Page 1 of Which MP3 Player?

There are so many MP3 players on the market of various makes and different memory capacities!!!

Does the make of the player make any real difference?

Any recommendations for which player to buy ... and the best price?

Thanks all!!

Prepare to see me shot down in flames!

I think IPods are fantastic, but for what they actually are they are overpriced. The huge advantage over a basic MP3 player is the ability to quickly go to the track of your choice and, of course, the huge storage capability.

Honestly, do you really NEED 5,000 tracks to get you to work or to listen to in the gym? I doubt it. If you do need that many for the daily commute, MOVE! I have a 256MB MP3 player with 74 tracks on it, which (and this is a personal opinion remember) I find more than adequate even for a day on the beach. I have no idea whose make it is as i bought it from Ebay from a seller in Hong Kong. Buy a cheap player of at least 256MB, get a half decent pair of headphones and you are away. I bought a hard case with built in speaker (£6.99) from e bay and those 74 tracks become the music centre for an entire holiday.

As for cheapest tracks, see my other post to your secondary question!

Click here. YOU ARE THE SEARCH ENGINE!

Personally, I think you need 2, one flash player for the gym, running etc, and a 20/40 gig one for holidays, long commutes. Or a laptop.

The archos Gmini 20 (20 gig) is £127 in Dixons at the airport (£139 in the high st). is half size of an iPod and IMHO very good looking bit of kit. Lack of DRM software may be a pob if you want to download from iTunes and the like, but a firmware update is available from Archos website if you need it.

I`m very happy with my new toy, still using a Pocki 128mb with a 512mb SD card for the gym. (Available at ebuyer last time I looked.)

This item was edited on Friday, 24th June 2005, 12:33

I`ve got a Rio Karma. 20GB and it`s got my whole music collection on. It plays MP3, WMA, and Ogg Vorbis files. Never had any trouble with it, and has enough features to play around with, `mix it up`.

Its definetly a worthy adversary to the `Pod (if you`re not wanting a Pod that is), and Stuff magazine rates it at number 2 in their top 10 MP3 players.

What about the Creative Zen 40Gb for £190 at Amazon?

Seems to be more than you would need, and could stick lifetime of music on it!!

Any similar specs for better price!!

This item was edited on Friday, 24th June 2005, 14:17

I`m with the previous posters in a couple of areas.

Firstly, I can`t really see past an iPod if you`ve got the cash. True, they are more expensive, but they really are the dog`s when it comes to design and usability. The other ones I`ve tried are all good enough, but they always feel like those cheap Rubik`s Cubes you used to get - they do exactly the same thing, and are cheaper, but they always feel as if they`re not quite as smooth and elegant to use as they could be.

Secondly about the need for size. If you plan to put an entire music collection across to the thing, then by all means go for the biggest you can. However, I`ve got a huge music collection (60+gb) of stuff that I`ve legitimately bought; I loved it all at the time of purchase; but I do find now that a lot of it is stuff that I`m unlikely to listen to. If I put the whole load on shuffle-play through iTunes on my PC, I find that I typically skip past 4 or 5 tracks before getting to one I`m keen to listen to. What I now do is only copy across ones that I think I`ll listen to to my iPod, and this easily fits in 10Gb. This might just be me - either being overly fussy, or having found out too late that large parts of my CD collection are crap - but I suspect it`s the same for most people. Before deciding on which one to buy, give some serious thought to how you`re most likely to use it

Sandy

I`m gonna throw in on the Archos corner, had an old 6gig HDD recorder for years, its never let me down.

I`ve upgraded the HDD twice, now its 60gig :D.

rockbox.org do replacement firmware for most decent mp3 players, but I`m against prting with so much cash for iPODs when theres so many better things about.

My next jukebox will again be Archos, but this time a Gmini400 *media* jukebox (189 earth pounds Here).


www.archos.com/products/prw_500637.html

P.S from experience Archos support (albeit hard to understand on the phone) were extremely good, fast and very helpful after I dropped mine. (they fixed it free and sent a car kit to boot!).

This item was edited on Friday, 24th June 2005, 20:49

n reply to Hutton: See my earlier post, the Archos wins on price, looks and size, almost half the size of an iPOd.

To KarveR: What about the Archos AV 320, under £300 now, again at Disxons at airports seem cheap. BUT, is big like 400, personally am happy using laptop if i really need portable video, though battery life is a prob.

Note to self, world gone mad, i`m recommending Dixons Group. Even bought my EOS 300D from Currys,, stillhaven`t seen it cheaper, even tho` it`s now an old model.

Just bought a Sony NW-HD5 - smaller than the ipod, greater battery life (40 hours), replaceable battery, and 20gb. Very smart bit of kit - am very impressed - rrp £199

I`ve tried all the major MP3 players & IMO the Archos wins out every time.

reasons !

1. proprietary software, the apple,creative,sony`s etc all require you to use there own software & i hate all of them, i found i-tunes especially irritating. you have none of these problems with the archos (i have the gmini xs200 but all the archos machines work the same way) on the archos you just plug it in & windows see`s it as an external hard drive, so all you gotta do is drag you`re tracks over & thats it done. you can use playlists if you want (it`ll even read i-tunes playlists as well as all STANDARD m3u/jukebox/winamp playlists)

2.digital rights management, i-pod`s (& all players that force drm) will only let you copy you`re tracks x number of times, the archos does not use drm so it`s not a problem, however if you are getting tracks this way you can get a plug in from the archos website.

3.the gmini xs200 looks damn good + it`s very small ;) & it feels at least as solid as any i-pod out there (+ the archos has a nice large screen)

the battery life on the archos is "good" i get 10 hour`s continuous play a full volume (& it`s the Loudest player i`ve tested) if you need better battery life then pick the sony, there`s is incredible, & listed at 30-40hours :o BUT you are then stuck with the awfull sonic stage software.

& before anyone decides to jump down my throat, i should mention that i don`t dislike any of the hardware i mention, i-pods look cool & work well, i just hate the software both because of it`s limitations & functionatity same goes for the sony, there hd range looks way cool, just let down by it`s totaly locked down software.

This item was edited on Saturday, 25th June 2005, 10:13