MP3 Players

[Krylo]

Then I'd suggest the creative zen sleek. No video, just music, and you get 20 gigs. It's about a hundred bucks. Least at the only place I could find it (E-Bay's buy it now section)

OR, get one of their smaller models or the rio one. They all run you well under the 100 dollar tag.

[Loki, The Fallen]

I've always had good luck with Sony products, and have used thier 'Walkman' devices for years. My current music player is thier Walkman NW-E005F. No problems as of yet. Things pretty durable (Only way my old one died was I had some weird urge to bathe it in fruit juice. Electronics and sugary juices don't mix.) A major difference between the iPods, it can only hold 2 Gb of data.

The other big plus for me is this unit's lack of required cables. No extra batteries, it charges/transfers through a built-in USB plug on it. Something I like because I have more then enough wires floating around my room as it is. And it's small! Like, about the size of a set of keys. If it didn't have a wire attached to my ears, I'd likely lose the darn thing in my pockets. I think that's a plus, but some may not. (Friend of mine hates tiny music players, wants something he wont lose.)

Some downsides, Sonic Stage (it's transfer software, required, because sony loves it's copy protection and hates drag and drop) can be picky about your music files, but I have only had one file ever refuse to transfer. That, and it doesn't like you installing the software on multiple PCs for multiple music sources. (More copy protection stuff.) Thankfully, after reading Wiki, I discovered they have other software options. (Odds are it voids warrenties and some such, but what doesn't these days?) That, and the price is right at around $80. (Odds are it's cheeper now. That was like 3 months ago.)

Well, it's worked for me, and I've had no real issues with any of my Sony products I have purchased (Game systems excluded.). Thought I'd throw it out there.

[Zilla]

^ That's the one I had. I did have some troubles with a few tracks that were in .wma format (ripping from CD's with Windows Media Player) sometimes skipping in areas, and a few times the thing would copy the files but refuse to play them with a big flashing "CANNOT PLAY" in the window.

The only other thing that bugged me about it was how difficult it was to navigate to certain songs. It's a linear progression of songs that you have to scroll through with a button press for each song, or you can switch to folder mode and skip folders based on how you organize it with the Sonic Stage program. Sometimes I'd put it on shuffle just to get to another section.

Also, Sonic Stage didn't work on 2 of the PC's I tried it on, but worked on the 3rd PC I tried installing it on. (weird, you'd think it'd be the first one that worked and the subsequent ones that don't).

For it's upsides, it has crazy good battary life if you turn off the backlight, it is VERY small and portable, and it's design lets you operate it pretty easily without seeing it. It's pretty cheap comparatively.

When I first got it, I had volume problems with it (it was very very quiet), but it seemed to improve over time (maybe my hearing got better?) Now I can't have it above a quarter volume or it starts getting rediculously loud (though my friends seem to need it to be that loud, go figure.)

[synkr0nized]

I used to be all about iRiver, but they started sucking before I ran out of room on my player. Back before I got my video-capable iPod, I remember comparing the features and whatever with Dell's player, Creative's, and some other brand (the Zune was not out yet). Overall, I decided that Apple's product had more positives than negatives for me.

I guess all I'd say is if you were really concerned with whether or not you made the "right" decision, compare what your player can do with others you might get and see which one comes out on top when aligned with your preferences.

For me, for example, I considered the increased cost for less storage in solid-state players (flash memory, etc.) to be a huge negative vs. hard disk players. Others might prefer to be able to take their player through an earthquake without skips instead of more storage space.

I've seen the Zen - an undergrad in our lab has one. I asked her how she likes it and its features and messed with some of the buttons, and it seems like a pretty solid player. I wouldn't be surprised if it had good reviews.

The Zune looks neat, but I've yet to meet someone who has one. It really hurts a product's reputation if no one seems to have one.

[DFM]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Others might prefer to be able to take their player through an earthquake without skips instead of more storage space.

Wait, is skipping a problem with MP3 Players?

[42PETUNIAS]

With players with a hard disk, like most ipods, it can be. It isn't always the skipping that is the problem, but it can lead to the player breaking down if it's moving around alot. You can also see this in things like laptops if you move them around alot while they're running.

[synkr0nized]

Technically, jostling your hard disk based player can cause skips that wouldn't occur with solid-state memory. I got into an argument about how I felt it was silly to pay about the same price for a player that had something like a tenth of a HDD player in terms of storage, and the biggest thing mentioned was the lack of skips for running, biking, etc. But most players have skip protection of some kind, or so I think, and you can also get those straps to have it around your arm or some such to keep it from moving. *shrug* I suppose it adds to wear-and-tear due to the moving parts inside being more susceptible to damage of any kind than players without those parts.

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

I can't begin to imagine why you decided to go into a thread I started specifically to ask for recommendations on non-iPod MP3 players to tell people that there are fucking non-iPod MP3 players, only to say that you don't actually know anything whatsoever about said non-iPod MP3 players.

Warned for spam and oh yeah, that other rule we have:

Ahn.... actually... i do know quite a bit, as a thought it was expressed by my previous post which contained this link here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari..._media_players

Which basicly is every single bit of info on every single bit of MP3 player out there today... i just mentioned that because most of the time i only see people mentioning iPOD's...

What i couldnt Find was a fixed price tag (after a thin 30 minutes of "lookage") or hard info about if they -are- as good as they -sound- on that link... as i dotn own any of those Players

Also, i own one of these Foston thingies:


2gb, MP3 - WMA only, that is worth around 40~60USD , good enough for me, but as far as i know they arent sold on the US (at least not on Stores) so i cant really recomend...

I always though it was somewhat of a weird thing that people keep on coming for iPOD regardless of Love or Hating it (and many hate it), so i express it... but either way, Warning dully noted