Do you have an MP3 player?

[Sharingan]

Which model? Do you take it with you everyday? What kind of music do you usually play with it when outside?

I have a flash-based player from Sony, 2GB of storage.


http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/8905/sonynwdb10502fc4.jpg


As shown, it's basically shaped like any USB stick. The thing I like most about this particular model is that you don't require any proprietary software to upload music to the device. You just plug in the thing into a USB port, wait for your OS to recognise the device, and simply drag and drop the files. This works very well, except for the fact that the transfer speed isn't too hot.

As for the sound quality, it's quite good. Certainly not as tinny and hollow-sounding as most portable media players I've heard.

[Harrison]

The thing I like most about this particular model is that you don't require any proprietary software to upload music to the device. You just plug in the thing into a USB port, wait for your OS to recognise the device, and simply drag and drop the files. This works very well...

This is exactly what I like. Plug and play functionality. And this is why i hate the iPod range so much as it forces you to use iTunes.

I still have a Creative Zen 60GB MP3 player that I bought quite a long time ago. It still works fine but is now very chunky and quite heavy compared to current MP3 players. I tend to mainly use it in the car as it can hold so much music (good for long journeys) compared to my car's CD changer. Creative did also force you to use their own software to access and copy mp3 files, but at the time this was how all mp3 players worked. But I got hold of some software from a company called Red Chair Software that allows you to directly access the player and copy files across.

I'm glad this has changed for a lot of makes now as it also makes it much easier and hassle free to share songs between different systems and with friends as you can just plug your mp3 player into a pc and access the contents.

My girlfriend has the newest iPod Nano, and while it is very nice technologically I still hate the fact it still needs to use itunes which is not user friendly at all. But I also find the menu system on iPods quite fiddly as you need to jump up and down menus to find stuff.

[Puni/Void]

My girlfriend has an MP3-player. It's a few years old, but works like a dream. Never experienced any problems with it. As has been mentioned above, it's plug and play all the way, without worrying about software. :)

I mostly use the device when I'm working out, and sometimes when I'm doing the dishes. ;)

[Graham Humphrey]

I have a Samsung MP3 player, again it's 2GB and it's quite similar to that Sony one in many ways. Except it's black ;)

It's great, I take it everywhere with me. Probably going to go deaf sometime soon :lol:

[Puni/Void]

You like the music loud? :rocker:

[Harrison]

Regarding mp3 players sounding tinny and hollow sounding. This is mostly down to them being supplied with cheap headphones. iPod headphones are some of the worst I've encountered for example.

So getting a decent set of headphones is a must and the sound difference can be amazing. For some in the ear ones I recommend Sennheiser MX500 (there might be a newer model out now). They sound really good and come in a handly case that you can wind the cable into for easy non tangle storage.

Or for bigger full headphones I again recommend Sennheiser, and this time the PX100. These are full headband style ones and have really good bass reproduction, and yet are lightweight and fold down into a case about the size of a glasses case, so are still very portable.

[Sharingan]

Yeah, I've been considering getting a nice pair of headphones. Sennheiser is a great brand, no arguments there. I've been hearing very good things about Shure and Etymotic too. They make in-ear headphones that are supposed to sound superb. Expensive, though ... and probably the one-way-ticket to becoming deaf :thumbs:

[Tiago]

My girlfriend have me one 256mb last year. Small capacity, but works fine!
i usually use it to listen music in my way to work.

[Stephen Coates]

No, and no plans to get one, but if I did, it would have to be one of those with big (preferably HD) storage. The reason for this is that you can store alot of music on it.

With my tape and CD (:o) players, I can store as much as I like on tapes and CDs, and just change them when i like. This is dead easy. It would be a similar case with a small MP3 player, but changing the music would be awakwardas I would have to get it onto the computer, and transfer it to the player via the computer.

But obviously this isn't a problem with big ones as the music can be left there permanently while new music is added, rather than having to change it.

Do most HD based Mp3 players have removable HDs these days, so you can put a bigger one in, and also do they have FM/AM radios and removable batteries?

