ipod like device
 

Hello all,

im aware that some of u chaps know far more than me about this so i will ask away for some advice :)

my young ladies birthday soon and i think thinking of getting her an mp3 player and i was wondering basically what ones are any good.

would be best if it was reasonably small and hold a fair amount of songs im thinking of upto 5gig

any suggestions or links to websites with some of them on

thanks in advance

Re: ipod like device
 

iPod mini?

Re: ipod like device
 

i looked at them but i figured there must be something better out there ..maybe im wrong :)

Re: ipod like device
 

There is cheaper and longer battery life and MP3, not MP4.
iPod uses MP4 encoding (well apples implementation of) which is better than MP3, the audio technology (amps etc) are better than many.
The user interface is good, the iTunes on the PC is good.

Re: ipod like device
 

iPod minis are all the rage nowadays, may I ask how old your young lady is?

Seems every girl at my school has a mini iPod in pink :|

If you don't like iPods, try a Zen - by creative

http://www.creative.com/products/pro...&product=10795

Re: ipod like device
 

Imo 5Gb isn't needed if you know how to use compression in the right way. I realise that everybody's listening preference is different from mine but i find wmv files compressed to fm radio quality are perfect for my tiny 128Mb MP100 Oregon Scientific player. I can fit around 4 cd's onto it. At higher quality, i can hold up to 10 cd's on my Orange SPVC500 phone with 512Mb SD card.

Like i said, not everybody's listening tastes are like mine but you can't expect home Hi-Fi quality from a battery powered MP3 player. No point paying hundreds for something that's not used that often.

Re: ipod like device
 

Depends how you use it. I have my creative Zen hooked up to external speakers at work (used almost daily) 70 CDs (about half my collection) at 300kbs take up about 10 Gig. Set the thing to random play, and rediscover all those cds you haven't played in ages... Brilliant! :tu:

Re: ipod like device
 

PC Pro recommends the Rio Carbon 5Gb. I don't have one myself but the 20 hour battery life sounds good.

http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/sho....asp?model=267

£125 from Amazon.

Re: ipod like device
 

needs about 5 gig of mp3s on it as i doubt she will ever get round to adding new songs especially as it will be me doing it no doubt :)

i will check out the offerings from iriver and creative

Re: ipod like device
 

I Agree, The Zen is brilliant, unable to fill the thing with song, and I have well over 500 songs on mine.
Great sound quality as well

Re: ipod like device
 

I just bought the mrs an ipod shuffle in 512mb, she loves it...

Re: ipod like device
 

Don't buy an Ipod, they're sh*te! I still can't sell mine, the EQ is utterly crap and the battery life is just as bad. Get an Iriver, far far FAR better.

Re: ipod like device
 

I have a creative zen micro for general listening, and in-carness. Plus, choice of colours so if you get her a £100 dixons voucher or whatever she can choose her favourite colour ;)

Re: ipod like device
 

i have a zen micro, execellent little device, highly reccomended :)

Re: ipod like device
 

I have an iPod and its great. Simple, sound sound, the 4th gen and over have good battery life.

Sure this isnt just a anti-apple thing?

Re: ipod like device
 

No, it's not an anti-apple thing, I stupidly listened to people on here fawning over a substandard audio player and bought a 4th gen ipod (with a decent set of replacement headphones), it's utter crap, the iriver H340 I bought to replace it is FAR superior in both battery life and sound quality and you'll find just about everyone who switched to iriver from apple say's the same thing.

Re: ipod like device
 

I will say the EQ on the iPod is pants, mine is set to off and with the Senheiser noise reducing headphones the thing sounds great.

Re: ipod like device
 

Well, I have given up on my iPod..

The first one I got was DOA (the screen worked for ten minutes then died).

The second one I got crashed and wouldn't restart. It did this just after a year, so I ended up paying £80 to get it repaired. It already had a loose headphone socket, but this didn't bother me, and it would have cost another £30 to repair, so I didn't bother.

Now, a few months after the repair (but again, just outside the warranty), the firewire connection died. This was OK, and it could still attach via USB. Then, this week, I charged it (fully) on Sunday night, By Monday night, the battery was empty, so, figuring I had left it on overnight or something, I charged it again. I got two hours use on Tuesday before it registered the battery was nearly empty.

So, with the option of spending another £150 (£80 for a logic board, £40 for a battery and £30 for new headphone socket) on repairs to the iPod that might last a few months, or spending £200 on a new player, I have now bought myself one of these. Even though I currently only have MP3s on it (I am currently re-encoding my CDs as Atrac files), and only have the supplied earphones, it already sounds a lot nicer than the iPod.

I've also used it a fair bit (longer than 2 hours) and the battery indicator is still showing full.

The only downside is that I don't really like the software you are forced to use, but then I have never really like iTunes either.

Re: ipod like device
 

Funnily enough I was looking at getting one of them ..... tell me more about software and usability ... :D

Re: ipod like device
 

I have just found the menus on the player not all that intuitive. Not bad, and certainly no worse than many other MP3 players. The off-putting thing about the player is that all the buttons are the same shape, so it can be difficult to find your way around it if it's in a pocket or bag. Having said that, the iPod suffers from this as well (and is actually slightly worse when you consider that the wheel can control many things, depending on what mode the iPod is in.

My main gripe with the software supplied is that if you try and upload an audio file to your player that is not an MP3 or Atrac file (such as WMV), it has to convert it to Atrac. I also find it staggering you cannot add support (even a converter) for M4A and AAC (the two audio standards the iPod uses).

Re: ipod like device
 

i have a i river h320 v good ,if you want a mp3 player with 6GB an a fm tuner ,mp3 recorder and can be keeped uptodate over the web look here i like my one .

Re: ipod like device
 

Theres a MP3 player thats available in the PCWorld mag that you buy and build your self it memory card is CF and I don't know if you get one with the kit (you can buy the PCB for about £65 with all ICs soldered on for you or about £55 and you solder them yourself)

I'll search for the mag and publish details ASAP.

Re: ipod like device
 

http://www.myplace.nu/mp3/

click on yampp7 link

Re: ipod like device
 

........and my au-pair.........
__________________

Is that carbon fiber it's made of?

Re: ipod like device
 

Although lots of people are going for the Ipod Mini's, I wouldnt reccomend them if you have a large CD collection. The 512mb or 1gb versions are not good enough if you have a big collection of CD's and you dont want to compress them all to rubbish quality.
If its just to stick the odd few albums to go jogging round the park or for your lunch break then do go for them as in this case they are good.
I agree with you that the EQ on the Ipod isnt great so I just dont use it. With a decent pair of headphones the sound on the Ipod is pretty good.
The only annoying thing can be the battery life but people say the newer ones have sorted this out now. I have a 3rd Gen but it does me fine.
A lot of people I've talked to reccomend the Irivier as I believe it offers gapless playback (eg. if listening to a mix album) too and better battery life.

Re: ipod like device
 

CPC have some manufacturer's refurbs for £79.95 + del + vat.

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSea...=SB02689&N=411

Re: ipod like device
 

I would suggest an ipod mini she will love all the accessories you can get.

Women love accessories you can get ipod ones at loads of places but ive tried

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