MP3 players - recommendations?

[Bella]

I am going to buy Jek an MP3 player for Christmas. I'm looking for suggestions on what exactly to buy, and where to buy it.

The only MP3 player I've seen in living colour is an iPod belonging to my friend J. He has about 3,000 songs on it (that's what he says, anyway) and he can play it in his car with a little doohickey that broadcasts the music over his stereo. I would like a player with this feature. J says his iPod can save up to 10,000 songs or something like that - that's a little extreme for what Jek would use it for, I think (we only have 400 songs on our computer right now) so we probably don't need that much memory.

The iPod is $300 here with the little doohickey for broadcasting, which is out of my price range. Anything a little cheaper?

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by Bree

I'm looking for suggestions on what exactly to buy, and where to buy it.

Important question: What kind of computer does he use? Mac, PC, linux, windows?

[Bella]

My friend with the iPod has a Macintosh - it came with his computer when he purchased it.

Jek and I have a PC running Windows 98. She'll probably be running a PC for a while. I'm planning on purchasing an iBook sometime in the next 18-24 months but I'm not going to be the main user of the MP3 player.

[Scotty]

The iPod mini. iTunes works with the PC, plus you can get an AirPort Express and pipe the music from your soon-to-be-laptop to your sterio after reading your data off of the iPod (works with the PC and a wireless card also).
They are the best selling unit, probably because they work well, and the interface to get to the music really is the best out there so far.

http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/

http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/

http://www.apple.com/itunes

I heartily endorse the product or event.

Well shit, looks like iTunes only works with Win2k or XP. Upgrade baby! (iTunes would come with the iBook)

-Scott

[seebs]

Try to find out in advance whether the player REALLY plays MP3s or not.

Some players have special DRM stuff to make it so they can only play files encoded specifically for them, and/or use special software. I had an RCA "Lyra" for about a day because of this, uhm, "feature".

[Ymir's blood]

I had a portable CD player that could transmit to a nearby radio. Is that the same as what Bree mentioned? It was ok, but not very powerful. It was nearly impossible to find a dial setting without at least something that would disrupt the player's signal.

I looked into getting an mp3 player recently but backed off due to the cost. Sometime in the future, perhaps.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by seebs

Try to find out in advance whether the player REALLY plays MP3s or not.

Some players have special DRM stuff to make it so they can only play files encoded specifically for them, and/or use special software. I had an RCA "Lyra" for about a day because of this, uhm, "feature".

Indeed. I have a strange technique for looking for standards-compliant hardware: Look for the Macintosh OSX logo, THEN the Windows logo. If it runs under OSX, it means it's probably standards-compliant -- not shitty WinWare. And since OSX is a UNIX-variant, it means it's likely to run under Linux too.

(To scott) I don't think it's a particularly good idea to tell them to "upgrade to xp", by the way. If they're running 98, their computer might not be ABLE to run anything newer.

I wish I had any specific reccomendations for players... I've been using my Compaq iPaq and a 256MB SDcard for an MP3 player for ages now, so I haven't needed to investigate them. If possible, look for something that accepts SD cards and uses just plain files -- expandability and the ability to use it to carry datafiles is nice nice nice.

[Adam]

It really depends on what she'll use it for. For example, if she plans to use while jogging or anything like that. you don't want to go with the iPod because it has a hard drive inside it, and all the jostling will decrease its lifespan. In that case, you'd want something that uses flash memory (the same stuff that a digital camera uses) to store music.

BTW, the doohicky that allows you to broadcast to a radio isn't unique to the iPod. You can buy a transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack of anything with...well...anything with a headphone jack. They run $20-30 last I checked.

[Ymir's blood]

Originally Posted by Adam

BTW, the doohicky that allows you to broadcast to a radio isn't unique to the iPod. You can buy a transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack of anything with...well...anything with a headphone jack. They run $20-30 last I checked.

Cool, thanks. I'll have to check into that next time I'm in a part of the world that has real stores.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Adam

It really depends on what she'll use it for. For example, if she plans to use while jogging or anything like that. you don't want to go with the iPod because it has a hard drive inside it, and all the jostling will decrease its lifespan. In that case, you'd want something that uses flash memory (the same stuff that a digital camera uses) to store music.

One of the first decisions you have to make is between a solid state and a harddrive system.

The solid state systems, as their name implies, have no moving parts, so they are sturdier. But this also makes them more expensive overall, and they generally have less capacity.

The Little Muffin has a hard drive based Nomad Jukebox--10 gigs, I think--that I got him several years ago. It holds a LOT of stuff, obviously, and is still in working order, but it has crashed a couple of times, and he can't really wear it while doing jumping jacks or anything. So, they're cheaper, bigger, and more versatile. It's basically just a small hard drive with software to manage and play MP3s. So you can use it to transfer other kinds of things that I don't THINK you can in most solid state systems.

