Patrick Versus Apple

[Patrick]

So the 3rd iPod I've ever bought just died, conveniently 5 days after the warranty was up, just like the other 2 i've had. I decided that my next MP3 player will not be an iPod, and it will not cost 300 dollars.

here are my citeria for an Mp3 player:

(1) Must be able to play my massive library of Mp3s and WMAs
(2) Must have a screen to identify what I'm listening to
(3) Less than $150
(4) At least 4 GB. Preferably around 10
(5) is not made by Apple

Optional stuffage that would be nice, but not as important

(1) Can play movies and view photos
(2) RockBox Compatible
(3) Works with Winamp
(4) Japanese Manufacturer (hey, this shit never breaks)
(5) Manufacturer's warranty is longer than it takes for it to break on me

Thanks in advance for any recommendations

[Planky]

I know of a few people with the 8GB Sony Walkman. Seems to be a nice player, good sound (providing you use decent earphones) and a good interface. Capable of playing MP3, WMA and video. $100

Only issue I have with it is the propriety USB plug.

[Lüt]

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that an ipod never lasts more than a year and a few days.

I've seen some good deals over the last year or two, but none of them could play OGGs so I dismissed them and don't remember what they were anymore.

[HackNeyed]

I have a Creative Zen Vision M and a recently acquired Sansa Fuze and I like them both just fine though no music player is without it's problems. The Fuze is small, has 2, 4 or 8 gigs with a micro SDHC slot for up to 16 more gigs and sounds great, plays MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, and runs for about 10 hours or more a charge and all for a good price. Now the bad, with a 4 gig micro sdhc card in there and a few troublesome MP3 and ogg files it'll freeze on boot most of the time unless i remove the card. I believe removing the troublesome files will fix that but I'd only know that if i weren't so lazy or traveling so often away from my main file collection. For MP3 files I mostly tag them with foobar2000.org]Foobar2000 now since it is also my main software player but to have the mp3 show up and play in the Fuze I have to tag them with ID3v1 and/or ID3v2 and/or with compatibility mode... Meaning that using only ID3v2 without the compatibility mode will not work.

I've had the Zen for a long time and think it is great as well though the battery is starting to suffer and it won't play all the formats I'd like however it is pretty good for video and navigation is more intuitive to me.

EDIT: oh yeah, propriety USB plugs on both my players too :(

[CODOR]

I have a Sandisk Sansa E260 (the original, not the V2) that runs Rockbox (and by extension Doom). I still have to boot into the original firmware to transfer files to its built-in memory, but at least it can be set to act as a USB mass storage device -- although I usually just transfer stuff via the MicroSD slot.

I have no idea if newer Sansas will work with Rockbox, but the built-in firmware on them plays FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files (and as mentioned, MP3 and WMA) so it's not much of a loss if it doesn't run Rockbox...

[exp(x)]

I love my Rio Karma, but, unfortunately, they're not made anymore. It can play flac, and I hacked mine to use a 16GB Compact Flash card (yay solid state).

[Use]

I've had a Sansa e260 v2 for a while now and love it. Supports SDHD so you can expand the storage, got a 4GB in mine. No problems with anything really.

CODOR said:

I have no idea if newer Sansas will work with Rockbox, but the built-in firmware on them plays FLAC and Ogg Vorbis files (and as mentioned, MP3 and WMA) so it's not much of a loss if it doesn't run Rockbox...

I know the v2 doesn't support RockBox, no idea about the new Fuze line. I don't see any reason to buy another mp3 player unless mines stops working.

[Technician]

I've been holding off an iPod in hope that they make a 200 gig one. I want an iPod just to bring over my track list I've worked so hard on.

[Jodwin]

Any mp3 player that has a built-in battery is already garbage. Especially if it's a li-on battery.

[exp(x)]

Jodwin said:

Any mp3 player that has a built-in battery is already garbage. Especially if it's a li-on battery.

Why? Unless you're too pussy to wield a screwdriver and possibly a soldering iron, any battery is replaceable. I changed the one in my Karma a few months ago. Also, what do you mean "Especially if it's a li-on battery"? Would you prefer a sealed lead acid battery instead?

[Jodwin]

I don't think that if I'm, say, going out to the woods for a week and want to keep listening to music I'd need to take a soldering iron with me just to prevent running out of power for the player, while with batteries I could fill my pockets with rechargeable AAA ones. Mp3 players are supposed to be "mobile", and being forced to recharge one at an electric outlet or, even worse, an usb port is far from being mobile.

[exp(x)]

Jodwin said:

I don't think that if I'm, say, going out to the woods for a week and want to keep listening to music I'd need to take a soldering iron with me just to prevent running out of power for the player, while with batteries I could fill my pockets with rechargeable AAA ones. Mp3 players are supposed to be "mobile", and being forced to recharge one at an electric outlet or, even worse, an usb port is far from being mobile.

How is USB port charging worse than electric outlet charging? Any device that can be charged with a USB port can also be charged using an outlet charger. It's also very easy to make or purchase a simple device that lets you charge portable devices with AA or AAA batteries. Also, if you're going out to the woods, take your fucking earbud tumors out of your head and enjoy nature.

[Maes]

Jodwin said:

Any mp3 player that has a built-in battery is already garbage. Especially if it's a li-on battery.

I can confirm that.

Why purchasing MP3 players suck

For me, tha inability to use standard-sized batteries and, even worse, the inability to be recharged off a standard wall outlet is a big no-no. Anything with a built-in Li-Ion battery is bound to die after 3 years max, if you were "lucky" enough to have a device with a factory-fresh battery installed.

