Give me MP3 Player advice
 

(I know this has been done before some what but I'm just looking for opinions)

Ok guys I need advice.
I'm getting an mp3 playe for xmas and I've lowered my choices down to an IPOD or a Rio Karma.
I'd really like .ogg support which the Karma has, but it's not hugely improtant.
Both have 20gig (at least) and seem to have good interfaces.

Does anyone know how easiley the Karma synchs with XP? or Linux?
The IPOD I know doesn't work with Linux right now,but XP support is fine.

So let me know what you think.

I don't own an MP3 player, but I would definitely take care to buy one that didn't interfere with the way I wanted to manipulate my music - in other words, one without integrated Digital Rights Management. I believe I've read that the IPods are DRM'd up the hoopla, so that makes the choice easy especially if the Rio isn't.

the IPod does work in linux, you just need to work with it. As far as the RIO Karma, if I remember it can be accessed through the Network interface, so it may be a little easier to setup.

however, since you mentioned ogg support, you might want ot go karma route, because you might end up just wishing you had that supporot and not have it with the ipod and I wouldnt hold my breath that they will update the firmware to support it.

When I finally decided to buy an mp3 player, size was the most important factor. If I wanted to lug around a mini hard drive, I would have got an iPod, but it was too damn big. I was then going to get a Karma because of the size, until I saw a Rio Carbon in person. After playing around with it for a little while, I bought it on the spot. It literally fits not only in my pocket, but like way down at the bottom of my pocket, I can't feel it there!

It's 5GB, but wtf do I need 20GB for? I'm not going to listen to 10,000 songs every time I leave the house. The software (Rio Music Manager) is a piece of cake to use in XP; the Carbon shows up like a hard drive and you just drag songs or playlists onto it. It sounds fine: loud and clear. The only thing I miss from it is an FM tuner. Plus it was $85 cheaper than the white Apple hard drive, err mp3 player. iPod ShmyPod; I think those things are retarded. ...My 2 cents.

I've also been looking for one of those. I've been reading up on the Creative Zen Touch 20GB and it looks like a better alternative to me then IPod.

In my mind, the ipod is the only real choice. I mean cmon, you gotta love the scroll wheel. :p

I think the ipod really is the defining mp3 player, but apple products are always more expensive than the competitions. :/

It all depends how much you want to spend or if u are the one spending the money. A Rolls Royce (iPod) or a Cadillac (Karma). I have had a Karma for a year now and absolutely love it. Would I have liked an iPod...sure, of course...but it was almost double the price for the same capacity.

Both are good products and your not going to go wrong with either choice. Enjoy.

I have Windows ME....will that screw up buying an MP3 player?

Windows ME will screw anything up!! Me thinks its time to swtich to XP.

For various and sundry complicated reasons having to do with certain software I use that won't run on XP, I use ME. I really wanted to get my wife an mp3 player for Xmas though...am I screwed?

pretty sure iTunes works on ME...all you need for an iPod is iTunes to work so i dont see why that would mess anything up

Unfortunatly iTunes won't run on ME, only 2k or XP. What software do you need to use that hasn't been updated to XP yet? I can't imagine any company is that far behind unles they are out of business.

Not business software. Personal.

Either way, does Roxio or MusicMatch run on ME?

Whats so great about the Ipod? The battery life is short, its more expensive, and it's made by Apple. I think Ipod owners have been brainwashed!

hehe this amuses me. It seems you may have been brainwashed by an Apple competitor ;)

"Must not buy Apple. Must not buy Apple." :D

Perhaps I have, or perhaps I've just used an Apple for too long that I can no longer stand them :)

The iPod ad campaigns amuse me, actually - they put it right there on the billboard: "By using this product, you will become one of the faceless followers, any unique identity you have will be subsumed and your only identifying feature will be a pair of white headphones." I think a great competitor ad would have a crowd of shadow-people, with a real unique person in the foreground, saying "stand out from the crowd" or something similar.

Anyway, off topic sort of. Just amusing myself.

Bingle

I had an ipod (10GB) for about a year. I borrowed it from my sister, and just recently she asked for it back. I have to say, the battery life is a bit short. Other than that, its excellent. Its a great size and the software is excellent. Now that I have to buy my own, I probably wont go with apple, only because of the battery life, and the fact that the battery is not user replacable. we all know that rechargable batteries die eventually.

ill keep reading this thread for more suggestions!

The battery life on the new (4G) iPods is a whole lot better. And there are several outside vendors that now carry replacment batteries for iPods that you can install yourself or just send in your iPod and they'll do it for you.

