Any suggestions?

Mimikyu

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K!LL!@N

The vast majority of MP3 players are perfectly fine.
It just depends what you're after.

I have an iriver, i love it and don't think i'd use anything else.
Aesthetically it's not quite as pretty as the iPod but it stays in my bag the whole time because i use the remote control so much.
I also use the radio a lot.
I like not having to install any software to use it, just drag and drop my music.

Personally i'd base my purchase on features and price.
Looks don't come into it for me.
If you want to walk around with the thing in your hand, get an iPod.

Killian

4Xcut

1-iPod has crap battery
2-iPod is too expensive
3-headphones packaged are ****
4-iPod is flimsy, freezing up,etc.
5-it will break, most people i know have had theirs break myself aswell
6-an iPod is not a Creative Zen

In summary:Get the Zen instead of the iPod

Mimikyu

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Shrimp

I-River.

Mimikyu

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K!LL!@N

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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Well i have mine since they first came out.
It's a 20Gb, which i've found to be more than enough.
It originally cost me $329, got it in the states.
Not sure how much they go for now, but i'm sure it's probably less.

Someone mentioned the earphones that come with the iPod are crap, well i'm afraid i found the iRiver ones to be crap too.
They just kept falling out of my ears if i was walking or moving around.

Killian

Mimikyu

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ambro25

Depending on your budget, I'd look at the Gmini line by ARCHOS:
(i) musicality as good as any you care to name,
(ii) interface as non-existent (as in 'drag & drop in Explorer') or full-featured (as in 'sync all my tracks between HDD & mp3 player without going to the pains of MusicJukebox') as you want
(iii) very price-friendly for the features
(iv) usually very light/small for the features as well
(v) and build quality up there with the best of them.

I'm not selling/working for ARCHOS btw (:D), but I have had a 420AV for quite a while and it's still the most fantastic piece of portable kit I've seen/had in years - would recommend them anyday.

Oriel

I'm going to go for the new Creative Zen Sleek.

grimloch

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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You mean the H320? Supposed to be good. There is a distinct lack of creating on-the-fly playlists though which would aggravate some. There's a voice recorder with it too which is always a nice feature.

K!LL!@N

grimloch wrote:

You mean the H320? Supposed to be good. There is a distinct lack of creating on-the-fly playlists though which would aggravate some. There's a voice recorder with it too which is always a nice feature.

No he's talking about the H10.
It was originally a competitor to the iPod mini and came in 5Gb version.
Then i think there was a 6Gb version and now they've upped it to 20Gb.
The 20Gb version is not as small as the 5/6Gb version but it has kept the same look and feel.
I don't know if it comes with a remote or not.
I check that out, the remote really makes a huge difference, to me anyway.

I can't imagine very many people actually use the voice recorder.
I used it once when i got the thing but that was just to try it out.
That's not to say it's not useful, it will record WAV or MP3 on the fly.
You could also use it for minidisc style recording.
Connect it up to your record player and record those old favourites, stuff like that.

Killian

grimloch

Ah yes I see it now. Grimloch will put that on his shopping list.

Mimikyu

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muckwarrior

As a H320 owner I'd have to recommend the Zen. :eek:
Well unless you want a colour screen. iRiver undoubtedly have the best hardware but it's firmware is shíte. Have you ever used a player with OTF playlists? If not then I suppose you won't really miss them, but if you're used to otf playlists (like I was) then you'll be really pissed off with an iRiver (like I was). It's interface is also quite poor compared to other brands. It's grand once you get used to it, but of course the point is you shouldn't have to get used to it.

Ok I know I'm being pretty negative here but I think you should hear the downsides as well as the upsides (which there are plenty) which most people will only tell you about.

grimloch

muckwarrior wrote:

As a H320 owner I'd have to recommend the Zen. :eek:
Well unless you want a colour screen. iRiver undoubtedly have the best hardware but it's firmware is shíte. Have you ever used a player with OTF playlists? If not then I suppose you won't really miss them, but if you're used to otf playlists (like I was) then you'll be really pissed off with an iRiver (like I was). It's interface is also quite poor compared to other brands. It's grand once you get used to it, but of course the point is you shouldn't have to get used to it.

Ok I know I'm being pretty negative here but I think you should hear the downsides as well as the upsides (which there are plenty) which most people will only tell you about.

Would the H320 be the same, interface wise, to the 20 gig H10 or would they have ironed those little issues out?

Apologies for the hi-jack of the thread.

oneofakind32

ambro25 wrote:

Depending on your budget, I'd look at the Gmini line by ARCHOS:
(i) musicality as good as any you care to name,
(ii) interface as non-existent (as in 'drag & drop in Explorer') or full-featured (as in 'sync all my tracks between HDD & mp3 player without going to the pains of MusicJukebox') as you want
(iii) very price-friendly for the features
(iv) usually very light/small for the features as well
(v) and build quality up there with the best of them.

I'm not selling/working for ARCHOS btw (:D), but I have had a 420AV for quite a while and it's still the most fantastic piece of portable kit I've seen/had in years - would recommend them anyday.

They aught to put u on the pay role dude cus u just sold one to me. I did an amazon search and the Archos Gmini XS200 is exactly what Im looking for.
Thank you!

Makaveli

I have 2 Zens, I'm happy with both but have decided to upgrade as I feel they are lacking something. The software that comes with the Zen is shocking and the fact that drivers need to be mounted on the pc for it to work is annoying too.

Just ordered an Iriver H340 from www.mx2.co.uk. Radio is a nice bonus as is the recorder. I hope they can release a rockbox version for the H3xx series soon because a lack of otf playlists will be slightly annoying after being able to do it on the Zen. However, I feel the Iriver is a better quality player and it supports more audio types which is handy too.

