What portable music player do you own?

[Ryan F.]

I would have to recommend the ipod. Personally, I'm not a mac person and would almost go out of my way to avoid their products, but the ipod is simply the best player on the market right now. Origonally I bought a rio kharma, hoping that what I heard about their hard drive problems would not be true. After 1 week of use my player wouldn't work anymore, and I had all the symptoms of common hard drive problem. I returned it for a refund. I'd stay away from that player. Luckily a week later, the new 4'th gen ipod came out. Not only was it a superior player, but it was 100 dollars less than it used to be. The 20 gig is now very competative price wise with any other player, and I'd be hard pressed to find a better interface/player. So far I haven't regretted my decision to get an ipod at all.

[Ali Ahmed]

Ipod. Thats the only way to go. I have one of the 3rd generation ones and I love it. But the newer ones are even better. I bought my brother a 40 gig iPod Photo and all I can say is that I wish I had bought it for myself. I am still waiting for Apple to come out with a color screen on all iPods and not only on the Photo's.

[Mike Ciance]

i'd recommend a CD player. seriously, MP3 players are way too expensive to be worth the money in my opinion. you should get the Panasonic Shockwave, it's really good. it can play MP3s off CD-RWs, so you can keep a ton of music with you if you want. it has a really good remote too. before you go wasting hundreds of dollars you should at least check it out. i'd rather spend $70 and find out i should have payed $500 than spend $500 and find out i should have spent $70.

[Bacchus]

Thanks for the input. Does anyone actually own an iRiver? I've heard the interface is pretty clunky. But I think I'm leaning toward getting one of those...

re: CD Player: I've already spent $70 and got a decent MP3CD player and now realized I need to spend $500...

[Ben Lauer]

Originally Posted by Bacchus

Thanks for the input. Does anyone actually own an iRiver? I've heard the interface is pretty clunky. But I think I'm leaning toward getting one of those...

Yes, i own one.
As long as your music is organized in folders well, and you have most things correctly tagged, the interface is perfect. You sort by Artist, Song title, Album, and genre, as well has going through your file tree to find music you want to play. You can cue up one song at a time, so when a song is playing, you can sort though and find the next song for it to play, and it will automatically sort to it. The battery life on my 40gb iRiver iHP-140 has be consistently between 14 and 16 hours, and i have had it for almost a year.

It is treated like an external hard drive, and has plug and play with windows 2000 and xp, and has drivers for 98. (i hope you don't have 98, if you do, you need to change that ;-). I have only one complaint. When you turn it off, it goes off, and when you turn in back on, it takes about 30 seconds to resume playing.

I love it, i take it everywhere, and it is only slightly bigger than an iPod. I don't remember what the price was, but you should watch for a good deal on amazon, they have specials were something will be on sale for only one day, and it will have a really discounted price.

If you want to know more, let me know, I'll fill you in.

Oh yeah, if you want software that will tag your mp3's for you, Check out
MusicBrainz for free software that will compare your songs to a database, and will update tags with out all the hassle it takes to do it on winamp or other multimedia applications.

****NOTE**** - I have a 20gb iRiver, unopened, that i would be willing to part with, but i would have to figure out how much it would cost the buyer. I'll investigate that evenually, and if you are interested, contact me.

[Wetzel]

The Toshiba Gigabeat F is awesome. 2.2" QVGA polysilicon TFT, 2.48in x 4.17in x .62in, .35 lbs and 60gb drive. Of course it works as a USB harddrive.

I hate Japan. They tease me with so many awesome gadgets, then never sell them over here, or if they do it is to sell off things that have become obsolete there. So I'm stuck with an iPod. Stupid corporations wanting to know the market for a device before they release cool stuff. Then Apple comes along and says, we'll take that risk, and look where the iPod is now!
{/bitterness}

I wish that consumers drove technology, not business.


Wetzel

[greencactus3]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

I hate Japan. They tease me with so many awesome gadgets, then never sell them over here, or if they do it is to sell off things that have become obsolete there. So I'm stuck with an iPod. Stupid corporations wanting to know the market for a device before they release cool stuff. Then Apple comes along and says, we'll take that risk, and look where the iPod is now!
{/bitterness}
Wetzel

dont hate japan! hate whoever imports these or w/e lol

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by greencactus3

dont hate japan! hate whoever imports these or w/e lol

The problem is they DON'T import them. They've put the emphasis on tech, and tech infrastructure for a long time now. You can do real videoconfrenceing from your cell phone with FOMA there. Here? We barly have megapixal cameras in cell phones, while over there they consumer digital cameras are averaging 1 gigapixel with 5+ megapixel cameras in cellphones.

Makes me want to move to Japan.

Wetzel

[Wetzel]

I am now the happy owner of a 4th Gen 20gb iPod. Only problem is figuring out what to put on it as i have ~55gb of mp3s. :-/
Maybe I should get one of the iPod photos, but I have a feeling I'll pass 60gb before too much longer.

I am, however, looking at getting an iRiver PMP-120 or an Archos AV420. Any thoughts?


Wetzel

[Cory]

Ok, I lied, my Archos battery wasn't dead afterall.

I ordered the $30 replacement battery that also supposedly gives up to 40% more life for my model, and figured out how to get at the battery so when it came I'd know what to do.

Turns out that after all that, the battery just needed to be pushed down a little more so that it made better contact...

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Mike Ciance

i'd rather spend $70 and find out i should have payed $500 than spend $500 and find out i should have spent $70.

Why would you pay $500 exactly?

I got an Archos Jukebox Multimedia for $200.

20 gb, plays music, movies, and can view photos. Works as a mobile hard drive.

I love it, except that the battery doesnt hold a charge anymore after about a year and a half.

[Bacchus]

Any chance the Archos can play a DivX (or equivalent) file? If so, before the battery took a dive, how long could you play a video? Enough for a full movie?
(and $500 was just a nice big round number.. )

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Bacchus

Any chance the Archos can play a DivX (or equivalent) file? If so, before the battery took a dive, how long could you play a video? Enough for a full movie?
(and $500 was just a nice big round number.. )

yes it can! i own one of these and love it. but if you don;t want to record moves i would go for the archos gemini it is much smaller and has most of the same features.


i have the AV320

[Cory]

The Archos comes with a program that converts all types of video to MPEG-4.

The battery lasted around 8 hours with the screen at it's lowest brightness and set to go blank after like 5 seconds of no input. With it set to always stay on, I'm sure it'd last around 4 hours or more.

The reason the battery doesn't hold a charge is my fault. I would leave it plugged in while not using it, and attached to my computer all the time, and now it's gotten to the point where it doesn't hold a charge more than 5 minutes. The battery on it isn't user replaceable but it looks like you can open it up with a torx wrench so maybe you can get at it.

Overall, I like it. It's a little bigger than an iPod or Creative Zen or other popular players, but it's worked great for me.

[Ryan Albright]

Dell jukebox