And the DRM is not that tight. Officially it is not possible to transfer music from your iPod to your hard drive, but there are a lot of freeware programs out there that will do it anyway.

buy the rio. what's the point of having an mp3player if you can only import copyrighted content, or if you have to go through a bunch of confusing (and dangerous) firmware cracking? ipods are nice, but my room mate has a rio, and it works perfecly fine, and yes, it works under linux, but i'm not sure if the rio karma does. hope this helps

the ipod had no trouble with copyrighted/non-copyrighted files, and also works flawlessly with linux. not saying you were questioning that particularly, but just an FYI

does anyone know if these are any good?
Creative Labs - NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra 30.0GB* Digital Audio Player
or the iriver 20 gb mp3 player
i am looking at them on the best buy web page, and they are a lot cheaper. 30 gb is only $230
thanks to anyone that knows

Just wondering if anyone is interested in the Dell Pocket DJ. It looks pretty good, and it does its job. It has no fancy stuff attached to it, and it also has a really attractive price. Plus you dont have to worry about quality when it's from dell. It also has FireWire support.

http://img.dell.com/images/us/segmen...e_category.jpg

Product type-- Digital player
PC interface(s) supported-- USB
Flash memory installed-- 5 GB Integrated
Digital storage-- Built-in 5 GB Hard disk drive
Digital formats supported-- MP3, WAV, WMA
Weight-- 4.4 oz
Dimensions (W x D x H)-- 2.1 x .5 x 3.5
Mfr estimated battery life-- 10 hour(s)
Software type-- MusicMatch, Drivers & Utilities
Service & support type-- 1 year warranty
Built-in display-- LCD
Diagonal size-- 1.62 in
CD system-- None
Cassette system type-- None
Tuner type-- None
MD system type-- None
Battery-- 1 x Rechargeable Player battery

I'm a hardcore PC user - and I bought an 2g ipod a while back and I was really happy with it.

I've now upgraded to the 4th generation click wheel model, and it's definately the best choice I've made in terms of electronics. People who complain about the ipod simply haven't tried one. They are simply the best. Their user interface is superb, and the screen is large and easy to read.

Every player that is currently competing with the ipod is basically a copy of it. If you look at the Dell DJ it's got the same shape and form factor, but no company has yet to be able to succeed in what apple has: design. Simply put, the ipod has the best design. There's no design that even comes close to it. It's incredibly intuitive...I know I'm starting to sound like a member of the Apple army, but I still use a PC and I don't plan on ever buying a mac becuase they're so goddam expensive - but in all seriousness, get an ipod. The battery life is up to 12 hours now, which is fine for my use, and the accessories are bar none - there is no other mp3 player that has the same amount of accessories and 3rd party addons as the ipod does.

It's true that the Ipod has a powerful design. I won't disagree with that. But if you are talking about an intuitive ergonomic design then the Dell Dj could be better than the Ipod. I'm not denying the fact that Dell has copied off the ipod ... almost every other mp3 manufacturer has. But the point is that Dell has improved on it, and it treats the jukebox in the same manner that it treats all its other products. If you are looking for an mp3 player that gives you the best music experience, best battery life and best value for money then the Dell DJ is for you. But if you are one of the people who fall for the masses' opinion of excelled design and the 'bling' factor then the ipod is for you. Ultimately it's the music experience, not the player.

I have a Dell DJ... the old one, not the new smaller one. With the combination of the DJ with a program Called Dudebox its a sweet little set up. Just an FYI the creative touch zen is the same thing, i really mean the same thing as the old dell dj.

My 4G iPod is one of my favorite computer accessories that I have. I've got just about every single CD that I own stored on there. The battery life is decent, but not exactly stellar. It's certainly much better than the 2nd gen iPod it replaced. I would certainly recommend an iPod to anyone else in the market for an MP3 player. It doesn't get any easier to use than the iPod.

I have a 30GB ipod. I have about 30-40GB in mp3s, so.. it fits me nicely.

It's awesome because you can also use it as an external HD as well, very handy for backups :D (not sure if that was mentioned already), so it has 2 uses and is worth the price.

And yes, it works in linux.

I've owned two iPods now. I just bought the 40GB photo model. The color screen is really sharp but was a splurge. Not really sure if it was worth the extra $100 and my friends are probally sick of seeing 100+ pics of my daughter. The first iPod didn't die or break, simply my wife wanted it so I bought a new one. Daughter will get a mini for Xmas.

