Back in Summer 2003, I bought myself a 20gb Nomad Zen that has served me very well. However, the design flaw that I knew would destroy it is starting to show. Namely, the rechargeable LiIon was built in. No replacement possibility. Once it stopped holding a good charge, it was only useful when plugged in A/C. When I first received it, it could go 7-8 hours, even with a couple of power-hogging EQ features and such. Now, I’m lucky with 4, maybe 5. By the time the Product Replacement Plan I bought specifically so it could be replaced when the two year mark rolls around, I’m expecting about 3 hours life.
So I want to get reacquainted with what’s on the market (and what’s on the horizon). The market has obviously grown leaps and bounds since Spring/Summer '03, when I did my research.
A few guidelines:
-No ipods. Don’t recommend them, because I don’t want them. I’ve played around with friends’ ipods for vacations, trips, just borrowing to try out, etc, and didn’t like them. About the only thing going for them are the number of ipod exclusive accessories, but since I have a TuneCast II, which will let me use any player in my car, many of the accessories are already preempted. Ipods have the same built in battery problem (though word is Apple will take some responsibility and replace the battery at least once), I just don’t like the interface, they cost too much for the features I’d use, my player gets loaded with CD rips so something like itunes is pretty unconvincing, and there’s just too many people who own them, believing them to be THE hard drive MP3 player. Which leads me to…
-Hard drive players only. And larger hard drives. 20gb or more. I want to have my entire collection at my fingers. A flash player obviously doesn’t do it. And a 5-6gb mini hard drive player is about 4-5 times too small for my current collection. I don’t exercise with the player, and am not worried much about flash buffer size.
-Creative has served me well, with the exception of the battery issue, which I knew full well when I was buying. I baby this thing, and it’s in pristine shape. I’ve never had any significant problems with it, and it probably leans me to Creative again, especially since they’ve fixed the battery removal issue in their 30gb Zen Xtra (though not in the Zen Touch). But I’m definitely willing to consider other brands.
So with the exception of ipods, what else is out there nowadays, and how does it fare?
Hm, I didn’t know the batteries on Nomads used to be built in. That’s definitely a design flaw.
I love my 30gb Nomad and would definitely recommend it. I don’t know what’s different about it compared to the old models besides the battery, but it’s a good player. I also rather liked the 40gb RCA Lyra when I tried it out in the store, though I don’t know how their battery issue is.
As far as I understand it, the difference is the removable battery, a larger display screen (not that I’ve had any issue with the size of mine), and maybe a larger flash buffer. I think the original Zen only had a 2mb buffer, so you wouldn’t even get an entire song through without the drive spinning again. Maybe a 4mb.
I know the ipods have an 8mb buffer, and a larger buffer is better. As I understand it, larger buffer=less hard drive spinning=less wear on drive and possibility to break=better at handling jarring plus less powering the hard driving mechanical (and the refilling of the buffer) means less battery use.
I have an iRiver IHP-120. It has since been replaced by the H320 (20 gig) and there is also a 40 gig offering, the H340. Near as I can tell, they are exactly like their predecessors with the exception of the exterior and a colour display.
These players also have the non-replaceable rechargeable battery you disliked in your current player. I have had mine for 10 months and have not noticed any deterioration as of yet, however.
What do I like about it? Battery life. If I’m not fiddling through the menus all day, I get 16 hours of playtime. If I am tinkering with it instead of using playlists? About 13 hours.
It’s small. It’s purty. It’s compatible with MoodLogic software. It has an integrated voice recorder. It was significantly cheaper than an iPod with a better battery life.
It also has some features I haven’t been motivated to use, such as storing digital pictures and other files. And I despise earbuds, so I replaced those immediately.
I’m very happy with my Rio Carbon–which is too small for you, it’s only 5 gig. However, when I was researching the Rio family, I was pretty impressed with the Rio Karma. I just did a quick search on amazon for it, and saw that it’s on sale
Shit, now I really want one of those too. That’s how much I paid for my Carbon…
I’ve got the iRiver IHP-340 and I like it a lot so far. I love functionality and it’s great to have text files and photos as well as my CD collection at my fingertips. (Or I will have once I finish recording them all.)
Researched the iRiver models at dwyr and Cyros’ recommendations, and it reminded me of another requirement that I’d really rather not have to state:
Nothing with live recording capability My job takes me to dozens of different Federal buildings each month, some of which are really quite paranoid. As in anything that can record pictures or sometimes even voice on the fly will be confiscated. At best, they’re held at the security desk until I’m done my work. At worst, some agencies will confiscate items and destroy them (thankfully I haven’t been the victim of any of those yet). When I had to buy a new cellphone, I knew it was pretty essential to get one without a camera phone. And it’s scary how much the selection is dwindling when you want to avoid that particular “feature.” One Monday I had accidentally grabbed my coat without thinking that I had my digital camera in the pocket when I went onto the Washington Navy Yard. Depending on which buildings I would have visited, I might have lost the camera forever. Thankfully, I wasn’t slated for any of the more severe ones that day, but it gave a nice scare.
So the iRiver IHP-340(320) is unfortunately out. Having full color pictures on the device would make some agencies wary (“How do pictures get ON it? Is it something he could do in our secure areas?”), and knowing it can record FM signals would make them believe it could record other things.
I like the look of the Vosonic MMV, or I would if the capacity was larger and the battery life a bit better - the concept is sound though; it plays audio and video files, plus it has a variety of card slots so you can empty the media cards from your digital camera straight into it if you’re away from home.
Whatever you decide on, you’ll be able to sell the old machine on eBay - you probably should mention that the battery is farked, but there are a number of folks out there who will buy it for parts, even just for the hard drive inside.
My job takes me to dozens of different Federal buildings each month, some of which are really quite paranoid. As in anything that can record pictures or sometimes even voice on the fly will be confiscated. At best, they’re held at the security desk until I’m done my work. At worst, some agencies will confiscate items and destroy them (thankfully I haven’t been the victim of any of those yet). When I had to buy a new cellphone, I knew it was pretty essential to get one without a camera phone. And it’s scary how much the selection is dwindling when you want to avoid that particular “feature.” One Monday I had accidentally grabbed my coat without thinking that I had my digital camera in the pocket when I went onto the Washington Navy Yard. Depending on which buildings I would have visited, I might have lost the camera forever. Thankfully, I wasn’t slated for any of the more severe ones that day, but it gave a nice scare.