Mp3 storage?

Gbaby1008

Senior member
Nov 1, 2004
223
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I have $100 and i'm looking at mp3 players. Right now i'm lookin at Iriver 256mg. First off how many songs can fit in this much space? Will it be sumwhat durable? (not skip or break easy if i'm skating or snowboarding stuff like that). Now i no if i fall on it its probly gona bust. Or also i could wait like 7 weeks and i should have around $200. I was lookin at the Creative Labs zen xtra 30 gig. Any thoughts? Or recommendations. (and please dont say "just get a i***" I dislike them very much.

Thx
 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
6,995
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0
dude
i have an IFP390T, its a 256mb iriver player prolly the same one you're lookin at.... it can hold about 70 songs and the sound quality and volume is pretty darn satisfactory.... BUT i CANT recommend this to anyone for the following reason:

the analog vol/track skip stick is COMPLETE, and UTTER CRAP. i used it for about 6 months with no problems, mainly on the bus on my way to class and i'd keep it in my pocket and treat it well. soon enough the stick started gettin all messed up... pressing vol up would skip tracks and trying to skip tracks would reduce the volume and other random behaviour, in short it was fscked. so i contacted iRiver, sent the barebones unit it in, and they actually sent me a new one packaged and everything which was awesome at the time... now, a few months later, i can see its starting to do the same thing again... this time around i was extra careful with it but it just seems that after a while the stick gets messed up... really crappy quality IMO...

get something else! :)


edit: i've heard nothing but good things about zen micro players, i'd say get one of those!
 

Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
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Rough estimate for storage space is 1MB for every 1 minute of 128kbps MP3 or a bit under 30 seconds for 320kbps. So roughly 4 hours of music would fit on a 256MB player using 128kbps MP3's.

I've owned an iFP-895 for a few months and run quite a few miles a week with it. I've had no problems at all with the construction of the player. It still looks and performs like it's brand new, though I do keep it in the armband sleave at all times which adds negligible weight and size. The player itself is excellent and I would highly recommend it. The only complaints I have is that software is a bit clunky, the player requires drivers to be recognized (not recognized as a driverless USB storage device), and the armband that is bundled with it is a piece of garbage. I don't understand the armband thing since IRiver sells a good one on their site, which they should bundle instead, guess they are just trying to swindle a couple extra dollars out of people. I've never heard of any quality problems with IRiver flash players, so the fact that franguinho has had the same problem twice would make me think he is unintentionally doing something unusual to cause the failures.

I owned a Creative Nomad II before the IRiver and was quite happy with it as well. One of the most resilient electronic devices I've ever owned. I must have dropped the thing 20 times or more before it finally submitted to the abuse and died on me, and even then it didn't completely die, it still works, but for some reason can't read or read to media beyond about 10MB, which made it rather useless. If you plan to use the player during rigorous activities I would not recommend anything but flash players. You can't go wrong with Creative or IRiver, both have good audio quality and sturdy construction. I went with IRiver because of a better feature list including OGG support which was a must for me. Battery life for the IRiver is phenomenal as well. I don't know if the spec sheet claim of 40 hours is accurate, but it's pretty close if it isn't.
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
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yeah, but don most people use 192-256kbps compression? id say around 2-3cds.

(for example, green day's international superhits cd at 256kbps is 112mb. it's almost perfectly 1 hour long, 21 tracks.)
 

Gbaby1008

Senior member
Nov 1, 2004
223
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Any1 know how big the creative labs zen xtra is? And is it easier to break if its gota hdd?
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
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it''s bigger than most mp3 players(about 10-15% mroe volume used up than ipod 4th gen. also, yes, anything with a hdd is going to fail a lot easier than something with a solid state memory device. also, very clumsy to use(controls are on side of unit you see...) read anandtech's review on it. anand didnt seem to like it much(in fact it was a scathing review)