I want to get my boyfriend an MP3 player this Christmas/his birthday but neither of us really know much about MP3 players. Since they tend to run on the expensive side and I have very little money, I want to be sure I get a good one and not something that’s going to quit after a few months or a year.
Since I don’t have a lot of money, it has to be under $300. He wants something with a lot of space, easy interface and that works with his PC.
We were originally going to get an IPOD, but after we learned its dirty little secret, we aren’t sure what to get. We are also worried that other products might have little “surprises.”
Shiki likes the look ofThe NOMAD Jukebox Zen and so far it’s gotten good reviews, but we want to hear from an owner if it’s actually good or not.
Definitely get opinions and take some time to decide which one is best for you. But please, please don’t not get an iPod simply because of that yutz at ipodsdirtysecret. Because he’s simply wrong. As was the customer service rep he talked to. Apple will replace the battery for $99, not the $250 he quotes. And there are 3rd party ipod replacement batteries for half that (check out http://www.ipodbattery.com/). Yes, batteries die eventually. 18-months does not seem like a ludicrously short battery life span, though.
For the record, I’ve had my first-generation iPod for around 20 months now, and it’s still perfectly fine. It lasts a little shorter now between rechargings, I’ve noticed, but not significantly.
I’m very happy with my iPod, and consider it one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I take it everywhere; jog with it, travel with it, work with it. I can’t really compare it to any of the others, since the only other one I’ve ever used was a RioVolt a long time ago, and you’re not going to want one of those.
I don’t own an MP3 player but I work at a place that shall remain nameless for the moment that makes them. Just a few things to keep in mind.
How long is the warranty for and how much does it cover?
~Ours for a MPs player is 90 days. NINTY DAYS for something that you are going to pay upwards of 200.00 for. AND if it has any physical damange AT ALL, no matter how small (a little scrape on the lower corner) it counts as PD and they void your warranty.
Frankly, I think our warranty period is ridiculously short. On the plus side I have seen them offer people who have sent their unit in under warranty an upgrade to the next generation player for a substantial discount and the people who take care of their players are happy with them.
Make sure the computer you are going to attach the thing to is compatable with it. Nothing like having spent 400.00 on a unit that was never meant for your Mac and now you’re kinda stuck.
Treat the thing carefully.
Think about how much music these things will hold. The 20 gig Zen holds close to 3000 songs. Holy crap. The 60 gig holds close to a freaking MILLION. I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t need a million damn songs.
Look around Dell. They have a media player that also holds and displays image files. That’s what I plan on getting when I finally take the plunge into that.
I recently got one of the compact disc MP3 players.
I have never had it skip, a fear I had before I got it.
I already had huge MP3 archives burned to CD’s.
Sure it doesn’t hold as much as an iPod, but I got mine for $24.95. Figure a $50 package with a pair of rechargable AA batts, some blank CD’s and one of those cassette tape adaptors for the car.
It plays regular CD’s, of course.
It doesn’t “look expensive” to potential car theives.
Most have full displays.
Easy to sort CD’s instead of sorting through 20Gb+ of files for a particular track.
Not the best idea for a gift maybe because of the low cost but I think its a reasonable tradeoff between cost and utility. If you’re not sure about buying a hard drive based or other expensive player, maybe this would be a good starter unit.
For something that costs so much money, I would expect it to work better and longer than that. I am aware of the replacement system. I am also aware that you can shell out an extra 40 bucks and get a service warrantee that covers it for 4 years.
If they could make it cheaper or fix the battery thing, I’d get an iPod for sure. Already the basic 10 gig iPod is $300. Then we’d need the hookups for PC, which is an extra $20. Plus the warrantee for another $40.
The other MP3
But my boyfriend listens to music A LOT so I need something that I can rely on and don’t have to worry about it dying constantly. I’ve read too many negative reviews to consider getting it though.
Futhermore, that guy probably made that website before the replacement service was offered. I’d be annoyed if I was him too.
