Mephisto2

So, not content with a brand new $3,000 digital SLR, my wife now wants an iPod to take on holiday with her.

What the hell. She's worked hard and deserves it.

The only problem is that I've heard a lot about the battery problems with the iPod. Plus, they're not exactly cheap.

Was wondering if anyone out there has any suggestions on alternatives? I'm not against the Apple player, just want to make sure it's the best option.


Mr Mephisto

GremlinDelirium

I have heard that Apple has fixed a few of their battery problems... Personally i would still buy an iPod, ESPECIALLY since there is now a winamp plugin for it Oh if only i had 400 bucks to blow.

As for alternative, if all you want to do is play mp3s while stationary or low movement, the cheapest way to go is with an mp3 cd player. CD's are cheap and hold 700mb a piece. Only downside is that you can't start running with one.

Hope that helps

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KnifeMissile

For about a third of the price, you can get a Sony MP3 CD player. It can only hold a CD's worth of MP3's but that's still plenty of storage, it's easily swappable, and can run for as long as 95 hours on two AA batteries!

Sony discmans come with (what they call) G-Protection anti-skip technology which (from personal experience!) can play properly even while jogging. I have trouble understanding how the iPod can tolerate rapid movement with a hard-drive in it...

Mephisto2

I guess I want one that I can store a lot of albums on. I've heard there are plenty of 10Gb players out there and that the iPod no longer rules the roost.

Mr Mephisto

wally

I've got a friend that has something similar to an iPod, but it's made by Dell. Don't know a whole lot about it, but I know he's happy with it. You could look into this and see what kind of battery life it has.

paddyjoe

I also heard that the battery problems have been resolved.

Also, with an adapter, you can store the images from your digital camera in your iPod. Very convenient if you're on vacation for 10 days and have used up all of your flash card capability in 5 days.

Nefir

The Nomad Zen seems to be a pretty viable iPod alternative. I haven't used one myself, since I got a classic 20gb iPod instead, but it was one of the serious alternatives I was considering when making my purchase.

I went with an iPod because it seemed to be smaller than the Zen, and size was a major concern. I could have easily gone the other way. Plus, back in the day, the iPod was getting lots of extra points for design (which also justified the Apple tax).

Right now, you can get a 60gb zen for $390.99 at Amazon.com
and a 30gb one costs $235.24.

Alternatively, a 20gb iPod costs $399.00 at apple.com.

Apple is stuck in the past. A few years ago, a 20gb player for such a price was tolerable because of Apple's style. But now, in the age of pennies-per-megabyte storage and sleeker design, Apple's advantage seems less and less clear.

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hu-man

If I had the money (well, I do, I just have to spend them on boring things like sofas and bookcases), I'd buy an Ipod instantly.
The thing just radiates quality and style, and it would take a really good design and a whole lot of price difference to convince me to buy anything else. Sure you can shave $100 off the price, but what you'll get is twice the size, looks like crap, and with a lousy interface... at least the last time I checked.

Cynthetiq

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Redjake

I hear the Creative Zen is good. I'm pretty sure they have a 60 GB player (exactly what I need. 40 GB won't cut it for me anymore). I might look into that.

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ratbastid

Archos Jukeboxes are very good for price-to-performace ratio. They're not much to look at, especially compared to an iPod. I've been loving mine since two years before there was any such thing as an iPod...

There's a really excellent third-party firmware for Archos called Rockbox. Improves almost every aspect of the machine. If you go for one of those, PM me and I'll hook you up.

Peryn

I own the Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30GB and love it. Its barely any bigger than the iPod, unless its in its handy case, which makes it quite a bit larger. Personally, i cant think of anything the iPod has that makes any anywhere near worth paying the extra money for. So it might be a little smaller, possible a hair lighter, and a few people like its interface better. To me, thats not worth the $100+ extra. Creative has been doing sound stuff forever, so they are pretty good at it. Also, they essentially started the whole mp3 player thing, so they are cheap, reliable, and sound great.

I personally just cant seem to justify the extra money (and its no small amount) to get the iPod.

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Speed_Gibson

to repeat myself from earlier :
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(my post from linked thread slightly rephrased)

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punx1325

I have heard good things from the Dell and the iPod. But I would wait. There is some software coming out soon which will kill the iPod. Dell and Nomad are both working on the project. Sadly, I know nothing more than that. I do know it is suppose to come out mid 2004.

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jay-g

Mini-disc player. Their like $100 or so, and each disc can hold 6 albums.

sixate

Yeah, get a Nomad Zen Xtra. I also have the 30 gig model, and I love it. It's one of the best things that I've bought in a long time. It holds a charge forever. I listen to it for 8 hours at work then head to the gym for 2 more hours, and it's never died on me. And as others have mentioned there are also 40 and 60 gig models.

FaderMonkey

I have a RIO MP3 CD player. I like it. My only complaint (and maybe this sounds picky) is that it puts a very slight pause in between tracks when you are playing regular audio CDs. Of course, this is something you only notice when you are playing a CD that doesn't already have pauses between the tracks. Does anyone have a MP3 CD player from another company that does this?

shakran

check this thing out. http://www.neurosaudio.com/store/prod_neuros.asp
A friend of mine just got it and it's the coolest music player I've ever seen. Thing has an FM reciever, a transmitter to play to ANY car stereo (auto scans radio stations and picks a freq that is not used by a local station, then tells you what to tune your radio to), a built in mic for recording memos, a line-in which, with the right adapter, you can hook a mic into for broadcast quality field recording. It's just plain kick ass.

BigGov

I've got a few questions myself on this topic, if anyone could answer them it'd be great.

1) Do the third gen iPods play mp3's, or just Apple's proprietary AAC?

2) Does anyone have the Dell Jukebox? If so, how well is the battery life, how do you transfer music to it, and would you recommend it?

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Loup

For my 2 cents I can suggest one not to get.
My girlfriend has had so much trouble with her RCA Lyra that it's not funny. She had to return the first generation one (don't know the model number, but it was 20GB) three times and it still kept malfunctioning. She's now on her second 2nd generation Lyra (40GB) - all because they kept trading her up since they never had any of her model in stock.

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Speed_Gibson

they play MP3s, AAC files in the M4a container, and raw AIFF/WAV files
and you can also convert raw AAC or mp4 files over to iPod friendly M4a files through the Foobar2000 diskwriter or other means.

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BigGov

Do the new iPods work with USB 1.0? Sadly it's the fastest form of transfer I got, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to wait a few hours for it all to be transfered to a fancy new iPod.

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One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"

Parabola

I have read good things about the products from iriver. Never used it and they are pricey but are supposed to have the best features of any of the MP3 players.

bob32

You can get a USB Cable for about $20. It works with USB 2.0. All USB 2.0 things are backwards compatible with USB 1.0