I haven't researched this in a couple of years, though, so this may be horribly anachronistic, and someone--Scotty at least--is probably going to taunt me.

BTW, the doohicky that allows you to broadcast to a radio isn't unique to the iPod. You can buy a transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack of anything with...well...anything with a headphone jack. They run $20-30 last I checked.

Yeah, TLM has one of those, too. I think it was around $20, and it works fairly well. It just sends radio signal to whatever device you want to play it out of. It seems to work well in the car, usually. (Disclaimer: I don't use it regularly myself, so this is just casual observation, mostly.)

[nvexio]

i'm extremely happy with my iPod... i highly recommend it. quality is outstanding, decent battery life, the little headphones that come with it even sound great for being so small.... can double as an external harddrive with either a Firewire or USB connection... the iTunes software that comes with it is good, too....

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by Adam

It really depends on what she'll use it for. For example, if she plans to use while jogging or anything like that. you don't want to go with the iPod because it has a hard drive inside it, and all the jostling will decrease its lifespan.

That's what's always bugged me about those ipod ads. They show people dancing to the music carrying an ipod, and that's a mean thing to do to any hard drive.

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by lisarea

The Little Muffin has a hard drive based Nomad Jukebox--10 gigs, I think--that I got him several years ago. It holds a LOT of stuff, obviously, and is still in working order, but it has crashed a couple of times, and he can't really wear it while doing jumping jacks or anything. So, they're cheaper, bigger, and more versatile. It's basically just a small hard drive with software to manage and play MP3s. So you can use it to transfer other kinds of things that I don't THINK you can in most solid state systems.

Physically, flash-media MP3 players should be able to do this. It's assholish corporations like Philips(I think) that have chosen to take the route of making their MP3 players nonstandard devices that only work with custom drivers, specific software, and specific OSes in order to restrict what you can do with the storage space.

Sadly, this happens more often with flash-based players, and it really pisses me off... nobody seems to keep a list of which players are standards-compliant. There's a perfectly good protocol already there for doing this kind of thing! Use it and triple your customer base you idiots! Worse yet, corporations who DO make standards-compliant devices often don't even know it. I once wrote Logitech a nice letter thanking them for making their products standards-compliant and functional under linux, and got a form-letter back stating "Sorry, we do not support linux..."

[Godless Dave]

Bree, how many songs an mp3 player will hold depends how many mega- or gigabytes of stroage it has, just like a computer. The brands differ in other areas, but if you want to know the capacity, just look at how big the hard drive or memory card is. Most solid-state style players use removeable memory cards/sticks ("media"), just like a digital camera. But none of them hold nearly as much as a hard drive player.

iPods generally cost more than other hard drive players with the same sized drives, but they have other features that some people really like.

[Scotty]

(To scott) I don't think it's a particularly good idea to tell them to "upgrade to xp", by the way. If they're running 98, their computer might not be ABLE to run anything newer.

Actually, it was because I didn't realize you couldn't run it on 98, so it was a little bit of a joke. Best to upgrade if they can, as they don't support updating I.E. on anything below win2k. Bastards.

I haven't researched this in a couple of years, though, so this may be horribly anachronistic, and someone--Scotty at least--is probably going to taunt me.

Now, why would I taunt you? Have I taunted you before? Hmm, I will have to think about that.

Yes, the hard drive systems can and do skip if you were to jog. The iPod has something like a 15 or 30 second read-ahead, so it does keep the skipping down when it gets a bump and doesn't get too many of them in a row.

I have never really liked the flash capable players because I didn't think they held enough songs. It sounds like (rumor) that Apple will be putting out a flash based iPod around the holidays. If they can make it price competative and put at least 4 gigs in it, that would be cool.

I always wanted the flash players to use the removeable media so you could swap with people, or just swap onto a computer card reader and change songs or whatever, but that might be a copyright problem.

-Scott

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Scotty

Now, why would I taunt you?

Because you KNOW STUFF, you...you...STUFF-KNOWER.

Have I taunted you before?

Out loud, probably not. But you're THINKING it. I just know it.

Hmm, I will have to think about that.

See?

Just like I said.

[Bella]

Thanks, guys. Jek will NOT be using her device for running/jogging - just for listening to when she's riding around in her car. I would LOVE to be able to put a shitload of music on the thing, but I don't think we really need to be able to store more than, say, 200 songs.

I did read in the New York Times that iPod was going to put out a Flash-based player around Thanksgiving as well, but we'll see about the price...

[Godless Dave]

Originally Posted by Bree

I would LOVE to be able to put a shitload of music on the thing, but I don't think we really need to be able to store more than, say, 200 songs.

So you say now.... The last thing you want to do is run out of space and have to buy a new one in the near future.

If she will mainly use it in the car, I think a hard drive variety is the way to go, in which case you should get the biggest one you can afford.