MP3 Players: which one?
 

I have a small flash mp3 player, and I dig it. pretty small capacity, though. I got it 2 yrs ago for like $90. suits for mowing the lawn or taking a walk, but i'm thinking I'd like to have one that is 20G or more. Seems like the iPod is the gold standard. Is it worth shopping around or is the iPod that much better than the rest. I haven't done any research at all at this point.
Whaddya think? Who has non iPod MP3 players? what advantages/disadvantages?

hurry up. I get my bonus check tomorrow ;)

There are two advantages to the iPod IMO

- iTunes integration.

If you like that sort of thing. The songs come with DRM which means that you are basically renting them, not owning them. I prefer to buy real CDs and rip them. That way I own them.

- User interface.

This has worth.

I personally bought the Creative Labs Nomad Zen because Amazon had a special on the 40GB version at $199 and the Rio Karma is supposed to (still) have problems. (40GB: I still filled it and had to choose what to leave off.) I'm sure the interface is shitty compared to the iPod, but I can select songs to play just fine.

Also, I think the first thing is to get better headphones.

I used to own an Archos Jukebox which had 20 gig capacity, but I quickly found out that that much room is just rediculous and you'll never use it. So I got rid of that thing and got a Rio Carbon last month. 5 gig drive, it shows up as an external hard drive when connected by the supplied USB 2.0 cable, so all you do is drag and drop music onto it and its done.

It also automatically sorts the files based upon the track tags so you can easily play just a certain artist, everything in shuffle mode, anything you've added in the past day, week, 2 weeks, or month, etc. It also charges through the USB fairly quickly which is nice, less cords on my desk. It also has a longer battery life, recording mic for voice memos recording lectures etc., and one gig more capacity than the IPod Mini, which is its similarly priced counterpart. Smaller, lighter, and alot sleeker too.

If you can't tell, I love this lil thing. :thumb:

ut filled a 40G, bullit says 20g is too big. hmm.

they say 5000 songs on a 20. thats sounds like plenty to me. even given that i have a lot of live stuff that would prolly count as 2 songs. ut, those earphones almost look like sex toys. I got a little portable speaker unit that i like.

Well, I've just found that it's not worth carrying around this hulking thing with my whole music collection, when I can just have something small and sleek and just easily add and delete more songs than I'll have time to listen to.

And how can you say that my Rio Carbon isn't the sexiest thing without estrogen ever?

This is a good site for review/opinions on both headphones and portable players.

http://headfi.org/

I've just managed to fill my (20G) ipod, had it a few years now, it's a wonderful little device. I'll probably upgrade to the 60GB ipod photo in a few months now there's a slick way of unloading cameras into it. I've played with a few others, it's pretty hard to find a fault with the ipod, tiny, battery life is excellent, interface beats the crap out of everything else, ditto with itunes.

headphone wise I use the apple in-ear ones, on my second pair (first got crushed in a car door), I love them dearly, a must for bass-lovers. The sony in-ear ones are kind of the gold standard though, I just can't justify the expense.

ok so i'm a dumbass. can someone direct me to the dummies' guide to this whole mp3 player thing? I know what the file format is, but I don't get (shut up, i said i was dumb) what you plug the mp3 player into to get the music into it. is this a wireless thing you subscribe to, or you plug it in your computer, or what?

shut up.

You put the music CD into your computer, copy it to your computer and use a piece of software called an encoder to turn it into an MP3. That's the very short answer. You can also now get music online that's already in MP3-like formats for these players.

i think the question was how to get it out of your computer into the mp3 player.

in the case of my flash player, it is very similar to a flash memory drive, or memory key. i take the cap off the end, stick it into a usb port, and drag and drop songs. It appears that some of the disk variety players have usb, ethernet adapters and docking stations like a pda would.

The iTunes Music Store songs aren't rented, they are copy-protected. They don't go away if you don't pay a monthly fee. And you can get around the copy protection by merely burning the song to DVD. Also iTunes can be used to rip CDs.

how's this for timing?

you know you want to, go for it.

It certainly makes the iPod mini more attractive--I've always felt the storage space was way too small to justify the price. I love my 40GB model mostly, but there are features that are very annoying for the classical music buff. However this is true of almost all brands.

I broke down and ordered some real earphones. The ones that come with it bite. I'm not excessively picky about actual sound quality up to a certain point, but they hurt my ears physically. Anyway my new ones--Shure E2c, which seem to be at the bottom end of the feeding chain for "good" earphones and at the top (or a bit more) of what I'm willing to pay--are supposed to be here on Friday, so we'll see.

I can't buy headphones without trying them out first. I find it's a very personal experience and what sounds good and is comfortable for one person is the next persons headache.
Most headphones that come with a portable are shit. And most headphones (even "good" ones) sound like crap when driven from a low power source like a portable. I ended up getting a set of Alessandro MS1's :
http://www.alessandro-products.com/headphones.html
They sound fantastic (tons of bass), even from my mp3 player, and are a great deal for the money but are too big if you are planning on moving around with them on. I bought a set of Koss KSC35's (only available form the website) for portable use. Again, great value and a decent sound.
The Shure E2c's get mixed reviews. I have never tried them so I can't say from personal experience. Generally I don't like in ear headphones myself. I find them uncomfortable but maybe I have a small ear canal or something.
They are lovely and small...