What portable music player do you own?

[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

[Billfred]

I own an iPod, a 20GB 4G model. It can take what you dish out--I went from Columbia to Orlando and parts of Robot Rodeo on one charge. (Granted, I did juice it up at George's before I left to return to Columbia.)

It does get some superficial scratches, yes. And those are annoying as heck. But if you shell out fifteen or twenty bucks for a skin, you don't see them anymore.

Get one. You won't regret it.

[greencactus3]

definitly minidisc... i have one thats about 5 yrs old. and it works perfectly. is still smaller and lighter than the ipod. and of course, my number one priority (after quality) battery lasts forever. mine lasts 56 hours on a full charge and the newer models easily pass 100 hrs of continuous play. sure there are cheap unreliable MD players, but mine is sweet. it never skips. has like 40second antiskip memory thing. and the whole thing is made of magnesium. or a mixture of magnesium and sumthing. so thats part of the reason its so light and durable. AND no worries about the plastic surface *cough* ipod *cough* getting all scrathed up.

[Andy A.]

Personally, I love my Creative Zen.

I got a deal on the 40gig model at best buy because it was an opened package. Turns out the firmware was corrupted, and best buy never bothered to check it. I popped online, updated the firmware and was good to go. Yeah for opened packages and big discounts.

It's slightly larger then an ipod, has a large blue backlit screen and, in my view, looks great. I like the jog lever interface, although some friends who own ipods detest it. I guess it depends on which you use first. Button placement feels natural and easy for me. Battery life weighs in at around 9 hours, depending on which effects I have turned on. After a year of daily use, the battery is still going strong, although it is easy to replace if I need to. Sound quality absolutely blows ipods away, even ipod owners have admitted it. Personally, I can't tell the difference between the two most of the time, but it's nice to know it is there. It will also play various formats, like ogg vorbis, if your into that kind of thing. Playlist creation on the fly is a snap compared to ipods, and the music library feature is well organized and sortable.

My one gripe is with the software it ships with. It's pretty clunky. I've considered buying a 3rd party version that is supposedly 10 times better, but I haven't gotten around to it. Considering how I think they got the player spot on, I can forgive the clunky PC interface.

Expect to pay around $250 for a 40 gig model.

-Andy A.