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MP3 Players

Perfect Tommy

19:20 / 16.02.03

I am no longer a car user. (Yay me, though the circumstances of the automobectomy left a lot to be desired.) Leaving me with the question: So what do I listen to music on? I like the idea of having more music to choose from than just a couple CDs or a mixtape, so I was thinking of some kind of MP3 player (assuming that software to turn CDs into MP3s isn't classified as a munition yet).

(Perhaps if this turns into a good-sized review thread it would want to live in Music or the Laboratory.)

Tezcatlipoca

20:20 / 16.02.03

Depending upon your disposable cash, I can - from personal experience - thoroughly recommend the Archos Jukebox, although you may want to go for something a little less elborate (since it doubles as a 20GB hard drive as well), which will bring the cost down a little.

illmatic

11:28 / 04.04.07

Bumpty bump

So, I want to get an MP3 player. Can anyone recommend a cheap one that doesn't break easily? Failing that, can anyone ppoint me in the direction of a decent consumer reviews site. I've tried Which? But you have to sign up for a subscription to get their advice.

I only want 1-5 gigs capacity, don't give a bollocks about radio and video. I don't want to buy a poxy ipod, because I don't want to have to use itunes, and I've heard horror stories of them breaking etc. Cheap is good also, I don't see why I should have to spend loadsa money.

Any thoughts?

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:33 / 04.04.07

I got an i-Scream for £20. It's probably famously shit and will break and everyone will laugh at me, but for the price of quiet night in the pub you can't go wrong, can you?

Can you?

illmatic

11:38 / 04.04.07

The desire to buy an MP3 player (or "playa" as I like to think of it...) has been replaced with an obsessive need to read Which?'s consumer reviews. How dare they deprive me! This is the information age!

... okay, I'm really tight.

rizla mission

12:18 / 04.04.07

If you can get over the fact that the company is called "Rio", then my 5GB Rio Mp3 player has given me nothing but joy since I bought it for about £120 (two years ago price).

Works with iTunes on Macs, works with cranky old software on PCs, is way cheaper and more durable than an iPod and, most importantly, so far it HASN'T BROKEN or given me any crap.

It doesn't have videos or cool displays or a groovy spin-wheel thingy and whatever else, but as Apophenia so rightly points out, who fucking cares?

illmatic

12:29 / 04.04.07

Cheers Riz, that's more than I wanted to spend, but the "not breaking" factor seems crucial. Hmm.

Flyboy, to be honest, I think you may have done the right thing. I've spent the last hour looking at reviews and forums and not one of the cheap ones is without several reported faults - at least if you buy cheap, you know you're not losing much when it gives up the ghost and goes to mp3 heaven.

Bamba

12:51 / 04.04.07

SanDisk are getting a good rep for their Sansa mp3 players which, like all smaller capacity players, don't need any stupid software to use them; they're just plug and play USB devices. They come in various flavours (2GB, 6GB,4GB and 8GB) to suit whatever your budget is but the best feature, in my opinion, is that you can buy extra memory card which slot in the back and give you more space so if you buy one of the smaller ones then find yourself needing more room you don't need to chuck it away and buy a whole new one as you would with any other player on the market. And with whopping great SD cards going for peanuts these days it's not even an expensive upgrade at all so perfect for someone who doesn't have a lot of money to hand but might want to up the storage space later on down the line.

You can see the various models and prices here and there's an in depth review here here.

Bamba

12:56 / 04.04.07

Gah, I've broken the page. There's a mod request in to fix that, apologies folks.

charrellz

13:05 / 04.04.07

Not everyone's cup of tea, but I can't let a discussion of mp3 players go by without mentioning The Daisy. I can't personally speak of its glory, (as I have not yet actually ordered the kit, but I will) but it was mentioned on makezine, so it has some cred.

Basically, it is a kit that you solder together; throw in headphones and an SD card full of mp3s and you're good to go. The user interface isn't for everyone (being nothing but a green LED, a red LED, and a set of jumpers), but it is quite appealing to me. Also of note, it is completely free of any sort of DRM, and the plans are available on the website if you would rather go out and buy all the resistors etc. yourself.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:15 / 04.04.07

I have the next Sansa down, which is smaller - 512MB or 1GB, runs on AAA batteries and really is cheap as chips - the 1GB model is about £20 on Amazon. I tend not to use it, because I have an iPod also, but it seems to work fine, has a radio and voice recorder, but no colour screen, no photo or video playing. A gig is about 500 songs; if you don't mind the added expense of batteries (£7.99 for a pack of 4 rechargeables? I have a spare charger, I think...) then this might be a better no-frills solution - the cheapest, 2GB Sansa e200 series is about £70, I think, cheaper than the comparable iPod but still quite pricey if you actively don't want the photo and video capabilities...

Supaglue

15:25 / 04.04.07

I bought the 2Gb version of this Sony jobbie from Argos just before Xmas (where it was going for £40). It's still not too bad now.

Good points: Works fine, sound quality is good and is tiny.

Bad points: It's got a low max volume cap, Sonic Stage - the software platform - is not great and is supposed to be dodgy (I've had no problems, saying that). It's also pretty basic, features wise.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

15:38 / 04.04.07

I'm a dedicated MiniDisc fan. They're rugged, they use removeable media (and I'd much rather have an MD fail than my iPod HD), and the newer HiMD units can store 1G of data. The major complaint is "I can't store as much music on an MD as I can on an iPod or whatnot," but really, how much music do people listen to in one day? I can grab two or three MDs on my way out the door every morning and listen to them throughout the day. I have custom mixes and full album dumps on various MDs. It's wonderful.

electric monk

15:40 / 04.04.07

I've got this one. Price was about $120(US). It's a very bare bones machine, 1GB of space, charges right thru the USB (with a PowerBlock add-on or thru your 'puter), and plays nice with Windows Media Player. It also acts like a hard drive, so you don't need to go thru iTunes/WMP/whatever to drop an mp3 in*. It's better to go thru WMP, so's you can customize the file info, but that can wait if you just want to hear the song NOW. I've got a fetishy frost plastic wrap for mine, and have had no problems after dropping the player. Also, it is toddler-proof! (testing phase still incomplete)

*And also means you can customize your screen with radikal grafix and sigilz, d00d.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:43 / 04.04.07

Another play of the Samsung "Yepps" is that a number are available cheap (for the UK) in Morgan Computer - www.morgancomputer.co.uk. Never used one myself, mind...

petunia

21:56 / 08.04.07

I drive a Creative Zen Nano. It's 1gig capacity, does radio and voice/line-in recording. I found a refurb one on ebay for £20, and it's been fine since the start of the year. It's dead little and feels non-breaky. Also gets pretty good reviews on variosu sites, as well as not depending on any special software for use.

Proinsias

22:17 / 08.04.07

The old style 1GB iPod shuffles are going cheap these days, are more or less indestructable as far as beer and washing machines go, and work fine with real player if you have a problem with iTunes. You don't have much control over which tunes you are listening to which is bit shit when drunk and in desperate need of a particular song.

Kirin? Who the heck?

23:14 / 08.04.07

By the way, I have access to the Which reports via my mother’s subscription, so if anyone wants to know what they think about a specific player, then just ask. Here’s their list of 10 (so they say, but I can only count 9) best buys as a PDF. They also have a search tool, which lets you look by price and so on. Just say here or PM me if you need anything. Beware that Which tend to be a little outdated with some things (they've only tested the previous generation of iPod nano – a best buy – and shuffle, for example).

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