Help me choose an mp3 player

[tom56]

I am looking to get an mp3 player (DAP), but am rather lost. I want to be able to fit all my music on it (about 100 albums, though I would like space for 200), so that rules out flash players. Right now my CDs are all ripped as oggs, but I wouldn't be wholly opposed to re-ripping if it was the best option. Gapless playback is a must. I would prefer not to have to dual-boot to use it, but I don't really mind so long as it works. As far as I can tell I therefore have three options:

Trekstor Vibez 12gb
Pros:
Plays oggs
Decent battery
Album art
Works in Ubuntu
Cons:
Small drive
No idea about reliability
Not great value
Hard to find in UK

iPod (30 or 80gb afaik)
Pros:
Looks nice
Big drives
Good value
Works in Ubuntu
Album art
Cons:
Need to re-rip
Questionable build quality
Short battery life

Sony NW-A3000 (20gb)
Pros:
Looks cool
Easy to use
Long battery life
Have heard very good things
Cons:
Need to re-rip
No album art
Shoddy software

Anything I've not taken into consideration? Or are there any other players out there that do what I want?

[daynah]

I'm not going to play the game. Please please get a creative mp3 player.
http://www.creative.com/products/welcome.asp?category=213
Great sound, great software, works in ubuntu, (I don't know your gauge of battery life), you can trade in and out LiOn batteries, good community... and is always going to keep making their mp3 players and stuff. I suggest you don't get one of t he older ones that's about to be "phased out" because that means they're going to stop making new firmware for it (I have that one, the Xtra, it's great but you want one that's going to continue tobe supported).

If you really want a mp3 player, here's what I'm going to say about those you listed...

Album art, you think is cool now, but really isn't important. You wont be looking at your mp3 player 80% of the time. The only time you'll need it to show album art is to pick up chicks and if they really love you, they'll love you for your REAL albums, not your digital ones.

If the mp3 player has shoddy software though, you will hate it for all eternity. You deal will the software 100% of the time. If it's not excelente, it's awful. Love the software, love the mp3 player. Without even looking the Sony up, I suggest that one goes out of the running. Seriously, if you personally have problems with the software, you will have problems with the mp3 player. That's it's soul.

iPods batteries are awful -_-' Jeeze... And you can't store another battert on the side, and you can't steal music. (cough and you're a sell out, but some people don't think that's a bad thing) But that's not as bad as as Shoddy software and if it's up to just three, I guess it can stay...

Some people have big issues with reliability with their mp3 player. I've had one mp3 player have a complete hard drive tear apart. It didn't lose the data, I mean, the hard drive ate itself, that's ab it beyond "reliability." (fortunately with many creatives, you can just pop in another old laptop hard drive, which my dad's work gave me for free). Anyway, for normal reliability problems, like happens with ipods, where the songs just... dissapear. You have them on your computer normally. So I wouldn't worry about it. It'll just take a night of docking, you pick it up and hey the songs are back again! An inconvience that hopefully shouldn't happen too often.

The size can be an issue. Count up how many mp3s you have now. If you have half of 6g of music or more, then I'd consider getting something bigger. Having an mp3 player suddenly makes people get music at a much faster rate than they used to. If you have less than 6, especially less than 4, I wouldn't worry about it at all.


But again, creatives rock. And you're thinking about getting an iPod that creative has many alternatives that are BETTER (SWEET sound quality!) and often cost less. They may not be as cheap as the Sony or the other though (I didn't look them up, I was going by what you said)

[zachtib]

I'd give a vote for the iPod, I have a 4G photo, and it works great. The iPod is also popular enough that the community works on support for it in Linux. I know that Rhythmbox, Banshee, and Amarok can write tracks to the iPod, not to mention gtkpod.

The iPod interface is great, as for battery life, even after a year and a half, my iPod's battery life is fine. I can go a day or two without having to charge, as as I plug it in every night, it hardly ever dies on me. The build quality is excellent, but yes, you will have to rerip your music to mp3 format, which is my only complaint about the iPod. I'm actually sort of suprised that Apple never added ogg support to the iPod.

[eriefisher]

1. I refuse to buy anthing Sony
2. The Creative players look like a great choice
3. Apple Ipods are just too expensive for what they are
4. File types can easily be converted instead of reripping(K3B)
5. Your choice

[Sushi]

Sony is the company that ripped off GPL'ed code and installed trojans on their customers computers. Do you REALLY want to give them your money? I have never heard of Trekstor, so I wont comment about it.

