Hey flist...

[valis2]

I am looking at buying an MP3 player for myself and one for my dad. I'm wondering if anyone has any opinions.

For my dad, I am looking to stay within the $100-$150 range. He doesn't need a tremendous amount of battery performance, nor a tremendous amount of songs.

I am looking for something with a lot of battery power, and a lot of songs, and I'm more into the $300 range.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I know next to nothing about the subject.

Comments

[pen-and-umbra.livejournal.com]

MP3 players come in two broad categories: flash-memory based and hard-drive based.

The former are lightweight, cheap(ish), rather indestructible (because they have no moving parts), though carry usually at most 256 or 512 megabytes of songs -- roughly one to five CDs worth of music, depending on player and mp3 file size (i.e. compression rate). The latter are bulkier, heavier, more expensive, have (oftentimes) longer battery life, and carry hundreds of CDs worth of music; for example, my 2nd-gen 20GB hard-drive iPod contains around 3000 songs at the moment. So, to me it sounds like you might be looking for a flash-memory player for your dad and a hard-drive player for yourself.

I can say nothing but superlatives about the iPod (now available up to 60GB, which translates to several days' worth of continuous music), but they tend to be more expensive. Cheapest iPod (20GB) is $299 at the Apple store; for an iPod Mini (4GB and a terribly cool package) is $249.

There are other manufacturers besides Apple, of course, but at least my personal experiences with e.g. Rio players has been a bit ecch. There are numerous review sites on the Net focusing on digital music players (e.g. PC Mag online guide) and if you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer as well as I can.

...and now I better stop before I ramble on for hours. (This is what happens when you friend a procrastinating, gadget-mad computer scientist. :)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

...and now I better stop before I ramble on for hours.

I can read for hours, though, so don't let that stop you. ;)

I am thinking of purchasing Creative's "NOMAD MuVo 4GB" or Creative's "Zen Touch" with 20GB. The thing is, I don't care about size too much, I just want lots of capacity and lots of battery.

Thanks for the link, too!! I'll be checking that out.

[pen-and-umbra.livejournal.com]

I'm so very far behind in my stuff...anyway, one additional point I forgot to make in my original essay reply: the importance of the software that goes on your computer.

For example, the contents of iPod player are automatically updated whenever I plug it into my Mac, through the player software I use (iTunes, also available for Windows). I don't need to do anything -- no explicit transfer commands, no need to figure out what's on the player and what I need to move to it, etc. -- except to plug the player in, because it's all automated. Easy peasy. And as a plus, the iPod player also charges its battery through the same FireWire data connection, so as it's transferring music around, it's also charging itself. Very cool indeed.

However, my experience with Rio Riot some years ago was a disaster mostly because of the computer software you used to rip CDs onto mp3's and move the files onto the player. It was a version of RealPlayer (I think) and it was a nightmare to use: confusing navigation, every file needed to be moved from playlist to player manually, it kept crashing my Windows 2000 box, etc. So maintaining and synchronising the player with my available music was mostly why I sold the damn thing and bought an iPod: I want the music transfer to be easy, not a chore that makes me grind my teeth in annoyance every time.

So, anyway, when buying the player, I suggest taking a look at not only the player, but also how comfortable or odd the accompanying software feels to you.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Excellent advice! I will look into this further. Thanks so very much!!