Screwdriver? I can assure you, there's none else out there who loves DIY as much as me, but hunting down for overpriced, application-specific, small-size, small-capacity Li-Ion cells that can explode and catch fire at the minimum mishandling is just not fun.

If I came to the point of opening up a fixed-battery device, I'd probably rig it so it could use real AA or AAA batteries.

In my wallet alone, with a minimum use of space, a minimum space, I can carry 4 rechargeable AAA batteries that give me well over 2000 mAh of total capacity and a listening time of well beyond 20 hours, using cheap MP3 players that cost a fraction of the iPod and fill its ass with concrete (heh, then again, pretty much ANYTHING is more cost-effective and more ass-with-conrete-fillin' than an Apple product).

exp(x) said:

How is USB port charging worse than electric outlet charging?

Lemme see...you need a computer that sucks up 100s of watts just to power up a weedy USB port? And yeah, I known there are adapters, but...

The Way of Maes said:

# USB-only charging: at first I thought this was a fucking joke, but then I saw that YES, there are MP3 players out there that can only be charged through an USB port. This limits recharging opportunities even more, and before you tell me "BUT MEAS, L0L, YOU'RE GIVEN A CHARGER WITH AN USB-LIKE OUTPUT ANYWAY SO IT'S REALLY NO DIFFERENT FROM A CUSTOM CHARGER!" let me tell you that there are USB-chargeable devices that come with no wall charger AT ALL, even one that you're supposed to carry around with you, like an MP3 player. While in general you need a PC to fill up an MP3 player with songs, there's no reason to depend on a PC just FOR FUCKING CHARGING IT!!!

[myk]

I'd buy books with the money, instead.

[esselfortium]

I love my iPod :)

[DooMAD]

I've got a 4GB Samsung T10 but I'm not sure how much it costs over there. Apparently there's an 8GB version too.

[Maes]

I am using a Canyon tech CNR-MP4DH.

Small size, 4 GB of space, lightning-fast turning on and off, very fast switching between tracks and menus, no shitty functions like cross-fade between tracks that you can't remove, and awesome sound quality.

Also, you need no shitty "PC suites" to transfer "DRM protected" music to it: you just plug it in and it works like any USB 2.0 Flash drive. Uses 1 AAA battery, served me well during cadet training, several watch officer duties, hell, I even -literally- took it with me in the woods during the 12-day field training. Even includes FM radio and voice recording, should you ever need it.

[Sporku]

My 4th generation iPod nano is more of a hassle than any other portable media player I've had before it. The click wheel often decides it doesn't want to respond at all, I ended up having to turn off the rotation "feature" (gimmick more like) because it's very finicky and will sometimes pop up with the cover flow for no apparent reason unless I'm holding the iPod straight up at a 90 degree angle. I also had to turn off the shake shuffle feature due to repeated instances of accidentally shuffling my songs half-way through listening to an album just because I accidentally made a sudden movement.

I've also had a couple of instances where all the songs I put on it would randomly get erased, or all the album art would randomly get switched up or just plain garbled. You could yell at me and be like "but Spork-chan, you don't use iTunes to put music on your iPod so therefore it's not their fault", which is a gigantic load of crap. Considering iTunes (especially the latest release) is a sluggish pile of crap on anything other than a Mac, expecting me to manage and add music to my iPod with it is beyond lunacy. And besides, since iTunes doesn't support FLAC, that means a good chunk of my music isn't even available to me in the first place. MediaMonkey for the win. :D

[Patrick]

HackNeyed said:

I have a Creative Zen Vision M and a recently acquired Sansa Fuze and I like them both just fine though no music player is without it's problems.

I'm curious about the Sansa Fuze because I know RockBox does not yet support this, but it appears to be easy to use and has the features I want

myk said:

I'd buy books with the money, instead.

I have this thing called a "Library Card" and what this does is let me borrow 5 or 6 books a week, that way I don't have to buy them.

[PhilibusMo]

If I'm honest I have found Ipod Nanos to be really sturdy little contraptions. I had a first gen nano for a couple of years until I slipped over with it in my back pocket onto a hard wooden floor whcih smashed its screen, but it kept playing despite having a dent in the back that seemed to be as deep as the actual player. I now have a 3rd gen nano which appart from an odd problem where the screen began to slowly die from the middle outwards and then when it had got to the point where I was going to take it back it fixed itself, it has been without fault. My brother has had a 2nd gen nano for just under 2 years and it has been completely faultless as has my mums 1st gen nano which she has had for almost 3 years. As they now come in 8gig and 16gig form and are relatively cheap compared to the larger siblings I think one could work for you (despite your no apple criteria).

[Butts]

I have a 120 gig zune, and it is posing to be quite reliable. I'm going to need a larger mp3 pretty soon though...

[Maes]

Well, my MP3 player, or any other of its class fits your criteria, with a purchase price that's about 1/10th of $300. The only hard thing is finding "keychain" MP3 players over 4 GB, due to the used chipsets' limitations, but with such prices, you can afford keeping multiple players around.

[Patrick]

IT IS DECIDED

Got a Sansa Fuze. Loving it already. Got the 4 gig model and put in a 10 gig Micro SD card.

Now... to find some better earbuds

[Maes]

Hmm...the ability to accept micro SD cards is interesting. I have an AAA-powered MP3 player with no internal memory, that can be expanded with SD cards. If only that Sansa Fuze had a standard battery compartment...no matter how stylish thin devices look, a small battery is always a small battery.

[Csonicgo]

Micro SD cards blow my mind. Seriously. I know it shouldn't, as I've lived with this tech as much as you guys have, but 8+ GB on a device smaller than a dime?

I personally just use an ipod and no, I don't have to have a computer to charge it.