Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

[Number Of The Priest]

Hi everyone. For a few years now, I've been trying to avoid the MP3 player craze... but I'm slowly being seduced by the dark side. I currently own a RioVolt MP3/CD player which I received as a high school graduation present back in 2002:



I think it was amongst the first generation of MP3/CD players, so needless to say, it is clunky, slow to load up, is prone to skipping when I'm walking along, and eats my rechargeable alkaline AA batteries like crazy. I have to recharge them every evening when I get home from school. Regular alkalines last a bit longer.

My ideal portable MP3 player is something small enough in size. An Ipod is the largest I'll go. No more clunky MP3/CD player!

It should also last a long time between battery charges, or is capable of using AA/AAA batteries especially when I'm on the go. I hear some of the small flash ones last up to an insane 20 hours on a single AA battery or something like that, but the flash ones only hold about 1GB and I have a huge library of music...

Storage space... the biggest is the Ipod Video, holding 60GB, and I'd totally buy it if it was powered on AA batteries and lasts 20 hours before a battery change. But it doesn't. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

The Creative Zen plays songs at 96kbps, apparently... WTF?!?!?! Not good enough, although its low price is an inexpensive alternative to the Ipod.

Ease of use... I wanna be able to just dump songs and erase songs by dragging, as if it were a 3.5" floppy disk. Those were SO easy to use back in the day.

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance. [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

By the way, I don't care about all that extra crap like FM tuners, photo viewers, voice recorders, address book synchronization, etc. But if they're there on my ideal player, then I don't mind...

[Carbuff]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

The zen will play mp3's at whatever bitrate you encode them at. But it will play them as low as 96, I think thats wma format. My daughter just got a zen 6gb for $140. Its tiny and it holds plenty of music. About 1500 cd quality mp3's. It will hold up to 3000 low bitrate wma's. The buttons are a bit strange and it doesnt come with a charger. It charges through the usb cable on your computer. You can buy a charger. The battery is removeable and looks like a cell phone battery so you could get extras. It also has fm radio, voice recorder, address book, etc.... She is very happy with it. She had a sony .mp3 diskman and it was ok. Im currently trying to find a decent in dash cd/radio for her car that has the front input for the zen. Only a few out there with the front input. Everyone I know who had an ipod had trouble with it, bad batteries, freeze ups etc. Maybe the newer ones are less problematic. Good luck with your search.

[ABSOLUT CHARVEL]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

this site has a 20G ipod for $229 after $10.00 rebate. Not fancy, but that is a lot of GIG for the price.

IPOD

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

Remember there was an independent movie made by some guy who was pissed off that his Ipod battery only lasted a year and a half? I'll try to avoid an internal non-removable battery if I can. It's just so easy swapping AA batteries especially when you're on the go.

I didn't know that about the Zen... I may have to look into it a bit closer. My computer is on every day, so I don't have a problem charging it through the USB port. But that's gotta suck when you're travelling internationally, and the family you're staying with only just bought their first desktop computer and it probably doesn't have USB ports on it... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

If only the Ipod ran on AA batteries and lasted 20 hours. Charge a thousand dollars for it and I'll still be their first customer.

AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR POSTS!!!!!!!! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[buzzsaww]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

I use a Rio Cali. Small, lightweight, FM tuner, handles up to a 1gb SD card, 128mb internal memory, rubberized body, EQ, USB transfer, runs on a AAA battery. I got it for $26 off Ebay.

[rjohnstone]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

I have an iPod mini... 2nd generation model.
Works perfect, too bad they discontinued it for that POS nano. At least mine is made of metal and not cheap plastic.

As for iPod batteries, I've had no issue with mine.
They can be replaced and only cost $49 from Apple. It's replacing them that's the trick. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Trust me, you'll go through more $$$ than that in batteries alone with a Rio.

[LRGman]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

I have a creative 40Gb zen its big but I like it and you just drag and drop mp3's, its rechargeable and its loud too. You can also load data on it -I have an ipod for the woman and its a pain to load

[guitarsjb]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

I just joined the ranks with a iPod shuffle. It's great, got the extended warranty so when the battery craps out I can get a new one. I do want a larger one, but the Nano scares me.

[iced_earth]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

In my experience of shopping for an MP3 player, I did not find any larger capacity hard drive based players that took AA/AAA batteries. I've got a Creative Xen Xtra 40 GB (1.5 years old, $250 after mail in rebate) and a Zen Muvo^2 5 GB (3 months old, $100 after mail in rebate). I can't say I'm super satisfied with the interface for either of them, but I got decent bang for the buck so I'm satisfied. Both of them are hard drive based and have rechargable batteries. I did at one point have a cheapo 1 GB no-name flash unit. I always felt it was one drop away from oblivion, so I returned it. It did run off of a single AAA and was light enough to hang on my neck.

For what you are looking for I'd try to find a flash unit that runs off of normal AAAs if you are stuck on somthing that must run off of normal batteries. If you need higher capacity, I'd look into the units that have removable batteries and see how much it is to order a spare battery directly from the manufacturer.

-Mike

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

Wow, that's a real bummer. I hope the market is created for a high-capacity unit that uses AA/AAA batteries in the future. I would be the first in line!

I just thought of something based on everybody's responses. Is there an MP3 player that uses those little Sandisk SD cards (postage stamp size) for storage, and with a slot so you can exchange cards? Think how easily portable it would be to have your music collection stored on a few of these:

[atilla]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

NOTP, I got mny wife a Creative MuVo with 512 and she really likes it. I steal, um "borrow" it from her from time to time. It runs off a single AAA battery, so with the batch of rechargeables I have batteries are never a worry.

It's also small, and includes an AM/FM radio for those times you want to hear "You Shook Me All Night Long" every 15 minutes.

[buzzsaww]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

The Rio Cali I mentioned has an SD slot that can handle at least 1gb cards. Plus the 128mb internal memory. I was mistaken about the battery, it runs on a AA not a AAA. You can get rechargeable AA anywhere if that's a concern to you.

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

I don't know how I missed that before, Buzz!!!! Gonna research that one now. [img]/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img] Thanks!

[Big D]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

[ QUOTE ]
NOTP, I got mny wife a Creative MuVo with 512 and she really likes it. I steal, um "borrow" it from her from time to time. It runs off a single AAA battery, so with the batch of rechargeables I have batteries are never a worry.

It's also small, and includes an AM/FM radio for those times you want to hear "You Shook Me All Night Long" every 15 minutes.

[/ QUOTE ]

+1

The Creative Muvo's are a great bargain for the money. And they work really well with audible.com if you're planning to use that service. I refuse to buy an MP3 player with propietary batteries so no iPods for me!

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Best portable MP3 player for me? Ipod? Flash?

Hmmm, I just looked at the Creative MuVo Micro N200, and you can have up to 1GB internal memory. Not bad, but I'd rather have the option of changing memory cards on the go... unless it does offer this feature and I missed it! [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]