I would recommend the Sansa View, with reservations. SanDisk has 3 players, the Fuse, the Clip, and the View. The View is described on site as the “best value”, meaning it has some bugginess. Their firmware updates suck, and I’ve had problems with all my friggin’ files disappearing at random (thankfully, this happened only twice, and yes, that was sarcasm). The UI could stand to be improved, as well, but that’s likely the same for all 3.
Judging by comments on the forum, both the Clip and the Fuse have better functionality/less problems, but both have much smaller capacities.
All in all, I’m glad I switched from an Ipod. The battery life was ridiculously short (can it really lose that much charge even though it’s off and locked?), I hated not being able to move music easily from the player to the computer, and even with the student discount, it was pretty expensive. Also, I’m not fond of Itunes.
I have no idea how Sansa’s stuff compares to Creative Zen.
That’s a pretty weak excuse though. Statistically speaking, chances are it will be fine. On the off chance it ships broken, a reputable online retailer should be able to exchange it the same way a brick-and-mortar store would - yeah you’d have to ship it back and wait longer, but you probably won’t have to do that anyway.
If it stops working after the acceptable return-date, well, we’re talking about something that costs less than $100 (many very reasonably priced suggestions in this thread). I’m as cheap as they come, but give me a fucking break. Even my car only came with a 3-year warranty.
To the OP: just buy one of these perfectly good, cheap-ass players online, and kindly shut the fuck up.
I’m not sure what’s hard about an iPod. I’ve got an 80 GB one, I think it’s one generation old now. I use iTunes to rip all my CDs and iTunes Music Store buy all my new music. I plug my iPod into my computer and everything syncs automatically. Then I unplug the iPod and listen to it, either with the headphones or by plugging it into my JBL dock with speakers. I’ve never had anything go haywire, other than maybe a couple of times the iPod has frozen up for some reason and I’ve had to reboot it.
In my experience, it couldn’t possibly be any easier.
I bought my Creative Zen Vision 3 years ago and it’s my favorite electronic toy ever. It’s 30 gig, which isn’t so hot nowadays but it’s sufficient for me, and I can sync it through WMP. Getting my iPod stolen was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Did they ever add an adjustable equalizer to the iPod, or did they stick with the presets?
Best Buy seems to carry the Sansa Fuse (8 gb) in stores. They don’t appear to carry carry the larger capacity View though. You might ask them about returning malfunctioning online purchases directly to their physical store.
When I bought my Sansa e260 (e280?) a few years ago from Best Buy, they were branding themselves with the Rhapsody software Sansa uses. I guess they’ve pulled back from that since I’d otherwise be surprised not to see the flagship Sansa mp3 player available in stores.
You’re lucky…we’ve had both his iPods freeze up without warning several times, and every transaction with iTunes is fraught with disaster (not to mention the fact that iTunes likes to launch itself at every available opportunity). It’d be great if you could use a different program to sync the iPod…but you can’t. Meanwhile you can use just about any program you like to sync and load the el cheapo MP3 players–maybe even iTunes, though I haven’t tried it. In addition, the el cheapo MP3 players have never frozen.
I realize that many consider iTunes-exclusive compatibility to be a feature, not a bug, but I don’t see how less compatibility is more desirable.
A frozen ipod is easily reset by holding the Menu and center button. It takes 10 seconds. I’d also immediately stop syncing the ipod - that’s 95% of your problem right there. Finally, I’d make sure you know where your son is downloading music from - most people who have havoc wreaked on their itunes library have been adding music from pretty strange sources.
Sure you can. Every “I hate iTunes” thread is lousy with alternative selections. Regardless, your desire for an AM/FM tuner is going to eliminate any ipod. I’ve never understood why Apple doesn’t include a tuner in any of their stuff.
Yes, damn Apple for forcing their competitors to make inferior products and/or having a better marketing campaign such that it is not viable for retailers to carry much besides iPods! And damn those retailers for not choosing to carry MP3 players that no one else wants to buy just because some guy is too much of a luddite to buy things online!
If you used to sell them, surely you should know that there are several different programs that you can use in place of iTunes to sync music, which are far easier to use, IMHO. Or else you’ve never really bothered to investigate and you just want to whine, which is fine.
I use MediaMonkey, for example, to sync my iPod Nano as well as a 160GB Classic, and it’s worked flawlessly. It’s got lots of features iTunes doesn’t have, and is much lighter in terms of system resources.
And what you’re saying is that you want consumers to have a choice, but it should be your choice. It’s consumers who made the MP3 player market what it is; if the iPod didn’t sell (which involves people buying it), it wouldn’t have the stranglehold on the market that it does today. You can’t on the one hand demand that the market should operate freely and then criticise the outcome on the other.
Well, nope nope and nope there. 1. It takes a lot longer than 10 seconds to unfreeze it. I know, I’ve been sitting there with my hand on the center button until I can’t feel it anymore. 2. It’s frozen when we haven’t been syncing it. Sometimes it’s frozen just by being turned on or off. 3. My stepson doesn’t download music from anywhere other than iTunes.
Will he be able to move his iTunes library to those alternate selections? That’s what’s stopped us in the past.
I have no desire for an AM/FM tuner (broadcast radio? Haven’t listened to it in years)–must be someone else who wants that.
I agree with this, as well as with the OP. Before the iPod took over the world, I owned a series of truly beautifully well-done MP3 players from other companies. Since it’s arrived, most of what’s out there that I’ve tried are more or less shoddy knockoffs, often copying many of the “features” that I’d like to avoid.
In my case at least, it’s not that the ipod is hard to use, it’s that it’s too rigid. Why make a removable storage device that you can’t drag & drop music onto? You can copy/paste other files, and I did use it to store school papers, among other things, but you mainly bought it for the music playing capabilities, right? And a big part of that, the ability to transfer music the way you want to, has been limited to using shitty Itunes. Oh wait, you can use other programs to transfer to Ipod, but you’re going to have to download them and use up even more space on your hard drive. Screw that.
It seems as though it comes down to ease of use versus flexibility. I’d rather have flexibility, especially when the other brands aren’t actually that much harder to use.
I just bought the same Sony Walkman that **Frank **described above, and I’m really happy with it. I wasn’t about to spend a premium for coolness factor (and the iPods are undeniably cool).
I have the 8 gig model; it’s plenty large for what I need it to do. And if I need larger in the future, I’ll upgrade then. It plays my songs, it allows you to add files by drag-n-drop, you can use your own organizational schemes and folders, it plays videos, and it’s got a built-in radio tuner. It does say that it requires Windows Media Player 11, but you can also download a lightweight piece of Sony software for file management as well. (And I think it can be used without Media Player, too, truth be told.)
I really, really like it. Cost me $99 at Best Buy. There were Sansas, iRivers, and Zunes there too.
Monopoly ? What monopoly ? I own a VAIO thingamabob. I bought it 4 or 5 years ago, halfway because it wasn’t an iPod. 40 Gigs, no DRM, although the transfer software is cumbersome. It still works fine and is still supported by Sony.
ETA : I should add that I bought it on impusle, in a FNAC (French equivalent to a Virgin Megastore)
You can disable syncing and only use iTunes to drag and drop music onto the iPod. There are a lot of things to bitch about iTunes for, but this isn’t one of them.
