Alternatives to the iPod?

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

L5

How about the iriver ihp-120? Its supposed to be the best mp3 player on the market. Try amazon.co.uk for it. I dont think the dell dj is out in europe yet. It looks nice though.

long_b

Harvey Norman (Swords) have a great deal on the iHP140 - it's 40 GB of iRiver goodness for €460 yo yo

blobert

The I-pod is quite overpriced compared to the others. Personally I would go for the Creative Labs Zen or the iRiver iHP 140 which has more features for less. The i-pod may look slightly more stylish but it depends whether or not you want to pay extra for this. Besides it will spend most of the time in your pocket, unless you take it out and wave it about on the bus to show off!

L5

Originally posted by blobert
, unless you take it out and wave it about on the bus to show off!

In which case your likely to be relieved of it fairly quickly!

super_furry

I can't recommend the Jukebox Zen enough. Cheaper price, more storage space and better sound quality.

eclectichoney

is that harvey norman price on the iriver 140 a special offer or the regular price? its a great deal, so if its a short term special offer i better get down asap.

Pacifico

Buy an iPod , you wont be disapointed:)

Woden

battery life on the ipod isn't great, i mean on an individual charge e.g. 6-8 hours not the stuff about the overall lifetime decreasing. however it does havea nice 80% charge in 1 hour thingy.

data

jozi

Have a look here, some reviews of the different players mentioned above.

jozi

John R

Do any of them use standard AA or AAA batteries?

Makaveli

The Creative Jukeboxes and the Ipods use lithium ion batteries dunno about the rest.
I'd say they would eat regular batteries.

moby2101

Hi Guys,
I'm in the same position, thinking of buying an Ipod aor the Creative Zen, I've got a PC running Windows 98, will this be an issue with the Itunes software, will I need to buy additional software like Xplay (retails around 40 E)
I would probably need to buy a firewire card also,
Advice please, am seriously thinking of getting the 40Gb Zen which I think has better and LOUDER playback!!

dwayneburke

for the ipod you can by an addon that fits 4 aa batteries and connects via suction cups to the back of the ipod----its big and cumbersome but if your out the back in the summer it works quite well


as long as you dont have to put it in your pocket....baterry lenght is actually better than the inbuilt LI-Ion ipod battery as far as i can rem

Its made by belkin BTW

m4cker

Have you considered looking in america it works out at about E420 for the 40gb I-Pod (i am waiting for mine to arrive) the only problem lies in the apple american site which won't accept non-american credit cards so you will need to be well in with someone over there. for alternative reviews check out http://www.ecoustics.com/Editorial/Reviews/Portable_MP3_or_Portable_CD/

jozi

Have seen a site somewhere with a how to on making an externar battery pack for an ipod, 2 aa and a 9 volt if i remember rightly.
will see can i find the page later and post it if you want

jozi

Pacifico

Originally posted by jozi
Have seen a site somewhere with a how to on making an externar battery pack for an ipod, 2 aa and a 9 volt if i remember rightly.
will see can i find the page later and post it if you want

jozi

Is this it? Over on IpodLounge.com An excellent site for all Ipod Problems

Woden

Originally posted by moby2101

Advice please, am seriously thinking of getting the 40Gb Zen which I think has better and LOUDER playback!!

the loudness of the playback on the ipod can be sorted with little piece of software in windows anyway, mac has another way of doing it, i have a thread about it on that ipod lounge if ya search for it

data

jozi

Originally posted by Axel
Is this it? Over on IpodLounge.com An excellent site for all Ipod Problems

no, but that's prob a better job than the one on this site, link for it on the site doesn't seem to work for me but thats where i found it anyway

jozi

moby2101

Thx dataisgod!!
The volume was the clincher, ipod 20gb it is then, !!!!
Cheers

Woden

no problem just max sure you mp3s are of decent quality or in some cases you'll be amplifying their general crapness

eclectichoney

i just bought an iriver H140 40GB and its fantastic....highly recommended so far.

If you think that Dixons offer of €400 For this is cheap you should get in contact with anyone in the usa.

I bought one for 300 dollars (€250) in J&R in New York

Its incredible 40 gb storage easy interface.

if you are headin over any toime soon Buy one

Also didn't even need a stepdown converter as the charger just needs a regular lead to hte converter

Zaph

Anyone know anything about the Rio Karma? I've read some reviews and by all accounts the sound quality is excellent. The only thing that appears to let it down is that it's a bit chunky (it's a little over an inch thick). It's also a good bit cheaper than an iPod.

peteretep

what about mini-disc players?
sony are coming out with a new version that takes 1Gb discs, and you can also use it as an external storage device. check out www.minidisc.org

Gyck

I know that this is ever so slightly off post, but speaking of iPods...
...Check this out

qBot

Originally posted by peteretep
what about mini-disc players?
sony are coming out with a new version that takes 1Gb discs, and you can also use it as an external storage device. check out www.minidisc.org

I wouldn't be too gone on mini-discs at all. U must use sony's atrac3 format when putting music on them which means your losing sound quality while you transcode from mp3 to atrac3. Plus sony have this awful drm software controlling what/how much/ u listen to your music. Even the ones that are on your machine.

Of course this may have changed with the new line of players but i wouldn't think so.

peteretep

theyve a new format atrac3plus for the new players and theres also an option for lossless recording if you think your ears are good enough to tell the difference.
theyve also taken most of the restrictions about how many times you record your music, and theres a new version of the software coming out too.

qBot

Originally posted by peteretep
theyve a new format atrac3plus for the new players and theres also an option for lossless recording if you think your ears are good enough to tell the difference.
theyve also taken most of the restrictions about how many times you record your music, and theres a new version of the software coming out too.

still though, lossless means more space, so a 5mb mp3 is gong to be turned into 50mb. So your now 1gb of md-space can only hold the bones of one cd. Atrac3plus is just like aac/ogg vorbis/mp3-pro, it's still lossy compression, so if u convert an mp3 file to atrac3plus your still going to easily hear the loss in quality, there is huge difference in quality when transcoding from lossy to lossy. I can't see why sony don't just allow u to download your mp3. it makes more sense. Why put up with these restrictions when for the same money u can buy an iPod-mini

peteretep

im not gonna get into that lossless vs compression debate, i only listen to portable players somewhere noisy like on a bus so it doesnt matter to me.
beats an ipod mini because you can expand it to have as much capacity as you want at less than €10 per gigabyte, where with an ipod mini you get 4G? and then your ****ed.