What to look for in an mp3 player?

[Furyline]

Hi,
I'm looking for a mp3 player as a gift for somebody else, not for me. Just wondering what technical stuff is important in a portable mp3 player. I know the iPod is the best and all, but I'm not gonna spend $300:Q on a gift. Any help would be great

Thanks, Mike

 

[erikistired]

if you're looking for a hdd based mp3 player i just bought myself an archos 5000 (5gb) jukebox player from outpost.com for 129 bucks. it's a nice player, not as sleek as the ipod but nowhere near the expense.

 

[bgeh]

good sound(no one likes to hear static crackles)
capacity(imo, get a hard drive based mp3 player,has higher capacity)
music management(there's nothing more irritating than scrolling through 100 songs just to play your favourite song)
and, last battery life(some players only last 3-4 hours,better to get one with a long battery life)

 

[Lonyo]

Do outpost.com ship to the UK? I would really like a 5 gig mp3 player, but they only have the 10 gigs in the uk 🙁

 

[erikistired]

outpost international shipping.

 

[Lonyo]

Thanks, I couldn't see it anywhere myself, at least someone is observant. The Archos does look nice 🙂

 

[ObiDon]

Support for variable bit-rate MP3s would be a handy feature. I wonder if all newer players have that feature now?

 

[erikistired]

mine supports vbr, altho in the car you can really tell the difference between a vbr rip and a 192k rip.

 

[nortexoid]

yeah, all players support VBR - my rio 500 even does...(mad old)

anyway, if i were u, i wouldn't buy an hdd based player right now - there's really only one good one - the iPOD...the rest suck big crap...the creative nomad zen is ok, but still a piece of junk compared to the ipod...though it is the next best thing if u ask me...
all the rest are way too big (in fact, i even think the ipod is too big)...wait, there's some really nice hdd based players coming to the market late this year and early next year...if u want a player now, just scoop up some cheaper flash-based one...u can get them w/ 128mb internal (and more) which is decent, especially if u have additional flash cards to pop in...

check out the preview for this bantam 1000 player coming out next month - sweeeet!

EDIT:
oh yeah, they changed the interface to look less ipod-ish (look here

 

[TheCorm]

CD based Mp3 players are quite cheap yet still offer much more capacity than memory based ones. Memory based ones are generally compact and very reliable. Hard drive ones can be heavy but offer whopping capacity.

You might like to have a look at THIS from Mustek, yeah it only has 16mb of memory but it's also a webcam, digital camera, short clip camcorder and dictaphone and can be had for around £50.

Corm