some mp3 player questions
 

thinking of getting an mp3 player so would appreciate some views on the following:

1) what are the best mp3 players out there - apple, creative etc?

2) will i be able to play my collection of mp3's d/l through soulseek etc? (i understand sony players have copy protection on them)

3) on a similar vien what can you load onto an ipod - is it just ripped cds from your own collection and stuff bought from the itunes shop..?

4) any other considerations i should bear in mind?

i'm probably looking to spend up to £200

thanks for your help

matt :)

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

you can load any mp3 onto the ipod (barring weird bugs with bitrates, i guess). the only copy protection for the ipod is what's directly related to the itunes music store. you can play unprotected mp3's you rip from cds. you can play unprotected mp3's that you download. you can play stuff from the itunes music store. you can't play ogg but who cares?

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

You can't play WMA or protected WMA files which some stores use, if that bothers you. (I'm not bashing the iPod, I'm just saying, OK?)

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

I've had the fortune of trying out quite a few brands.....

Ilo - piece of crap your screen will break and/or the headphone jack will glitch causing one side to cut off and on repeatedly.

Sony - Psync's are terrible. You can use mp3's but you have to load them into Sony's Sonicstage program first and it turns it into an atrac3 file on the device....you can't even trade files from another computer without "erasing all files from a different computer". Horrid flaw where the battery cover thingy pops open with a light tap....the battery then comes loose and resets your music back to song one. No radio or voice record....booooo.

RCA - cheap but also cheap

Ipod - nice but your paying for the name and your paying an arm and a leg for that name. Videos are the neat extra here of course.

but out of all of em...

the Creative Zen Nano Plus is my favorite by far. Nice small little square design, easy menus and interface, voice record, fm radio, LINE IN so you can make an mp3 from ANYTHING, drag and drop file transfer and nice sound. Check it out.:cool:

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

I used to plug my wonderful mp3 player, the iaudio M3 which is brilliant but ive heard their support isnt that good, and theyve been promising a firmware upgrade so that i can finally record in wav (only records in mp3 right now). plays almost everything tho and comes with dock/headphones/remote etc and the 20gb model is available from amp3.co.uk for £179. Then again, for £199 the iAUDIO M5L 20gb is there and thats the model above mine and has 35 hours battery life.

im very impressed with the new ipod. apprarently it can record in 44.1khz. the review at ars.technica is pretty good. however, you'll be pushed to get one for £200. the 30gb goes for £219 and it comes without a lot of the extras.

If youre broke, they have some 20GB players at amp3.co.uk for just over 100 quid (that i've never heard of but hey).

The Creative Zen touch is a nice player but its big and heavy. It takes a 2.5" HD not a 1.8" like the others. The plus side on this though is that if youre brave enought you can replace the HD with a 120GB one.

Sony, great build quality but crippled features (NW-HD5). Theyre still desperately clinging onto ATRAC and their SonicStage software is a dog. Pity, because the batteries are removable and they have a long life.

iRiver are pretty good and the new H10 looks nice. Its also Windows DRM compatible and has the features of the other older models such as radio/recording. I think its about £200 for the 20gb model.

Best to decide what you need it for. Long trips, just to the gym... do you need to record, do you want radio, do you want to use it for storage, need a remote, is size/weight import, different file types etc.

If it was me with £200 burning a hole in my pocket I think it would be a toss-up between the M5L and the H10. I wouldnt want to fanny around with SonicStage on the Sony, I wouldnt want to carry a brick around like the Creative and the ipod is out of reach.

I like the look of the i-station and the archos gmini 402 but those too are a tad over 200quid. anyway, thats the HD players...

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

OK, so the Creative Zen Xtra 60GB is $100 less than the current iPod 60GB but the iPod has photo and video display. The extra functionality is probably adding more to the price than the branding. Other than that they appear to be feature equivalent.

Either that or their insurance premiums went up because of two many fscking returns. (I'm up to FOUR)

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

yeah some of the Creative ones are big and bulky, that's why I prefer the Nano (plus). It's flash based (no moving parts) so you can practically drop it on purpose.:D It's all I need to take to the gym and not have to change out my songs every freakin' time.:cool:

The new Ipod Nano...only $50-60 bucks more than the Creative one so it might be more bells and whistles. Up to you, I don't need a color video screen at the gym. and I hate recharging anything.:mad::)

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

I've just gotten me a Creative Zen Sleek, which you could call an optimized version of the Zen Touch. It's smaller anyway. It sounds better than an Ipod (I know lots of people with an Ipod and I've compared) and you can also put WMA files on it. It also has an FM Tuner and a voice recorder. It looks cool and it's easy to put stuff on it/rip cd's.

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

I was just reviewing the 20-30GB hard disk players. the flash market is another different matter.

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

the creative nano, same size and price as the ipod shuffle, but we included the screen so you can see what you're doing!

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

i have heard creative has the worst reliability record. plus their designs are poopy if you care about ui and stuff like that. the ipod is a pleasure to use and navigate with and if and w hen you h ave 60gigs on your thing, that really helps.

ipod HAS to be used with itunes so if that is an issue you might think about it. ummmm, ya. ipod is always nice too cause now they make accessories for everything under the sun for it. if you are into hacking you can load linux on it and make it do fun stuff like recording audio and other stuff...

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

I am extremely biased cos my hubby works for 3DLabs, which is a subsidiary of Creative, so we get employee rates. Having said that, I have always found my Creative MP3 players reliable, easy to use and highly functional. I currently have a MuVo with only 512mb of memory, but that is more than enough for my purposes - approx 8 hours of music. They are available in larger capacity I think. And it is about the size of two cigarette lighters, not a brick!

The plus, too, is that you can upload stuff from it back onto your PC, which, I understand, you cant do with the iPOD. This can be useful as a general data transfer key as well as for swapping music around the place. I also like the fact that it plugs straight into your USB port, no cable.

And they come in pretty colours ;)

Can't comment on any other brand cos I don't know enough about them.

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

some of the creative models do have build issues.

you can use it with Winamp also.

it can also now finally record 44.1khz stereo WAV. nice!

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

if you are into hacking you can record at 96khz apparantly ( i haven't done, just read that linux supports that. )

Re: some mp3 player questions
 

There are many third part alternatives to itunes. I use ephpod, it's simple and free.