Which MP3 player doesn't suck?

[fyleow]

..

 

[myunk]

I love my ipod. I have a 4th gen 40GB one. Love it to death. That said, i had a 3rd gen 30GB model that died on me. But it was under waranty at Best Buy, so i was able to get a new one.

 

[gflores]

This is just one person. What's the big deal?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Excelsior
The Karma is the only player I see that barely fits in that 50-100% range(~53%), and while it may have the same capacity and even more features, its UI/Design is subpar. The Zen Touch can be found for $219, and the iPod for $289, only 32% more.

The 100% difference example is the 40gb Zen Xtra, which can be found for as little as $200 vs the 40gb ipod which is $400.

Would you really want to support a player which children like CheapArse so violently and immaturely defend? Would you really want to support a player which generates such spam on our forums with its pyramid scams? One which advertises you as young and a slave to trends? Would you really want to support a company that charges 2-5x as much for its products because of its manufactured image? One which creates malware such as QuickTime?

A poster like CR, whose picture is next to "trend" in the dictionary, may be beyond help - but the rest of you should, with a little mental footwork, be able to see through the BS - even the young among you, and realize advertising and image are intangibles that aren't worth $100 or more. Strip them away and you have a low quality, featureless player that costs far more than its competition.

 

[TallBill]

Ipod is extremely expensive. You can get a zen xtra plus whatever extra warranties if you dont trust it and save 100-200 bucks.

The only good thing I see coming out of Ipods success is more focus on mp3 players by them and less focus on making overpriced underpowered mac's.

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: fyleow

Holy Thread Hijack!

You've had two HD-based players die on you, from an otherwise reliable brand name. Methinks the problem lies between keyboard and chair. You might really want to go with a Flash-based player this time.

Me <-- no problems w/my Creative Zen Xtra (HD-based) in 9 months, takes it everywhere BUT running.

:roll: Read my post carefully, I said jogging on a treadmill. The player is not subjected to shock at all. My JB3 died and I never ran with it. I've never dropped my players either. I don't need much room so I'm looking at flash players now because of the smaller form factor.

I did read your post carefully, and I maintain that the problem lies with you. You probably smacked your MP3 players somehow and broke them. It doesn't take much of a shock to destroy a hard drive that is running at 5400 RPM (or whatever speed these things are). The drive head floats above the surface of the platter supported by AIR and nothing else. If you shock the drive while the thing is trying to read/write, you can easily destroy it. The player stores info in its buffer to minimize disk access, but it still only takes one hit at the wrong time to destroy the drive.

"Head Crash"

 

[BenSkywalker]

Not to dig up a dead thread, and I'll hold off on the iPod comments directly but this I had to say something about-

What about connecting to a computer? Well iPod and itunes are packaged together. It's already common knowledge that the iTunes music store is the best (in terms of volume of available music and price,

iTunes music is without a doubt absolute utter garbage. Not the titles so much as the quality- I honestly was completely shocked at how bad it sounds. This is not a comment on the iPod mind you, but Apple's music format is unuseable crap. After my shock at how bad the music was directly from iTunes I ripped one of my CDs in the highest default quality format iTunes offered(320- I know a lossless is available) and had my better half do a double blind. WMA was up first and then AAC, before the music even started on Apple's she asked "Why is it hissing like that?"- that was followed by a grimmace(the music started) along with instructions never to buy any more music from iTunes.

For the general topic- go with a flash based player. I know I'm too brutal to have a HD survive on a MP3 player so I don't use them

 

[chuck2002]

If you want cheap and zero moving parts to wear out or screw up from jogging, running or other movement or vibration intensive activities, I would go with a flash memory based music player.
You wouldn't get the capacity, but most people that use one for the gym only listen for an hour or 2 max at a time. I like my MuVo 256 meg mp3 player for its size, included arm band, easy interface, monkey simple file transfer, and ability to double as a usb drive if need be.

If you are going to the gym with $300+ worth of media player on your person, you have an image problem IMO.
You can get a MuVo or other highly capable mp3 player that will fit your needs for years to come for under $100 bucks.

