Gasp *other* mp3 players

[Smileyguy]

Hey everyone,

My girlfriend is looking for an mp3 player for Christmas. Not from me, you understand, rather she wants me to do a little research and find a good product for her parents to buy. Anyway, she's not fashion conscious whatsoever, so is purely going to make her purchase based on value for money. This is where I have to confess to knowing nothing about any mp3 player that isn't an iPod. Anyway, what's she looking for are..

1) Good price
2) Reliable
3) Holds "a couple hundred" songs. Really I think 1,000 might be the number to aim for.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Sg

 

[Bern]

iPod Nano of course.

 

[nutmac]

I would like to suggest non-iPod, but iPods are very competitive cost wise and remains unmatched in terms of usability and style. Unless you must have integrated FM tuner or other missing features, you should stick with iPod nano (along with a case to avoid scratches). If you want greater value than iPod nano, iPod minis are still available.

 

[Mord]

usability is everything, you may think spending 10 secs to choose a song over 5 secs. but when your doing it 10-20 times a day, seven says a week, you end up not bothering to change the thing, not bothering to take it out with you, usability is everything and that trumps everything elce, it's not even like the ipod nano is expencive, no other flash player has 4 or even 2GB storage.

 

[savar]

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

I took a look at MP3 players when I was in CompUSA a few days ago. I really didn't see anything at all impressive. I took a look at a couple and even picked up a couple of the "media players" and watched some video on them. The ipod is so far ahead of everything I saw there that I can't in good conscience recommend anything but. Unless your girlfriend's price point is under $100 or so, get an ipod. Even look for a 3G or 4G on ebay to save some money.

 

[hulugu]

Hey everyone,

My girlfriend is looking for an mp3 player for Christmas. Not from me, you understand, rather she wants me to do a little research and find a good product for her parents to buy. Anyway, she's not fashion conscious whatsoever, so is purely going to make her purchase based on value for money. This is where I have to confess to knowing nothing about any mp3 player that isn't an iPod. Anyway, what's she looking for are..

1) Good price
2) Reliable
3) Holds "a couple hundred" songs. Really I think 1,000 might be the number to aim for.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Sg

I would always suggest any of the iPods over just about anything, the design, functionality, huge accessory market (not to mention iTMS) to each iPod just blows away the competition. However, if an iPod just won't do it, try the Rio Carbon. Rio has stopped making Mp3-players, but they always did a good job with the Karma. The Carbon is still available from Amazon.
Don't buy Creative, Sony, or Samsung—Dell is so so—because they all have definite flaws.

 

[MacAficionado]

The only one I thought was decent was the Rio Carbon. But your options are MP3, WMA and Audible. The screen is not so good.

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/item_main_Rio.asp?model=306

And you (she) is going to have to support something other than the iTunes music store.

Really, the iPods are unbeatable.

 

[Clix Pix]

Why not an iPod?? Really....

Yuck, that Rio is ugly! iPod wins on functionality, and it also wins on looks.

Go for an iPod....

OTB

 

[prostuff1]

The nano is always a good choice. If you dont want to spend that much then look at a now discontinued iPod mini. I have not had a nano but i really really like the mini's. they were tough and just about impossible to beat up.

My suggestion os to go for an iPod mini. Apple might have some at a refurb store or look online at places like amazon, newegg, or others.

 

[Smileyguy]

Thanks for the advice guys. I've never even looked elsewhere in the market, and had just naturally presumed that iPods were more expensive. Clearly this isn't the case, I'll recommend the Nano.

 

[steve_hill4]

usability is everything, you may think spending 10 secs to choose a song over 5 secs. but when your doing it 10-20 times a day, seven says a week, you end up not bothering to change the thing, not bothering to take it out with you, usability is everything and that trumps everything elce, it's not even like the ipod nano is expencive, no other flash player has 4 or even 2GB storage.

I know the new Sony 608 has 2GB of flash memory too, but the nano still holds the title with 4GB.

Nothing comes close to the iPod in terms of ease of use. Even those few models that have easy control on the devices themselves have the most annoying software available. The best feature of the iPod is the click wheel and this can speed it up significantly, even more than the 5 over 10 seconds. Sony can take over 10 seconds unless you want to create multiple playlists and such, Creative have a similar touch pad, but since that is too sensitive, you end up spending over 10 seconds trying to select the right item, (going too far forward, too far back, forward, back etc).

Every person I know that has slagged off the iPod has either already switched to an iPod and admit they find it much easier and wondered why they hated it so much previously, or admitted that they would like one as their mp3 player is not as good as they had hoped, (one friend envies the audiobooks features, another is frustrated by the sound quality/battery life trade off with sony).

 

[EricBrian]

I had two Rio's and thought they were very good. I believe that they were faster to react than the iPod. Navigation was pretty good, too. If I would have stayed with windows and not switched to Mac, I would have also stayed with Rio.

But, I am very happy with iPod even though I have had some issues with it. Hopefully those issues will be taken care of during the next upgrade.

 

[adk]

The ipod wins because it is just so easy to use. The first time I touched an ipod the clickwheel was just intuitive. I knew how to navigate instantly. Yeterday at best buy though, I tried some from phillips and Creative and I was completely lost.

 

[solvs]

I've been happy with my shuffle.