But, the other mp3 player that I am looking at is $300. With all the extra stuff that you need to get the similar iPod model, it comes to nearly $500. Way too much money for me. ;.;
I have an Archos Jukebox Recorder 20, which I really like. Amazon has them for $242. I replaced the OS that came with the unit with the RockBox OS. It’s a free, open-source alternative that works much better than the default one.
The Archos uses standard AA batteries (it includes 4 rechargable ones), so replacing them is not a problem. It also doubles as a portable hard disk, which I’ve found useful to transfer files between home and work. Check it out, and see if it meets your needs.
I own a Nomad Zen, and I love the thing. No complaints so far. For me, it was a toss up between the iPod or the Zen. Both are pretty much even on performance and quality. Only real difference is that the iPod is smaller but the Zen is cheaper. Cheaper won out with me in the end.
As with all devices that connect to a pc, make sure you get all of the patches. There are free updates for both the firmware on the device and the software on the PC.
Do you need more specific information on the Zen? Or did you just want to find a happy owner?
I used to have an Archos Recorder 20, but replaced it with an iPod. The iPod has a more efficient and user-friendly interface than the Archos[li]. It’s also more compact and simply more fun to use - it’s hard to explain, but I’ll just say I never regretted the purchase.[/li]
Yes I’ve tried RockBox too, it still falls short of the iPod.
I’m with jnglmassiv - a CD MP3 player costs <$100 and each CD/R (about $0.35 each) holds 4-6 hours of music. They are bulkier than RAM or HD players, but the cost difference is impressive.
Generally, there is a fair bit of quality loss when converting to an mp3 file, but most people won’t be able to tell when using normal headphones. You will be able to tell the differnece with a good set of speakers, though it is not too bad, assuming you have a decently encoded mp3.
As for how much quality is lost, that depends both on the bitrate of the mp3, and the encoder used. ALWAYS use a LAME based encoder; I have heard 128 kbit LAME encoded mp3’s that sound better than 192 kbit mp3’s produced by other encoders.
I don’t get this. If 20 gig = three thousand songs, how can 60 gig = a million? It should work out to nine thousand songs, unless the 60 gig version uses some unpatented compression technology, possibly based on algorithms originally given to us by an alien race from Betelgeuse. Or were you using hyperbole, and I have been completely wooshed?
As I mentioned above, the Archos Jukebox uses regular AA batteries (4 of them to be precise). I can get between 8 and 10 hours of playback time when my unit is fully charged. I’ve never used regular AAs in it, so they may not be as efficient, but should get at least 4 - 6 hours I would think (provided you get good quality ones). I’m not familiar with the batteries of other players, so hopefully someone else will chime in.
I would think that if you mainly wanted to use your player on extended trips where you can’t recharge, you would probably want one that ran on normal replaceable batteries.
The Zen and iPod have an internal recharable battery, and probably wouldn’t work our for you. Battery life on the Zen is around 11 hours for me. I don’t know what the iPod’s battery life is.
Something that might work out for you is one of the CD/MP3 players. I have one of the original Rio Volts. I was getting a little over 10 hours of play time on mine on 2 AA’s. And those were just the normal AA’s, not the super lithium (and more expensive) AA’s.
As with anything, shop around and see what people are getting for battery life before you commit to one. I know that Rio has been making newer models of the Volt. I don’t know what the quality of those are.
I have a Rio Volt and I like it pretty well. It wasn’t much cheaper than an iPod when I bought it, but if you can get a CD/MP3 player for $50 or less now, I’d say go with one of those instead.
I didn’t say it held a million. I said close to a million and when I’m talking about numbers like that (when not involving accounting) 9000 is pretty damn close to a million.
My current object of lust is the Rio Karma. 20GB, smaller and lighter than in iPod, nearly triple the battery life, for a hundred bucks less. It vs. the iPod were pretty well hashed out in a recent article on Slashdot.
