FOAK; MP3 Player - recommendations please.

There is soo much confusion regarding what is a good MP3 player, and I'm
thinking of moving from my Mini Disk player to an MP3 before I go on
holiday.
Apple Ipods are out! They are rubbish (IMHO), drastically over-priced,
unreliable (according to a number of mags) and of course there is the
battery issue. Whoever thought about not being able to change your own
battery. Good money making ploy on behalf of Apple!!

So, can somebody suggest a good alternative? around 6gig or >. Looks not too
important over functionality and ease of use.
The Venture model (5133312) in Argos seems extremely good value for money!
What's the catch?

TIA.

Daz.


*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

 

6GB Zen Micro. User replaceable battery (takes me about 5 seconds to
swap), and the battery lasts around a real 13 hours (i.e. some time at an
airport, plus 9 hours on the plane, plus half-way to the South-West
afterwards). Comes in 10 different colour options if you secretly do care
about looks, but only the face plate is coloured, the rest is white.

Sound quality is actually very good with suprisingly good bass as well as
high freq response. The standard earphones aren't bad at all either.

You don't need all their software, if you have ripping software already.
Just install the driver and it comes as a drive that you can drop stuff
into, but you cannot copy stuff from it after.

The unit is smaller than a credit card, but obviously quite a bit thicker.

Downsides are the touch pad can be a little weird to get used to, the
radio doesn't work that well, and the supplied belt clip breaks at the
slightest provocation.

 

Might I point you at http://www.redchairsoftware.com/notmad/

Good if you don't want to use the creative crap that they give you.

 

a) I've used one for three years on a bike and generally thrown around.
No problems.
b) They are expensive; you get what you pay for.
c) You can change your own batterys. Mine only needs it replaced now.

 

'It was on the internet, so it must be true'

 

One guy at work has had the Ipod 30Gig thingy repaired/replaced under
warranty 3 times in the year he has had it. It's stopped again, is OOW so he
said he 's looking for something else now that's more reliable.
Friends son, has had the battery changed twice under warranty since
Christmas! and according to Apple, it has to be sent back for replacement as
it's not a user replaceable item
Personally, I have no experience of the beast other than god-awful horror
stories. Oh, and about the nano thing, I'm led to believe there are a number
of court cases in the US against apple over it?

Comet are doing the Ipod 30gig Video thing for less than £200 which is a
little cheaper than the Zen equivalent.

I'm no expert here mind, just spent most of the evening googling. My nephew
wouldn't have 'anything' else but an Ipod for his birthday.
Kidz!

--
Greybeard

FLHRCI -01 UK ( 95 cu-in Stg 2. Big Boy!)
Trumpet Trophy 1200 -96, (The Barge) for rainy days

ukrm@foxtails[dot]co[dot]uk


*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

 

Well, I've got a 20GB 3rd Generation and a 30GB recent one.

No trouble at all.

My daugter has a 4GB mini; no problems.

My son has a 2GB Nano; no problems.

None of the people I work with have mentioned problems- I'm sure they
happen but don't think they are widespread.

 

You do realise that most harddisk-based MP3 players don't allow you to
change the battery yourself without at least some rather expensive small
torx keys?

 

Timo Geusch said...

I had to buy a T6 driver to take a Nokia phone apart, it's only been
used once.

 

Isn't it just a different bunch of crap from another company? The
Explorer integration looks a little better than Creative's but I don't
really care about that. I rip with CD-ex, then sync using the Creative
driver/explorer integration. Job done.

The Notmad stuff has a web server that I don't want and a SQL database
that I really don't want.

 

and my daughter has broken 4 in the last 2 years, and the battery life
is crap. Repairs cost nearly as much as a new one

I've now got a Sony, not as intuitive to use but solid, has a HD and
battery you can change, the HD retracts the heads if you drop it and the
battery lasts 30 hours

 

Nice to know.

As always, it's the bad events that get heard.

--
Greybeard

FLHRCI -01 UK ( 95 cu-in Stg 2. Big Boy!)
Trumpet Trophy 1200 -96, (The Barge) for rainy days

ukrm@foxtails[dot]co[dot]uk


*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

 

What model would that be then?
That seems the sort of beast I could be interested in.
If things don't work when I want them to they tend take a flying lesson ;o)

--
Greybeard

FLHRCI -01 UK ( 95 cu-in Stg 2. Big Boy!)
Trumpet Trophy 1200 -96, (The Barge) for rainy days

ukrm@foxtails[dot]co[dot]uk


*** Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com ***

 

My iriver H10 6Gb HD player has a clip-on battery, easily replaced in
seconds, and the optional stand has a battery slot in it as well so a
spare could be charged simultaneously.

Battery life is realisticly about 6-7 hours continuous, but the
batteries are small so spares are easily carried.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I like it. Particularly the way it
can use .wma as well as .mp3.

 

I've got the iRiver H10 6Gb too, lovely it is.

My battery life was similar to that. However I discovered that if you
just switch it off after using it, it stays in some kind of standby
mode thus allowing it to boot quickly at the next use. The downside
of this seems to be that it reduces the battery life somewhat.

After playing around with it for a bit, I found that if you just
unclip the battery it resets to 'boot from cold' next time you switch
it on. Doing this added about another 3 hours battery life to mine,
so I generally get somewhere between nine and ten hours now (though
still not the claimed 12 hours).

It's a lovely bit of kit, well put together, easy to use, looks nice
and sounds good with the supplied Sennheiser MX400 earphones.

--
Elly - a confuzzled Pixie
ZX9R-E1 - <Giggles>
Spike - FZ400 - It's dead Jim!
MRO#32 ibW#25 BoTAFOT#46 BoTAFOF #46 GP#1 UKRMRM#00 TWA#3
DFV#15
http://www.garagepixies.co.uk
elly at garagepixies dot co dot uk

 

Unfortunately for me, that style of earphone falls out of my ears.
However, I can definitely recommend the Sennheiser PX100 for comfort
and excellent sound.

 

I work for a Apple / pc etc dealer. admitedly doing stuff other than
ipods. However we are a repair centre. Apple insist all Ipods are
returned for warranty repairs, and if its out of warranty we basically
tell the client to buy another one as its cheaper that way.

I was going to get one myself but when im in the office - pretty rare
nowadays I see a stream of eople bringing ipods back for repair. inc the
new nano's.

Ill get something other than Ipod.

Ken

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, ChrisDC

Duct tape. YKIMS.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha GTS1000