmth to it.

 

 

 

http://www.zune.net/en-us/products/zune ... efault.htm

 

There's the microsoft Zune. It's good, but not better that some of the others I mention above. It's similar, and also very good. You can customize the back, get a picture or a message engraved, which is nice.

 

 

 

http://www.sandisk.com/sansa/

 

Sansa has two notable good players: the clip and the fuze. Both are good, and very cheap for the quality you get. You won't get the same degree of "polish" as say another player mentioned above. But you get great quality if you're on a low budget.

 

 

 

That's basically what's on the scene right now. Btw, these players sound better, work without Itunes, and do more than Ipods.

[das1330]

Instead of getting an Ipod knockoff, why not just get an actual Ipod nano? They are a bit more expensive, but they come with 8 to 16GB of space and are famous for working very well with few technical problems. Video output is excellent, as is support and the player's finish and overall quality. Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

[Sbrideau]

Instead of getting an Ipod knockoff, why not just get an actual Ipod nano? They are a bit more expensive, but they come with 8 to 16GB of space and are famous for working very well with few technical problems. Video output is excellent, as is support and the player's finish and overall quality. Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

 

 

 

Isn't that reason called Advertising? I found any MP3 players to be as good as Ipods for less.

[highlanders]

Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

 

That's like saying the US voted for George Bush, so George Bush must be an intelligent man. Most people are stupid and jump on bandwagons. The Mp3 players I suggest have better battery life than ipods, better screens, better sound, better price, FM radio, that's all there is to know.

[das1330]

better battery life than ipods,

 

Apple - 34 hours of audio playback under normal human conditions on the Ipod touch, as reported by several separate review websites.

 

 

 

Samsung claims 15 hours of playback (under laboratory conditions).

 

 

 

Microsoft claims 24 hours of playback on their Zune (under laboratory conditions)

 

 

 

Creative claims 30 hours of playback on their X-FI player with the radios disabled (again, laboratory conditions)

 

 

 

Iriver claims 24 hours of playback on their clicks player (once again under laboratory conditions)

 

 

 

 

 

the only company that even CLAIMS to beat is apple in battery life is Cowon, with this statement : "Up to 60 hours (Based on company test result) ". Even then, that is hopelessly optimistic. Once again, this claim was made based on laboratory conditions which is based on a hand selected battery and that the user never presses a button, with the screen never activating - that estimate is at least 25% longer then the battery life a normal user would get.

 

 

 

better screens

 

 

 

Screens on the smaller, cheaper players are very similar - almost all are 240 X 320 LCD or OLED screens. Even then, Ipod nanos are well known as having better color saturation in their screens then other competing players of the same size. If you get into larger, more expensive players (as you cited as better then an Ipod) the Apple equivalent the Ipod touch/Iphone has a larger, brighter screen with both a higher resolution and better color saturation.

 

 

 

better sound

 

 

 

the ONLY point you may have. Cowon makes one or two players with (supposedly) slightly better audio processors and thus slightly better sound, but if it requires 300 dollar headphones to hear it, what's the point? I own a pair of Shure E5's and even with those plugged in I could tell no difference between an Ipod and a Cowon player.

 

 

 

better price

 

Again, the only players with a price advantage are cheaper ones competing for a different market, with less features, storage space and a cheaper finish. For instance, two of the players you cited were the Zen X-FI and the Zune - at their price they compete directly with the Ipod touch, witch is a vastly superior product with a better screen and many more features including a full featured web browser, a map system and a thriving market where you can easily find or make an application that does just about anything you could need. The only players that DO compete based on specs with a lower price point then Apple come from unknown companies that may or may not be in business next week and non-existent customer support. For a 50$ difference in price I would take the Ipod - If the thing breaks inside of a year or two it gets fixed no questions asked, and if it breaks again I get a new one.

 

 

 

FM radio

 

 

 

Honestly, how many times have you EVER listened to the radio on an MP3 player?

 

 

 

 

 

With your comment

It's good, but not better that some of the others I mention above.

(referring to the Zune) I wonder if the biggest criteria with picking a "good" MP3 player in your opinion is one that is not bought by anyone else - your two least favorite players are the Ipod and the Zune, numbers one and two in the MP3 player market.

 

 

 

do more than Ipods

 

 

 

Find me ONE player that has more features then the Ipod touch, for a reasonable price - that is a full open system for creating and adding programs much like a PC that allows you to do whatever you want.

 

 

 

work without Itunes

Itunes is one of the best music manager programs out right now. Even if you don't like it for some reason, Ipods work just fine with a number of paid as well as free open source programs developed both for it and including plugins to insure compatibility with it. If you like it very basic, five minutes of searching on google will reveal a few quick settings you can change to allow you to use the player stone-age style IE by copying and pasting songs directly into the player's music directory.

[sloter]

Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

 

That's like saying the US voted for George Bush, so George Bush must be an intelligent man. Most people are stupid and jump on bandwagons. The Mp3 players I suggest have better battery life than ipods, better screens, better sound, better price, FM radio, that's all there is to know.

 

Not that i stand for apple or anything but, there media players(ipods) are good. I still have the original nano i bought a few years ago and i run rockbox on on it and it still runs solid. I see what your saying with the "bandwagons" though i know exactly what you mean too. I guess that if mine wouldn't have lasted as long as it has and was a piece of [cabbage] then i would be on your side. I am not and i think you better do you homework before you go off posting that they suck.

[highlanders]

Lol, look at you sniper, kissing apple's [wagon]. Blow a bubble of air and make it pop, that's about the worth of your "arguments". Go on, keep living in your lalala world: Apple is the only company capable of making Mp3 players, and itunes is the best software ever forced upon you. See, we agree now. I'm going to keep buying my good Mp3s, and listen to good music, and you get to keep being stupid.

