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General discussion

Really need help with MP3 player decision

Jan 23, 2005 1:21AM PST

Hey,

I have been looking around for a long time for a good MP3 player to suit my needs, and am still unsure. Every one I see ends up lacking something necessary, and I therefore need your help. To make things easier, i've included the things that i'd most like to have in my MP3 player.


Storage - between 5 and 10gb. I doubt very much I would need anything more than 10gb, and I would probably need it to be hard drive based, because I will have large audio books on the player as well as music.

I don't want anything to snazzy and full of pointless things. I did like the look of the Iriver, but all those extra things, like line in, etc, I wouldn't need.

Radio I would really like, with good reception, as well as a decent recorder which has a wide range, and the ability to record the radio would be great.

Volume on the player. I don't want to keep going into options and changing it if possible.

Obviously decent quality, and would like it to look quite nice.

Nothing to difficult to navigate and use.

Price - 150-200 pounds.


I would get the Iriver, but it's quite expensive, and there's no radio recorder, and too many useless features.

I would get the Zen Micro, but there's no dedicated volume, and the radio and recorder is apparently poor.

I would get the Zen Touch, but there's no radio or recorder, unless I buy the addon, which i'd rather not to for price reasons, and there will be lots of wires. Also, it's quite big storage, which I wouldn't use.


So, you get the gist. If anyone could match me to a good MP3 player fitting my needs I would be very grateful!

Discussion is locked

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Zen Micro
Jan 23, 2005 6:26AM PST

I have a Zen Micro and the radio recorder works well (though I haven't owned another mp3 player and I have nothing to compare it to). Dedicated volume also isn't that much of and issue as you can access the volume control from any screen on the player.

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Reply
Jan 23, 2005 6:39AM PST

Sounds good. So you just press a few buttons to get onto volume control? Are the radio (reception, quality etc) good, as well as radio recording, and what is the general recording quality like?

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Zen Micro
Jan 23, 2005 8:08AM PST

OK, like I said, this is mostly my opinion because I don't have anything to campare the quality to but here it goes...

1. To access the volume control you hit the drop-down menu key (bottom right) and then scroll to the bottom of that menu (usually no more than 5 options) and you will find an option called "Volume". If you click on it you can change the volume level.

2. The reception on the radio is fine. The only trouble I had with it was when I was in the middle of my house and the player was in my pocket. Otherwise the reception is good, sol ong as the radio station has decent signal strength.

3. I've recorded the radio a few times. The only thing I noticed is that the volume level has to be a little higher than normal to have decent audibility. Otherwise it's just like having the real song on your mp3 player apart from the radio announcer etc.

Hope this helps. I would definately reccomend that you get this player. I had my doubts before I bought this player as well with all the reviews of people saying the touch pad was terrible and that the player broke down all the time... The only trouble I had was when I upgraded to the version 2 firmware the computer kept freezing. All I had to do then was to re-install the Creatiev drivers and load up the version 1.01.03 firmware which is much better anyways. The only thing that might affect your decision is if you have trouble with things that are touch sensitive liek the controls on the Micro (it took me less than half and hour to get used to the controls).

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Reply
Jan 24, 2005 12:34AM PST

I'm just worried that 5gb won't be enough. I have about 7.5gb of music now, and if I convert that to 128kb/s it will be about 4.5gb. The thing is, do I really want to convert it, at the loss of quality.

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Bitrate
Jan 24, 2005 4:00AM PST

I have all my music at 128 kbps MP3 and the quality is fine for me. The only thing I could see is if you're a stickler for quality. I'm not exactly a pro but it sounds fine to me...

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Good MP3 Player recommendation
Jan 25, 2005 9:16PM PST

I looked around for a long time and finally decided on a RIO Carbon. It is a 5GB drive based player that is the size of a large business card and very thin. I got it for $100 off through www.audible.com. Audible is an audio book site that has a technology that greatly compresses audio books. The subscription covers two book downloads per month and they are always having great sales. Thousands of books to choose from. At any rate the player is great!!!. The ear buds really suck but are easily replaced. The case has a bit to be desired but www.rioaudio.com has a replacement that is realy nice. I have owned a Creative and a couple of others that were OK but I have to rate this as far better. My son has an iRiver and while it is a nice device it is more bulky than the RIO and now he wishes he had purchased a RIO CARBON. Hope this helps

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I wouldn't recommend it!
Jan 25, 2005 11:55PM PST

I got a Rio Forge for Christmas. It broke two days later, it stopped holding data. I e-mailed customer support to see what they said I should do, and it took them two weeks to respond to my request. Now I'm not saying that all Rio players a junk, but I couldn't in my right mind recommend that anyone buy a Rio player. Maybe I was just unlucky.

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Hmm...
Jan 26, 2005 1:35AM PST

Well, I could try and persuade you over to the Zen Micro, but enough people have tried that already. I know you said maximum 10gb player, but may I suggest you scout eBay for a 15gb or 10gb iPod? They generally seel for around $200-$250 (about