[Buleste]

It's great, I take it everywhere with me. Probably going to go deaf sometime soon :lol:

WHUT?????

I have a cheap shit 128mb one that can hold one Album on hardly ever use it but then i very rarely listen to music unless i'm forced to go on pubic transport (By the way that's a deliberate misspelling).

[Graham Humphrey]

it would have to be one of those with big (preferably HD) storage. The reason for this is that you can store alot of music on it.

You don't say ;)

I doubt many modern ones use batteries; mine doesn't - it charges up by plugging it into a USB port. I would think quite a lot charge up like that?

[Harrison]

With my tape and CD (:o) players, I can store as much as I like on tapes and CDs, and just change them when i like. This is dead easy. It would be a similar case with a small MP3 player, but changing the music would be awakwardas I would have to get it onto the computer, and transfer it to the player via the computer.

No need. You can get MP3 players that use SDCards so you can just copy the music you want onto a series of cards and then just swap them over to load more music. And with SDCards now being so cheap (£3-7 for 1GB) it is quite a good solution if you want a small MP3 player that has no moving parts, so you won't be so worried about dropping it, and no moving parts mean much longer battery life.


But obviously this isn't a problem with big ones as the music can be left there permanently while new music is added, rather than having to change it.

Exactly, and with 60GB+ HD based MP3 players you can fit a lot of albums on them and not ever need to worry about never having something to listen to.


Do most HD based Mp3 players have removable HDs these days, so you can put a bigger one in, and also do they have FM/AM radios and removable batteries?

Nope, I don't know of any HD based MP3 players where the HD is removable. They all use custom software with custom formatted HDs so swapping them over wouldn't be straight forward. With some it is possible as much like most products fans have hacked and experimented with them to make it possible, but obviously it voids any warranty.

As for Radios, it depends on the MP3 player. Many do, many don't. You just need to show around and find one that does if you would like radio built in. And many that do have it allow direct recording from radio to the storage (HD/memory).

Regarding batteries, again some have removable batteries, and others don't. This has always been a complaint of iPods because they all have fixed batteries that can only be replaced at the factory so cost the owner money to have it done. Some smaller flash ram MP3 players are powered from a single AA or AAA battery so it is easy to replace it if you run out of power whilst out. But most are rechargeable and are similar to mobile phone batteries. They all last at least a few hours between charges so you don't need to worry about batteries going flat. And they either recharge from a charger or docking station or via the usb port of your PC. Not really an issue.

[v85rawdeal]

With my tape and CD (:o) players

Checks Stephen for a fever....:doctor:

[Stephen Coates]

With my tape and CD (:o) players

Checks Stephen for a fever....:doctor:

The tape one is better than the CD one though because it has an FM/AM radio and fits in my pocket quite well, niether of which the cd player do.

[Submeg]

Or you could just buy a AM/FM transmitter...which are extremely small??

[AlexJ]

I doubt many modern ones use batteries; mine doesn't - it charges up by plugging it into a USB port. I would think quite a lot charge up like that?

They still use a battery, just not removable ones

I've got two oldish MP3 players, a fantastic but brick sized 60GB Creative Zen Xtra (from the days when my PC had a smaller HDD) and a 1st Gen 512MB Apple iPod Shuffle (which IIRC came free with an insurance quote or something - wouldn't have been my choice).

If I'm going for a long journey in the car I'll take the brick, but out-and-about the lightness and size of the shuffle usually gets the nod.

My mobile phone is also marketed as a music model, but it has a stupid 2.5mm jack which needs an adaptor to get regular 3.5mm and it eats the battery up super quick, so is rarely used. Shame, because at 2GB, it's 4 times the size of the iPod, and in my pocket already.

[Demon Cleaner]

I don't have an mp3 player, but use my mobile as mp3 player, the sony ericson k770i with 4GB. Works pretty good, and I don't need to take along 2 different devices.