As for do you really need 40GB of music in your pocket? No. Why did I drop so much then for a 40GB, well I'm lazy. I owned a creative labs flashed based player before and would find myself listening to the same 10 songs for a week becuase I was too busy/lazy to reload it every night. 5 gig would be enough for most I'm sure but this way I have everything I own on it and can listen to whatever my mood strikes at the moment. (the auto-synch really helps me be lazy also)

I dont have an "MP3" player so to speak, But i do love my Minidisk player. 45 hours of music on one 1Gb Hi-MD. Reads and writes to standard MD's. Off a single AA battery i get right around 45 hours of play back. Play back in ATRAC3 and ATRAC3+ audio and supports MP3, WMA and WAV.

Havent tested it completly but it clames to record MP3's and CD's up to 100x.

I'm happy with it and dont really want to give it up.

Hey I'm a new guy to the ipods. I think that unless there is a obvious problem with the mp3 player, then they will love it. Why? Because music is in our blood (really in our head and ears) .

Anyway back from my theory that you could teach a person to speak by using a xyalphone... I got the ipod mini. After seeing all the adds on TV and knowing that it would be larger then it was in the add. It was SMALLER. I was like... WTF now THEY ARE UNDERESTIMATING their PRODUCTs. *Cool*

Since I got iTunes about a day before, I put on 960 megs on in about 5 minutes due to USB2. I was like Woah.. *Cooler*

Then I listened to it. I felt it. I used it. Bloody brilliant. It works like a charm. Not only does it play songs but has games, especially 'Guess the Song' game.

Then it put together playlists on my most/least played. Fantastic. THEN I found out you can have notes on it. Now I have all my hypnosis scripts on it. Excellant

And this is 2 days after getting it. Ive said so many 'fabulous' s that my family think I'm gay... *Joke* ... Anyway Ich liebe es! (I'm loving it , got it off a Maccas bottle)

I want to get an mp3 player which incorporates usb flash memory capability. I've been looking around and found the best deal (1.0 G flash memory, USB 2.0) for $99 (canadian):

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...6&Sku=L61-3522

which can be clipped into an MP3 player/holder (which costs and additional $61 canadian):

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...?EdpNo=1191417

both items are by Lexar.

Does anybody have any comment on this versus the iPod/Rio device route? pros and cons?

I just replaced an iPod Shuffle 512MB that I had for a week with an iPod Mini 4GB. I just could't handle the Shuffle's lack of a display and small size. I love the iPod Mini, awesome product. I have much more than 4GB of MP3's but I didn't want to go over $200 for a player. 4GB is fine.

I got my wife a Creative Zen 5gb (yes, I know, not 20gb or larger). I choose that over iPod anything because of not being able to change the batter. Godxzilla is spot on with the fact that rechargable batteries DO die, period. I choose the Zen because of its interface, in that its like the iPod, but without the circular touch pad. Im happy with the decision so far.

I bought a Creative Zen Xtra 30Gb. I am in love with it.

Agreed. Zen Xtra is awesome. I got mine for 170 after rebates.

Rio Karma has bad HDD issues.

Well, ogg files are quite good, I have to say that. I ran into a demo online (see below) and found it better than mp3, but lacking in dynamics when compared to wav. Still...a viable alternative. Next closest was, a-ha! Apple's AAC encoding. I'm not sure of the compression scheme or how much space it is expected to save, but it was really hard to hear the difference between AAC and Ogg. My point? The iPod will have access to using AAC, or whatever the most recent version is named. The iPod also will allow WAV and AIFF files (AIFF is a filetype very close to wav files with no compression). So if you want the sound quality for some of your files, but not all files, you can mix and match with the iPod.

The site is here http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html.

I have a Rio Volt MP3/WMA cdplayer. I thing its a lot better than a harddrive based player. Sure it only can hold 800megs at a time, but really....when do you really NEED 50Gigs of music. I can carey about 15 albums per CD. Never ones has this not been enough music.

Just read tonight that a product called Anapod Explorer will allow Ogg Vorbis on the iPod through its AudioMorph section. Seems to be tons of other features as well. Have not read the entire article, but check out the feature list at http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featlist.php. Found this info on a link from ipodlounge.com.

Unfortunately, though, all this means is that it will automatically transcode OGG into MP3 (or maybe AAC). You could do this yourself, but transcoding is a really bad option for music. MP3s lose certain parts of a file, and OGGs lose different parts, so when you transcode you'll end up losing a lot of information and it won't sound very good.

Looks like a good feature if you keep your music in FLAC or something, though - no need to keep a separate set of files for your portable player.

Or you could just get a Karma, which supports both Ogg and FLAC on the player ;-)

Bingle