[das1330]

Lol, look at you sniper, kissing apple's [wagon]. Blow a bubble of air and make it pop, that's about the worth of your "arguments".

 

 

 

Find one flaw in what I posted; you made several unsubstantiated comments and I proved that you were wrong. I don't see how any of them are somehow incorrect. Perhaps before you start making up random things you should research a bit first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go on, keep living in your lalala world: Apple is the only company capable of making Mp3 players

 

 

 

Correction: Apple is the only company capable of making GOOD MP3 players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

itunes is the best software ever forced upon you.

 

 

 

I don't, and never have used Itunes. If you had bothered to read my post you would have learned that there are dozens of other programs available that work well with the Ipod.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See, we agree now. I'm going to keep buying my good Mp3s

 

 

 

You mean the MP3 players that, despite being inferior, you buy anyway because it makes you "different".

 

 

 

 

 

 

and listen to good music, and you get to keep being stupid.

 

 

 

Which one of the 7000 songs I have loaded on to my Iphone is stupid?

[Sbrideau]

 

 

Go on, keep living in your lalala world: Apple is the only company capable of making Mp3 players

 

 

 

Correction: Apple is the only company capable of making GOOD MP3 players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, just no. There are a lot of companies making good mp3 players. Just depends on what we want in them.

[MC_Kejml]

Well, about the iPod. I have no objections as to whether it is a good player, however, I had a player with the same design "EU3C INFINITY V100" and the volume correcting was just bad and hard to do :/

 

Also, the price is very, very high. I wouldn't be able to afford it :(

 

 

 

But, you were also talking about CREATIVE ZENS. Those appear pretty good at first glance, so I'll need some more hints about them. Like if the browsing is easy, if the volume can be adjusted easily, etc.

 

My fav are ATM:

 

 

 

Creative ZEN mosaic 2 gb

 

http://www.alza.cz/Galery/ShowImage.asp ... &cd=JC001b

 

 

 

Creative ZEN 2 gb

 

http://www.alza.cz/Galery/ShowImage.asp ... &cd=JC011x

 

 

 

and I'd include even the ZEN plus one, but that didn't reach our country yet :(

 

 

 

So, is there someone that can tell me about these 2 ? :)

[highlanders]

The reviews for the mosaic weren't so great. I saw a video of it, it's a bit bulky, and nothing we haven't seen before.

 

 

 

The Zen though, is very good, it's mostly appraised for sound quality. If you want to see how the buttons work, etc, just type creative zen in youtube, there's a few interesting videos.

 

 

 

Found this video looking quickly: http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/t ... 21075.html

 

 

 

 

 

Apple is the only company capable of making GOOD MP3 players.

 

Correction: You're delusional.

[sloter]

I know the original poster had good intentions on this thread and in no way meant for his thread to turn out like this. Could a mod lock this cause all this is, is flame wars.

[MC_Kejml]

Yeah, I guess :( I've already found what I needed to know.

[MC_Kejml]

Ok, I've bought the ZEN and it definitely is good. Thank you all for your advice!

[Latinoking]

Don't buy crap, just go buy an ipod nano. I drop it, it fell in water, and I keep it on almost all the time. Yup it's good.

[stevepole]

I just got the new ipod touch 16gb and its sweet. I personally got it for all of its features. The battery is good, the apps are fun, easy to use. The internet is a plus because I can mess around with it in big lecture classes.

[thrash-boy]

why do so many people hate ipods? they do more than most players for a way better price.

 

 

 

after having my ipod i will only ever buy ipods again.

[Laura]

Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

 

That's like saying the US voted for George Bush, so George Bush must be an intelligent man. Most people are stupid and jump on bandwagons. The Mp3 players I suggest have better battery life than ipods, better screens, better sound, better price, FM radio, that's all there is to know.

 

George Bush didn't get the popular vote, so it's not the best comparison. But seriously, iPods would be your best choice imo. Yes it is a bit more expensive, but the features, durability, customer support (it's Apple, you're going to get much better CS than any one else in the MP3 market), availability of applications and supportive formats well cover the price.

 

 

 

EDIT: Sorry, must have skipped that you already bought the ZEN. :wall:

[robin105]

I don't know if this still works, but a long time ago you could buy Mp3s from ebay for a REALLY cheap price! And they worked GREAT! They were 100 dollar Mp3s, lowered to like 20-30 bucks...

[Deathmath]

Instead of getting an Ipod knockoff, why not just get an actual Ipod nano? They are a bit more expensive, but they come with 8 to 16GB of space and are famous for working very well with few technical problems. Video output is excellent, as is support and the player's finish and overall quality. Despite what many people on tipit say, there IS a good reason that Apple controls 95% of the MP3 player market.

 

 

 

I disagree in most cases, but the new nano IS great.

[Deathmath]

 

 

Go on, keep living in your lalala world: Apple is the only company capable of making Mp3 players

 

 

 

Correction: Apple is the only company capable of making GOOD MP3 players.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, just no. There are a lot of companies making good mp3 players. Just depends on what we want in them.

 

 

 

Yeah... In general ipods are high quality low feature, and sort of the Sony Betamax approach. The only ipod i would consider is the new nano or maybe the new touch. Still many companies (ex cowon sansa zen samsung) are awesome.

[KoolKingsey]

Get the new nano like me, it can hold videos, games, songs, podcasts, photos.

 

 

 

but if you don't want anything too fancy, go for a sandisk