[Harrison]

My current phone also has an mp3 player which is pretty good, and as the phone uses mini SD cards extra storage isn't a problem. But the problem is that you have to use the supplied headphones as the socket is the proprietary one on the phone that is used to connect everything from the USB cable, to the charger to the headphones. It is unique to the phone make and so I can't use standard headphones with it which is annoying. And the supplied ones don't have very good bass.

[J T]

I've got an iPod colour. I got it cheap off eBay (brand new too) about 2 1/2 years ago. Otherwise I was looking at the Zen touch at the time. The headphones it came with are totally shit but the rest of it works very well indeed.

Although it doesn't have that many functions as the cost of a simple design, it is really easy to use. iTunes doesn't reall bother me, it's essentially just drag and drop but with an iTunes window instead of explorer. Getting songs off the iPod isn't so easy as it stores them in a number of oddly named folders, but this isn't too much of an issue as the music would've been on my computer already.

I have it with me every work day, although I don't always listen to it. Sometimes on the train, bus and tube you need to just have some tunes. Also helps gee me along a bit if I'm walking to the station.

[AlexJ]

Do most HD based Mp3 players have removable HDs these days, so you can put a bigger one in, and also do they have FM/AM radios and removable batteries?

Nope, I don't know of any HD based MP3 players where the HD is removable. They all use custom software with custom formatted HDs so swapping them over wouldn't be straight forward. With some it is possible as much like most products fans have hacked and experimented with them to make it possible, but obviously it voids any warranty.

You can replace the HDD on the Zen Xtra - it simply offers to format the new drive on first bootup.

[Harrison]

Really? I didn't know that. Any idea what sizes of HD it can support? Does it need to be the same as it came with. Mine is a 60GB one for example. Or can you stick a larger one in there? And does it need to be a specific make or spec?

[AlexJ]

Really? I didn't know that. Any idea what sizes of HD it can support? Does it need to be the same as it came with. Mine is a 60GB one for example. Or can you stick a larger one in there? And does it need to be a specific make or spec?

One of my mates put an 80GB HDD in his 30GB model. A search online shows that someone's used a 120GB HDD successfully. It needs to be a 9.5mm ATA-100 drive (laptop style). There's a guide on how to do it here (http://home.mchsi.com/~sallad/zen/tutorial.html).

[TiredOfLife]

Currently using a Creative Zen Nano Plus.

* Compact and lightweight – Measures 33.5 x 65.5 x 13 millimetres (1.3 x 2.6 x 0.5 inches) and weighs just 34 grams (1.2 ounces.) with AAA battery.
* 1GB memory, storing up to 500 songs in WMA* or 240 songs in MP3*.
* Versatile recording from built-in microphone and FM radio. Supports direct MP3 encoding via line-in.
* Up to 18 hours playtime from a standard AAA battery.
* USB 2.0 for PC downloads at up to a song per second.
* Easy to use, with blue backlit display and multilingual user interface.

*Based on four-minute songs at 64Kbps in WMA, 128Kbps in MP3.

This device actually save lives.
If I didn't have this on my way to work each morning,there would be a lot of dead school kids.:mad:

[v85rawdeal]

The only MP3 players I have are my two mobile phones and my two PSPs.

But my main MP3 player is the custom PSP, as I also have lots of Miggy music on there too.

[Harrison]

This is interesting. Until now I had been accessing my old creative Zen Xtra using the third party software from Red Chair. But that was installed on one of my older systems. Today I decided to see how MediaMonkey worked with the Zen, but I discovered I needed to install some drivers so that Windows would recognise the device first.

After installing the drivers and connecting the Zen to the PC it appeared as a drive letter (as it used to). Before this was just to use the Zen's HD to store files but not to access the music on it. But now when I go into the drive I can see all of the music on the Zen and drag and drop. That is much easier and made me very happy!

It is a bit annoying that it doesn't support folders/directories though as it means all of the tracks are such displayed in one big directory together making it very hard to navigate them. Still, it's much better than before. And with MediaMonkey it is easy to manage them if needed.