If I want an MP3 player but hate iTunes?

[Marc v4.0]

Dammit, I want that Data Pad!

[Bells]

You know... if you're willing to look around.... you can get some very nice options

That's when those Chinese knock-offs come in handy!

[PyrosNine]

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=8031581

I use this. It is cheap. It is relatively tiny. The only game it can play is tetris, and it's 'special' features include an international radio, a voice recorder (that can also record radio) small picture viewer, and small video player, and it holds 1 gig of memory.

It is the only MP3 player I will ever need.

While this may not be the best example of the mp3 player you should buy with your good money, consider this: You are buying it to listen to MUSIC, and are more likely to listen to music while walking to and fro or doing work, than you are playing games and watching vids, and aside from how much music it can hold and what headphones fit in it, all mp3 players play mp3's equally.

For me, what I use to organize my mp3's is I sort them by hand (metaphorically) and line them up as I choose, this is mostly because of all the redundant folders made from Itunes/WinAmp and the fact that I don't have any full cd sets of mp3s, instead sort them by genre on my pc, and even then loosely.

[Cid Highwind]

This isnt a bad idea, because for a program that is meant to primarily manage your music library, iTunes sure screws up your music library pretty badly.

[Gorefiend]

I'm on Vista nowadays (not as bad a groan as I expected, but the memory drag is very real) and I used to use iTunes. The problem I had is that I'm fairly certain it bricked my old iPod (it was old, but one stupid update and suddenly its bricked) and when I tried to get rid of it it had a tendency to crawl back from the dead in various ways. I hear that since then it also had a tendency to take over your computer's mp3-playing capabilities like it or not (on a PC), but partly it IS just laziness and the fact that I have two programs that do everything I want from iTunes already (Winamp and WMP) and don't want a third.

I had always wanted a Creative ZEN player, but nowadays I don't want a video player, just a music player, so I might go for the iPod or Zune (I'm not as religiously music-only as Krylo was in that thread/is). As for space, I have a LOT of music, and would appreciate as much as I can get. Ideally I would get something small and kinda light; something that fits in the inside-pocket of a jacket, or the like.

[TheSparrow]

Originally Posted by Lost in Time

I do enjoy my Zune very much, I watch a bunch of videos on the go, and the large screen helps a ton with that, when comparing it to the classic ipod, I enjoy the zune more. The software isn't the best, but it's not bad at least. But if you are one that enjoys legally downloading your music, I like the zune pass.

I had a Zune for exactly one day. In that day I discovered that the Zune insisted on erasing anything not on my computer. I checked Microsofts web site about it and it basically said that "our target market likes this, and if you dont, too damned bad, you dont get a choice" ...so I chose to get another Creative Zen instead. I started with the Zen Touch years ago, and now have the Zen Vision.

[Lost in Time]

Except for the fact that you do get a choice. You just choose not to link it to that computer and it won't erase anything