Now, I might be biased (I own a 6GB iPod Mini), but the iPod IS very, very nice piece of equipment. It just feels better than any other mp3-player I have come across. It really does. And my iPod is now over 18 months old, and I have no issues with battery-life. Sure, it's not as good as it was when I got it, but it's still good enough. It lasts a whole week of commuting (2-3 hours a day), which is more than enough.

Some people say that owning an iPod is same as "selling your soul" or something. Well, it's not. Yes, iTunes Music Store sells DRM'ed music. But you don't have to use it. I know I don't. And if you really wanted to, you could install RockBox on the iPod. I haven't seen the need to do so, but it is an option.

There really are good reason why iPod is by far the most populat MP3-player in the world. Back when I was in the market for mp3-player, I looked around. And iPod was by far the best. It just felt good. It's difficult to put in to words, but the other players felt flimsy and.... wrong. iPod did not. I do occasionally test other players now and then these days, and they still don't feel as good as the iPod does.

[chaosgeisterchen]

I am quite satisfied with my iPod nano 2G. It has a playback time of nearly 24 hours and it is incredibly small and light. You do not even notice that you have it with you.

8GB is by far enough for me and I would clearly recommend it as long as you do not badly need ogg support.

[tom56]

I'm not going to play the game. Please please get a creative mp3 player.
http://www.creative.com/products/welcome.asp?category=213
Great sound, great software, works in ubuntu, (I don't know your gauge of battery life), you can trade in and out LiOn batteries, good community... and is always going to keep making their mp3 players and stuff. I suggest you don't get one of t he older ones that's about to be "phased out" because that means they're going to stop making new firmware for it (I have that one, the Xtra, it's great but you want one that's going to continue tobe supported).

If you really want a mp3 player, here's what I'm going to say about those you listed...

Album art, you think is cool now, but really isn't important. You wont be looking at your mp3 player 80% of the time. The only time you'll need it to show album art is to pick up chicks and if they really love you, they'll love you for your REAL albums, not your digital ones.

If the mp3 player has shoddy software though, you will hate it for all eternity. You deal will the software 100% of the time. If it's not excelente, it's awful. Love the software, love the mp3 player. Without even looking the Sony up, I suggest that one goes out of the running. Seriously, if you personally have problems with the software, you will have problems with the mp3 player. That's it's soul.

iPods batteries are awful -_-' Jeeze... And you can't store another battert on the side, and you can't steal music. (cough and you're a sell out, but some people don't think that's a bad thing) But that's not as bad as as Shoddy software and if it's up to just three, I guess it can stay...

Some people have big issues with reliability with their mp3 player. I've had one mp3 player have a complete hard drive tear apart. It didn't lose the data, I mean, the hard drive ate itself, that's ab it beyond "reliability." (fortunately with many creatives, you can just pop in another old laptop hard drive, which my dad's work gave me for free). Anyway, for normal reliability problems, like happens with ipods, where the songs just... dissapear. You have them on your computer normally. So I wouldn't worry about it. It'll just take a night of docking, you pick it up and hey the songs are back again! An inconvience that hopefully shouldn't happen too often.

The size can be an issue. Count up how many mp3s you have now. If you have half of 6g of music or more, then I'd consider getting something bigger. Having an mp3 player suddenly makes people get music at a much faster rate than they used to. If you have less than 6, especially less than 4, I wouldn't worry about it at all.


But again, creatives rock. And you're thinking about getting an iPod that creative has many alternatives that are BETTER (SWEET sound quality!) and often cost less. They may not be as cheap as the Sony or the other though (I didn't look them up, I was going by what you said)


Gapless playback is a must

I wish Creative made a proper mp3 player, but they don't. It's a shame; my sister has a Zen and it is pretty sweet. However, my DAP will be taking the place of my walkman and CDs when I go to university in September so it needs to be able to play albums properly.

[tom56]

4. File types can easily be converted instead of reripping(K3B)

Unfortunately I don't have original FLACs or anything, just .oggs, so I would have to re-rip to retain any modicum of sound quality.


Sony is the company that ripped off GPL'ed code and installed trojans on their customers computers. Do you REALLY want to give them your money?
How can you "rip off" GPL code. Proof please. I will probably end up buying a CD from Sony anyway, so frankly I have no qualms with buying a DAP from them. Besides, I have a Sony camera and love it. And thanks to Ubuntu rootkits don't matter to me :)


8GB is by far enough for me
I think I will need at least 11GB if my files are in ogg as they are currently, probably more for mp3 :(

I forgot to mention in my original post that DRM problems, etc, don't matter as I buy all my music on CD anyway.

EDIT: Sorry about the double posts

[sophtpaw]

iAudio (http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=685)

[tom56]

iAudio (http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=685)

Again, gapless playback is a must.

