[Chyld]

So, my trusty Zen Micro has gone to the electronics store in the sky. Or it may as well have done, for the odds I'm going to pay Creative £70 to fix it. Its going to go on eBay as spares/repairs soon as I can be bothered, but I need a new one, since the alternative is either using my CD player (not an option, since most of my music is MP3s now) or carrying round my laptop (which only had a 30 minutre battery life, but that's another story.

So what I'd like to beg for your help with is finding one with the following (in this order):

- Acts like a hard drive (so no fucking software bollocks to put stuff onto it)
- About 10gig of memory (I'm quite happy to swing about 3gig either way, 5gig if I must)
- Under £150 if possible, under £100 would be a (blatently optimistic) dream.
- Preferably no jump between tracks, or as little as possible.
- Not An iPod

And... Go Nightlifers!

[Deepsycher]

If I am to look round for one:

(1) Takes regular AA batteries with a long efficient hours of use.
So I can use regular rechargeables. When they use custom size lithium batteries there are many risks involving lifetime, reliability and overheating.

(2) Built in memory controller or usb drive.
Requiring no additional software compared to as far as the days of the Rio.

(3) Strong anti scatch plastic display.

(4) Don't get too small.

(5) Check the memory type, size and speed.

(6) Avoid rubber buttons.

All I can think of for now.

[TruJade]

Hmmmm well i know

that Sony makes a pretty crafty
MP3 the only problem is that

10 gig thing......
oh yeah and price.

Wait, why no Ipods?

[Chyld]

Partly because it doesn't work as a hard drive, hence my first point, but mainly because AARGH THEY SUCKSS RRARGH.

[Heccubus]

The iPod doesn't suck, it's iTunes that sucks. When I had my iPod Mini a couple years ago, the only problem I had with it was having to use iTunes to transfer MP3s onto it.
Also, it came with both Snake, and Breakout. Games!

[looktothesky]

iPods work as hard drives. I managed to save Heroes 3 - Complete on it so I could transfer it to another PC. It was about 3GBs.

I have an iPod nano right now. It froze up once when I first used it, but after resetting the firmware and updating, it's happy.

[floppydisk]

So, my trusty Zen Micro has gone to the electronics store in the sky. Or it may as well have done, for the odds I'm going to pay Creative £70 to fix it. Its going to go on eBay as spares/repairs soon as I can be bothered, but I need a new one, since the alternative is either using my CD player (not an option, since most of my music is MP3s now) or carrying round my laptop (which only had a 30 minutre battery life, but that's another story.

So what I'd like to beg for your help with is finding one with the following (in this order):

- Acts like a hard drive (so no fucking software bollocks to put stuff onto it)
- About 10gig of memory (I'm quite happy to swing about 3gig either way, 5gig if I must)
- Under £150 if possible, under £100 would be a (blatently optimistic) dream.
- Preferably no jump between tracks, or as little as possible.
- Not An iPod

And... Go Nightlifers!

Strangely, the same thing happened to me about six months ago, and I just got around to cashing in the extended warrenty last week. I got $170 in the mail, and have yet to figure out what new MP3 player to buy with it.

[Jane Sherwood]

I've been standing firmly by my MP3 CD player for years now, but I have to admit that now it's becoming a bit...bothersome. So I now find myself as a prospective MP3 player owner (at least, when I'm not so strapped for cash I will be). The only problem now is that while I could blissfully ignore it before, I'm being slapped in the face with the Zune vs. iPod War.

First off, I'm already biased and leaning toward a Zune because iPods...well, what can I say that hasn't already been said? But it's just with all this flaming going back and forth about PC vs. Mac, file sharing, whatever the hell else there is, blahblahblah, I can't find out anything that really matters to me. I don't give a damn about file sharing, connecting with other people, or anything else like that - I can take care of all that from my computer. I just want to know which is superior in these areas:

Music: Can you put any MP3 file from your own computer onto it, regardless of where they came from (bought, ripped, pirated), just to listen to? Not to share, but just to have in your own personal collection of stuff.

Video: Do either players support avi files? That's pretty much all I have, so that's all I care about right now.

General Functionality: How's the battery life? (I've already heard iPods suck hard with that one.) How durable are they? How easily do they crash? How's the sound quality? Are they compatible with Windows XP? Would I be able to buy an iPod and not feel like I just lost a piece of my soul? Would I be able to buy a Zune without the constant nagging feeling that I'm just trying to be snobbishly anti-iPod?

I just want some straight, simple answers. Is that so much to ask?

[Spoon Poetic]

Look around at some other brands besides Zune and iPod, too - there are a lot out there that are just as good or better, and they don't cost as much or take away pieces of soul.

I wish I could help you more than that, but I'm perfectly happy with my two year old non-video playing 40G "Zen Xtra" and I don't know much about anything else, except I did a good bit of research on the little 1G flashdrive mp3 players when I got a couple people those for Christmas (which, by the way, you do not need to spend more than $50, though some brands will charge you over a hundred).

[Gobbler]

I think the Zen series is a good start, even if they're somewhat badly designed. I wouldn't buy Zune for the usual Microsoft-ish restrictions that come along with it, iPod seems a fair deal, even if it's a tad complicated if you want to use it's full potential. Other than that, I don't really have much of an opinion, since I'm just a poor student and genuinely happy with my Creative MuVo V200.

[Jane Sherwood]

Right, I always forget about other brands because those two are the only ones I've seen in the stores I can get to around here (both in huge fancy displays right next to each other, of course...). So that's two names added to the List O' Research, thanks.

[Deepsycher]

With video capabilities? I wonder if it would be worthwhile getting a palmtop instead. I have seen one that can playback videos smoohtly.