 

[kd2777]

Oh no!!!!! I just bought an iPod Shuffle for my dad for his birthday. I bought it for its easy of use; he doesn't WANT to learn anything technical, but he wants the song capacity that mp3 players have for long trips on his motorcycle. I looked through every mp3 player Newegg, Best Buy, and Circuit City had, but none of them looked as easy to use as the iPod Shuffle. It had an easy shuffle button, an easy play button, easy forward and back, and a 1GB of space. That is all it needs to have (that is all I wanted it to have, no menues), if it isn?t the best player out there then OK, but it was the best for my application.

I hope after buying an iPod that it doesn?t make me a stupid kid again .

 

[heedoyiu]

the itunes software is complete crap. the ipod would be a million times better without it. i too would rather have the creative

 

[piroroadkill]

Fu ck the iPod, if you possibly can, get an iRiver iHP-140 (or H140) if possible, but they're stopping production of them.

F ucking leet players if you can get one.

 

[kd2777]

Originally posted by: piroroadkill
Fu ck the iPod, if you possibly can, get an iRiver iHP-140 (or H140) if possible, but they're stopping production of them.

F ucking leet players if you can get one.

Gurck, that is one of your guys. His parents probably didn't buy him an iPod.

kd

 

[arcenite]

I do not understand why everyone here has to take things so personally. Hi, I think the iPod is the best MP3 player you can get. Really? Ok, if that's your opinion. Who gives a sh!t what anyone else thinks. Everyone has a different opinion. Some may want something smaller, some may want something with more space, some may want something because it's the newest thing out there, and some may want the most expensive they can find so they can tell all their friends hey look at what I got! From a neutral point of view, Gurck, I believe you are going a little over the top with this whole anti-ipod thing... Sure, people who called you names in the thread aren't necessarily the ones you're going to hire when it comes to a job interview, but you have to expect some level of immaturity when it comes to internet forums, especially the ones we find ourselves on. If you hate the ipod fine, if you like the ipod fine, but it's just not worth the time and aggravation to argue your point with someone about it. Gurck why do you insist on insulting people who own/love/hump the ipod, and then get upset when they get upset with you for making fun of them. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I am not "calling you out" or trying to insult anyone, I am merely trying to understand the behavior and why it's necessary.

Bill

 

[IAteYourMother]

Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that Gurck has indeed made himself look like an asshole.

 

[arcenite]

Originally posted by: IAteYourMother
Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that Gurck has indeed made himself look like an asshole.

Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that this post was highly unnecessary.

Bill

 

[jelkukipik]

Iv got my rio nitrus for over a year now and it work great.

You can get today the 5gig model for the price of the 1.5g last year.

 

[kalster]

wow

i own an ipod myself

wow, i never thought people could love/hate a product so much to keep fighting about it over the internet, its your money, buy what you want, just because someone else bought something you dont like doesnt mean they suck

i have been pretty happy with the ipod so far

 

[mrSHEiK124]

completly ignoring all the useless iPod/Creative flaming in the past 7 pages, OP, if I were you, I'd go with either an iPod or an iRiver H320, I've seen too many of Creative's players go bad first hand, a friend of mine's Zen Xtra died like your Touch did, and a friend of mine with a Zen Touch has it lock up very frequently and sometimes it displays random characters (jap, etc.)
as far as Creative's flash players go, they're pretty decent, except for the fact that you need to make folders to make a play list, AFAIK iRivers are the only flash players with true playlist support

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: aRCeNiTe

Originally posted by: IAteYourMother
Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that Gurck has indeed made himself look like an asshole.

Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that this post was highly unnecessary.

