My main problem with these MP3 players is the annoying amount of time needed to load songs on them. It’s cool if you only use it once in awhile, but I go to the gym almost every day, and I don’t want to have to start up my computer, fiddle with the USB cable, and so on, just to have a change of tunes.
With me, it has to be either a huge hard-drive player or a MP3 CD player, and the overwhelming price difference made me shy away from HD players.
Mp3 CD players ARE nice, I own one myself, but the time to burn a CD is comparable to the time it takes to load up a card or player via USB 2.0, no? Plus you don’t have the issue with the CDs being scratched, the odd skip, the moving parts and the reduced battery life due to driving the CD spinner.
I heart my iPod.
It’s a one-shot deal. Now I have a small stack of discs that hold dozens and dozens of albums. If I’m in the mood for Bossa Nova, I can grab a ready-made disc with eight good Bossa albums on it.
Besides, my burner will do 8 albums in 5 minutes. My experience with downloading to a flash memory player over USB was much slower than that (YMMV).
I used to look on these MP3 CD players with disdain when I used the flash memory device. Bought one for a plane trip when I wanted more music than my regular MP3 player would hold and I was really impressed with how much less of a hassle it was. Haven’t used the MP3 player since.
I go through a pair of AAs every week or so.
Ok. I’ll shut up now.
FYI USB 2.0 (not 1.0) is crazy fast. I copy files onto my Sandisk almost as fast as to my hard drive.
Do any of the devices mentioned play .ogg files? The vast majority of my music has been ripped to Ogg Vorbis, it just sounds better, but there don’t seem to be too many players that can handle it.
iRivers support it, I think. Most others don’t.
I think for exercise you need either a flash-based MP3 player or maybe a MiniDisc player, preferably the new HD-MD format, as that’ll get you quite a lot of storage. Yes, minidisc isn’t very popular, and Sony does stupid DRM things (most of which have work-arounds), but in my experience the thing is skip-proof, and optical reading means you won’t have the potential effects you might get on a hard drive. I got myself a NetMD player before I was given an iPod, and the ability to download quickly through USB2 instead of having to deal with all the importing in real-time and track control in the player itself and the like was nice. Plus, you can get one with an AM/FM/VHF/WB tuner, which might be of interest. I was getting roughly 5:1 compression with the minidisc; that is, I could fit five albums on a single minidisc.
I also have a Rio Forge that I got for $150 with $100 in various rebates. Nice. I only listen to audio books and those don’t need to be very high quality, so a LOT fits on its little drive. I also like the memory expandability and the arm band.
I have an older Rio Sport that I like. It came with 256MB and I used a 512MB flash card for plenty of tunage. It’s small and tough.
It doesn’t seem compatible with my iTunes downloads, though? Anybody know what’s up with that?
I use the iPodmini.