More expensive than the Zen, this is probably the biggest draw back to it. The 40GB Zen Touch is currently €273 on Komplett which is pretty good value.

Having used quite a few Ipods I wouldn't recommend them. I have encountered quite a few problems with them, including severe lag when scrolling through menus, no response from key presses, random crashes and on more than a few occassions they have crashed my pc when connected to it. Also I find iTunes a horribly bloated piece of software.

cormie

Creative Touch 40GB for €273 (+€10 delivery) is a good deal alright. If you want a simple basic mp3 player, that would probably suit you best.

If you want the best on the market, you are looking at the iAudio X5. This is expensive though. It has a colour screen/usb on the go (connect digi cam to transfer pics to hd etc)/video playback and a great firmware. It will cost you though €370 about for a 20GB version.

Now, for about €370, you can get the iRiver H-140 (40GB) from www.amp3.co.uk. This has received great reviews since it was released about 2 years ago (is it that long??) and is still in amp3's top 10. The software was terrible, but now an open source firmware (www.rockbox.org) has been implemented, you can do anything from create playlists to view greyscale photos, playback is gapless and you can even choose to crossfade your music. Not to mention you can play gameboy games on it even!

There is also the iRiver H3XX series, this is like the iAudio except it doesn't have an LCD remote and its firmware isn't the best. RockBox is also under development for this (and also the iAudio actually) so you should expect to see things like on the fly playlists and the likes on the H3XX some time in the next few months. You can get the H340 (40GB) for about €370 delivered too.

If you want good hardware and good software and want video colour photo/video and an alcd remote and are willing to spend €370 for a 20gb device go with the iAudio X5. (peats parnell street, probably could be found cheaper online- ebay you'd be looking at about €300 I'd say)

If you want great hardware (optical out/in lcd remote) and great software and a 40GB hardrive without colour video playback, for for the iRiver H140 for about €370. www.amp3.co.uk

If you want great hardware (usb otg, colour photo/video etc) and are willing to wait a few months for rockbox (great software) and want a 40GB HD for €370 go for the iRiver H340 from www.mx2.co.uk

If you want a budget, but still good 40gb mp3 player for less than €300, go for the Creative Touch from www.komplett.ie

Check up on each player yourself ( www.iriver.com www.iaudio.com and www.creative.com)

ambro25

oneofakind32 wrote:

They aught to put u on the pay role dude cus u just sold one to me. I did an amazon search and the Archos Gmini XS200 is exactly what Im looking for.
Thank you!

Hope you like it as much as I've been enjoying (still am) my AV420

If I'm not mistaken, it also plays games (unless I'm mistaken and it's the 400 series that does) and a friend of mine has just finished developing a few really good ones (Sokoban/Bomberman style) that ARCHOS will be releasing shortly.

johnnyc

keep away from creative zen micros they break down so easy ...dodgy hard drive...and they look crap

Mimikyu

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cormie

In fairness to iRiver, I haven't heard many bad stories about them at all besides the lack of firmware updates, which rockbox takes care of. I look at their forums quite a bit, both on misticriver.net (great for iRiver info) and on iRiver.com. I've heard more complaints about other brands on boards.ie then I have about iRiver on their own forums. Check out any brands forums, that's where most of the complaints are. iRiver is great hardware. iRiver and iAudio definitely have the best hardware and now iRiver H1XX has the best software too. Any of the above I mentioned are fine to go for, it just depends how much you're willing to spend and what features you prefer.

chump

My recommendation would be a 5month old perfect nick H120 available here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=285552

You'd be mad not to

cormie

Go for it Solitary!! They were €299 new in peats and that was pretty good. €250 is good but I reckon oul Chumpy would drop it down, note the beside the price. if you can get this for anything less than €250, go for it! receipt and all!

Makaveli

Solitaryman666 wrote:

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Do any of your friends have mp3 players? If they do try messing around with it for a while. See what you think of it and listen to a few tracks, get a feel for the interface and what the sound quality is like. This will ultimately be more helpful than reading spec lists and will help when making your decision.

muckwarrior

grimloch wrote:

Would the H320 be the same, interface wise, to the 20 gig H10 or would they have ironed those little issues out?

Apologies for the hi-jack of the thread.

Haven't a clue. Never used the H10, but I know the hardware interface is different so the software has to be a bit different as well, whether it's any better or not I don't know. Also it's not really a case of "ironing out little issues". It's not that theres bugs, it's just really poorly designed. Basically it needs to be redisigned from the ground up.

Mimikyu

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Mimikyu

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cormie

go to www.misticriver.net, they'll give you an honest oppinion on things, maybe slightly iriver biased but if they have complaints, they will complain.

blorg

If you just want to listen to music with a really easy to use interface to find whatever you want to listen to, get the iPod. Nothing can beat it for ease of use, it is one of the very few gadgets that I have that "just works."

If you actually want other features, radio, live recording, video, etc. then you will want something else.

Mimikyu

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long_b

"Mostly positive" sounds very dodgy to me - would usually need 99% at least

Mimikyu

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Mimikyu

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cormie

60GB photo for €360 isn't bad alright. Enjoy it:) can you link me to the item (if there is more than one of course)

Mimikyu

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cormie

Cool, well good luck with it anyway, hopefully you wont be leaving any negative feedback, while your splashing out you should get a decent set of earphones aswell by the way! Google for ipod linux (I think it's called that) It's like rockbox for iriver, they tweak their own firmware, I think you can playback movies and all too:)

Mimikyu

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