MP3 player

Post by **Beowulf** » 2003-07-02 02:02am

Yet another electronics question for the board...

My sister is looking for a MP3 player. She wants something fairly small, with a very large amount of storage. So... what are her options?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-02 02:54am

iPod!

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2003-07-02 03:00am

Straight out -- if she has a Mac, an iPod is easily the best option. Easy to use controls, fast uploading, and massive storage make it one of the best players on the market. Unfortunately, there's no software for connecting it to a Wintel machine (yet), and you need a Firewire port.

There are several tradeoffs that have to be made when choosing a player -- do you want stability, large storage, or small size? You can usually only get two of those three in any package.

If having unskippable playback is important, a Compact Flash based player is a good idea -- the Rio S50 series, for instance. The media is relatively inexpensive compared to the proprietary media used by the first generation of players and available from a variety of manufacturers ($50 for 128 MB, for instance). CF-based players have the most expensive storage out of the current options despite this, though, and memory usually tops out at 512 MB. These also tend to be the smallest players in terms of size and weight.

If versatility is important, an MP3-CD player is the best way to go -- you can easily write new songs to a CD-R or CD-RW and take it with you, and carry some 700 MB per disc. iRiver, I think, makes the best of these (the iRiver SlimX 350, for instance). While rather small for a CD player, such units still have to fit a CD and so may be too bulky in terms of size. They're pretty light, though. These also tend to skip if you are very active (say, going out jogging or exercising). An advantage of these is that you can write the media with any software you wish instead of being forced to use the one provided with the unit.

A hard drive based unit gives the most storage, but is almost never expandable and tend to be large compared to Flash based units (about the size of a walkman, and noticeably heavier). They have less of a tendency to skip compared to the CD units, but still do. Of these, the Creative Zen is probably the least cumbersome of the units available for the PC. I've also heard good things about the Toshiba Mobilphile, but it apparently requires a laptop to transfer files (its hard drive plugs into a PC card slot). The iPod, by the way, falls into this category.

I use a Rio 800 Limited Edition. Storage is tiny compared to many recent players (128 MB vs. storage in the GB range), upload is limited to Slow USB 2.0 (what used to be called USB 1.2, not the "real" USB 2.0) speeds, and memory expansion is limited to proprietary packs that cost around $2/MB (I paid $68 for a 32 MB expansion pack). I wouldn't recommend this unit to anyone unless you can get it for cheap, and maybe not even then.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-02 03:07am

*ahem*

Text says Mac & PC so theres software for both.
No firewire needed

At the bottom theres also a System Requirements list which has PC requirements. iPods work on PCs now, dont listen to Datana.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2003-07-02 03:24am

Looks like I was mistaken then (MusicMatch Jukebox has iPod support, and there's a USB 2.0 connector for PC use now); you have my concession. In that case, go for the iPod -- nearly all of the other options aren't nearly as well balanced.

(UPDATE -- Note to self: get up to date and RTFA on something the next time I go running off at the mouth.)

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-07-02 03:31am

Who the hell needs 30GB on an MP3 player?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-07-02 03:43am

they can act as backup HDs as well, PU. and the ipod can act as a small pda.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-07-02 05:06am

Pu-239 wrote:Who the hell needs 30GB on an MP3 player?

Me.

Though 30GB would take me like a week to listen to.

EmperorMing · Post by **EmperorMing** » 2003-07-02 05:39am

Pu-239 wrote:Who the hell needs 30GB on an MP3 player?

That sounds like half of *one* of my MP3 drives...

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2003-07-02 09:49am

My vote goes to this one. The iRiver SlimX 400.

If you're after a player like the iPod which uses fixed memory then I don't think this one would be for you. Personally I just fill an 800mB CD-RW disc and go. *shrug*

I bought one of these a couple of months ago, but from http://www.mp3players.co.uk for £170. Great value, amazing functionality, and it looks damn good too if you select the "red wine" colour option.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2003-07-02 02:26pm

kojikun wrote:they can act as backup HDs as well, PU. and the ipod can act as a small pda.

Bah, if I wanted a PDA that plays MP3s, I'd just as soon get the PDA and be done with it.

Wait . . . I already have a PDA that'll play MP3s using a CF card. Sure it's mono radio quality but muwahahaha!

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-07-02 02:45pm

I like my MP3 player. Cheap and it holds a fair load of MP3's. It's actually just a portable CD player with an MP3 reader added. Just burn your MP3's to a CD and play it. It only cost £70 and that included rechargable batteries and a AC mains adapter.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2003-07-02 03:13pm

One of the conditions mentioned for the unit, however, is that it has to be small -- MP3-CD players tend to be the largest physically of the units (I also have an iRiver iMP-100, their first model, and have used the 350-SlimX). HD and Flash based units are much smaller (usually from the size of a clip-on radio to Walkman sized). Still, it's easier to carry a few extra CDs than to have to reload at a computer, but this in itself might be cumbersome.

Something else to consider is the onboard software -- the interface for going through songs varies, and some units don't display ID3 tag information (Philips' mini-CD based MP3 player, for instance). Fixed memory based units also require specific software to load and erase songs, and some of it is poorly written (*cough* Rio Audio Manager *cough*).

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2003-07-02 05:31pm

Datana wrote:One of the conditions mentioned for the unit, however, is that it has to be small -- MP3-CD players tend to be the largest physically of the units (I also have an iRiver iMP-100, their first model, and have used the 350-SlimX).

I've never seen the IMP-100 or IMP-350 except on the web, so I don't know how big they are. The IMP-400 fits perfectly in my pockets though.

Datana wrote:Something else to consider is the onboard software -- the interface for going through songs varies, and some units don't display ID3 tag information (Philips' mini-CD based MP3 player, for instance). Fixed memory based units also require specific software to load and erase songs, and some of it is poorly written (*cough* Rio Audio Manager *cough*).

Yeah, I've had that problem with alot of players before, but when it comes to firmware I'll have to vouch for the SlimX-400 again. The firmware is simple to update and it has so many features that it blew me away, the ability to show which ID3 tags (v1 and v2) you wish to see and in which order (ie. title-artist-album or artist-album-title or any combination thereof). The thing is just sweet. Can even play games on it.