Bill

Neither many of the other posts similar to this one. Perhaps you should go back, re read the entire thread, and comment on the other similar posts. :roll:

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Not to dig up a dead thread, and I'll hold off on the iPod comments directly but this I had to say something about-

What about connecting to a computer? Well iPod and itunes are packaged together. It's already common knowledge that the iTunes music store is the best (in terms of volume of available music and price,

iTunes music is without a doubt absolute utter garbage. Not the titles so much as the quality- I honestly was completely shocked at how bad it sounds. This is not a comment on the iPod mind you, but Apple's music format is unuseable crap. After my shock at how bad the music was directly from iTunes I ripped one of my CDs in the highest default quality format iTunes offered(320- I know a lossless is available) and had my better half do a double blind. WMA was up first and then AAC, before the music even started on Apple's she asked "Why is it hissing like that?"- that was followed by a grimmace(the music started) along with instructions never to buy any more music from iTunes.

For the general topic- go with a flash based player. I know I'm too brutal to have a HD survive on a MP3 player so I don't use them

Agreed that iTunes is crappy and the quality of their files is piss poor. However on the WMA vs. AAC thing WMA is generally considered far worse than .AAC, which is actually not Apple's format but the Fraunhofer successor to MP3. Now, hiss in and of itself is not a bas thing despite popular perception to the contrary. Even the best CDs have hiss as part of the recording process. You can run algorithms to remove hiss but you will also sacrifice audio fidelity by processing like that. Dithering also adds hiss but increases dynamic range. A format like WMA is probably removing all that hiss (and also messing with the dynamics of the music) to make it seem better on A-B comparisons. The overall musical impact and satisfaction will be retained better by .aac. Just listen to both for a while and you'll see.

 

[layoutd05]

i won an iPod mini and it works great. My history teachers loves ipod's so much he has like 3 and all these acessories to go with em....

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: IAteYourMother
Upon careful observation, I have come to the conclusion that Gurck has indeed made himself look like an asshole.

Thanks, always nice when someone on the opposing side in the debate helps my point along. Maybe you'll realize what I mean in a few years when you're 15. Till then, keep thinking you "pwn3d" someone by calling them a name on the internet when lacking any real argument or even discussion content. It works for other AOLers, why not you?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: aRCeNiTe
I do not understand why everyone here has to take things so personally. Hi, I think the iPod is the best MP3 player you can get. Really? Ok, if that's your opinion. Who gives a sh!t what anyone else thinks. Everyone has a different opinion. Some may want something smaller, some may want something with more space, some may want something because it's the newest thing out there, and some may want the most expensive they can find so they can tell all their friends hey look at what I got! From a neutral point of view, Gurck, I believe you are going a little over the top with this whole anti-ipod thing... Sure, people who called you names in the thread aren't necessarily the ones you're going to hire when it comes to a job interview, but you have to expect some level of immaturity when it comes to internet forums, especially the ones we find ourselves on. If you hate the ipod fine, if you like the ipod fine, but it's just not worth the time and aggravation to argue your point with someone about it. Gurck why do you insist on insulting people who own/love/hump the ipod, and then get upset when they get upset with you for making fun of them. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I am not "calling you out" or trying to insult anyone, I am merely trying to understand the behavior and why it's necessary.

Bill

Give the thread another read, I insulted only those who first insulted me, and for doing so, not for owning an ipod. That the two are almost always the same says something about apple & the ipod for sure, but I'm not to blame for there being such a strong corellation

 

[dabuddha]

What do you do with your zen touch? Mine hasn't had any problems at all.

 

[Philippine Mango]

I got a question for the OP, how old were your creative players before they pooped out? It seems like these HDD based players are pooping out completely at around 2 yrs. If you really want a long lasting player where the batteries can always be replaced, get a flashed based player...

The ones I'm thinking of are the ones with AA batteries, they have a life of 36 hours on 1 battery with between 256MB to 1Gb of space. I mean you really don't need more then about 1GB of space because your batteries will be dead before you have listened to all of the songs on those larger players. Flashed based players are 1. More durable, 2. Cheaper, 3. Batteries are easily replaced 4. smaller, way smaller, 5. provide plenty of space, 6. if you look carefully you can find one with very good sound quality.

My biggest gripe about the IPOD is that you have to use thier crappy interface to put data on there. I'm not even sure you can put any other files on there besides music files.