[daynah]

I wish Creative made a proper mp3 player, but they don't. It's a shame; my sister has a Zen and it is pretty sweet. However, my DAP will be taking the place of my walkman and CDs when I go to university in September so it needs to be able to play albums properly.

I have a Zen Jukebox Xtra, and I had a Zen Jukebox and my dad has a Nano or a Micro whatever it's called (those are fun! Like a iPod shuffle with a screen and buttons). And maybe I'm hearing the word "album" wrong but all my mine have been able to "play by artist" and "play by album" correctly (again, though, there are many different ways to use the word album). That is of course, as long as you have the IDE tags correct. I always get confused because, for example, I download audiobooks and sometimes people will put the chapter as "album" some as "track" and others will put it in front of the "name." Does your sister have the IDEs right?

That can get pretty annoying putting the IDE tags in. There are programs that I know of in Windows to do it easier for all mp3 players and programs specifically for creative but... I never tried them... I just never cared that much for the few files that the IDE tags were messed up. If ALL of them are messed up... that's like a whole day of fixin'... But don't you have to do IDE tags with iPods too?

[crazedgremlin]

If you get an iPod, you're gonna need to have a Windows machine handy (if you wanna use the fat32 filesystem (it comes with HFS+)).
There is another way, but it's the hard way.

I think your best bet would be an iPod. I have no personal experience with GTKpod, but I've only heard good things about it.

[sophtpaw]

what's gapless playback?

are you saying the iAudio doesn't rock?

[happy-and-lost]

I have a Sony NWA mp3 player and though the sound quality is truly second to none, it's incredibly slow (For example, I have 1200 songs on it and if I want to find a song titled say... "Talk", it's one of my favourites, it takes about 3 minutes to load up and scroll through the song lists. It's also 100% incompatable with Ubuntu, which sucks.

I'd go for a Creative Zen. Sound quality pretty much as good as the Sony and it works with Ubuntu :)

[tom56]

At work so no time for a full reply to everyone's suggestions.

Gapless explained - http://www.pretentiousname.com/mp3players/

[dmizer]

well ... sony won't work in ubuntu.
sony doesn't (though they try to tell you so) play mp3's. they only play in their proprietary format ... for which there is no converter.
the software that communicates with the sony ONLY works in windows. and then ONLY if you're logged in as admin.
the walkman's battery is crap and can't even last through an hour train commute.

i HIGHLY suggest iriver (http://www.iriver.com/) H10 ... it supports direct drag and drop of mp3's with no conversion necessary. ubuntu finds it automatically with no extra software or tweaking. battery life is astounding. has lots of other handy features like voice recording, a radio tuner, and text capabilities. bigger screen ... color. it's a really sweet piece of equipment. i'm not sure, but i believe it also supports gapless playback.

[v8YKxgHe]

I can highly recommend the SanDisk Sansa e200 series, they are amazing. I got mine ( e260, 4GB ) from Amazon.co.uk

[CbrPad]

Again, gapless playback is a must.

IAudio with Rockbox s/w.

See http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/ under IAudio X5 - Rockbox discussions. I've been running it for quite some time now and it's superb.

[tom56]

IAudio with Rockbox s/w.

See http://www.iaudiophile.net/forums/ under IAudio X5 - Rockbox discussions. I've been running it for quite some time now and it's superb.

Yeah, I did consider Rockbox, but I've heard it can be a real drain on battery life.


sony doesn't (though they try to tell you so) play mp3's
Actually, they do now. I know what you are referring to though (the battery life too), but the latest is a lot better. That said, MP3 isn't gapless on the Sony, only the ATRAC or whatever it's called. Though, either way I'd have to re-rip so it doesn't really matter.


i believe [the iRiver] also supports gapless playback
Nope, 'fraid not. Only with rockbox like the iAudio

[bonzodog]

I just bought a Samsung DAP, admittedly, mine is only 2GB, but it's a flash player and is seen as a USB mass storage device in LInux. Is VERY good. Just plug into the USB port, and drag and drop files. It also plays most known formats including FLAC, ogg, mp3, wma.

[Erik Trybom]

How about an iAudio X5L? It's a little thick, but its huge battery capacity should make it run for a long time even if you use Rockbox.

The Trekstor looks nice too though. I'd consider that one, but stay clear from the Sony. I've heard the software is horrible.

[CbrPad]

[QUOTE=tom56;1831973]Yeah, I did consider Rockbox, but I've heard it can be a real drain on battery life.

I did have that problem a few months back but it's now been fixed and battery life appears to be as good as, if not even better, than the original firmware.