Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

what to look at...

Oct 25, 2005 9:20AM PDT

i'm coming to the conclusion that my current mp3 player might be on it's last legs. the problem is trying to figure out what i want/need to replace it with. in an ideal world i'd just get anotehr one of the same thing but taht's not really possible. anyhow i'm currently running an acrhos studio recorder 20 and frankly i like it. nothing fancy but also no crazy software taht i have to use for transfering files here adn there.

what i'm basically looking for is seomthing that's not too spendy($250-300 tops), at least 20 GB, can be used as an external HD when hooked up via USB 2.0, and a very simple interface. i cant seem to find anything on the market that gets good reviews and has all the things i want and none of the things i dont. so any thoughts? oh and no ipod reccomendations because i will not... be buying one of those.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Yes, I'm asking the same thing..
Oct 26, 2005 12:41PM PDT

I just left a lengthy post, with my complete hard drive MP3 player wish list -

http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6142-0.html?forumID=71&threadID=132945&messageID=1499038


But you put it so well - I do not want any special software and no Ipod, obviously. What have you been looking at? Do you know anything about the Jet JetAudio X5L-20BL MP3 Player (or 30B)? What have you been looking at? What should I be looking at? Everytime I find something that interests me, it turns out to have some terrible quirk - this one won't put songs in folders, or doesn't sound good (!), or won't shuffle, etc.

Any ideas? How about the Creative Nomad or Zen or whatever?

- Collapse -
quite a few actually...
Oct 26, 2005 4:02PM PDT

i've looked into the creative zen series, a few jet ones, even looked at a toshiba that was just on display. have yet to find anything that i really like. seems as if everythings trying to include more bells and whistles at the expense of simple operation and easy interface. for the most part i've been using cnet as my primary review spot because i'm going to have to do most of my research online but i should probably be checking elsewhere too.

- Collapse -
OK - I think I've narrowed it down to three -
Oct 26, 2005 10:45PM PDT

First, the Cowon iAudio XL5 -
(I had a reply on this forum and they said it could do everything I want - also, it gets great reviews. I was calling it JetAudio, but it is the Cowan.

Next, the new Creative Sleek. It has a built in FM tuner and seems to look pretty nice.

Finally, I like the Dell DJ 30 - the straight forward, easy to read, no-muss-no-fuss great customer reviews. Check out the CNET video - it's the only CNET video where you can actually read the screen on the MP3 player, and it seems so "comfortable - an easy interface! Did you see it yet? Also, I heard on this forum that Dell will be coming out with a new line - so maybe I should just wait for those!

Yeah, I did a little research on some of the other sites - mostly links and stores (PCworld.com; I4u.com; Newegg etc.) - should I check out the Toshiba?

Here are the CNET review links, pasted (not that you haven't read them!).

http://reviews.cnet.com/5224-6142_7-0.html?forumID=71&threadID=132725&messageID=1499274&start=-1

http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_Zen_Sleek/4507-6490_7-31497157.html?tag=bookmark

http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_DJ_30_30GB/4507-6490_7-31287880.html?tag=bookmark


By the way, I can't seem to get my CNET "compare" link to just show these three - do you know how? Everytime I click "compare" I get all IPODs, and when I scroll and check off "compare" - it doesn't remember which ones I checked off on the previous page...If anyone can get these three MP3 players to compare side-by-side on CNET, please send me the link!!

Thanks!

- Collapse -
yea forgot bout taht one
Oct 27, 2005 7:20AM PDT

looked at the cowon one but for some reason decided to keep looking. i'm trying to remember what it was that made me keep looking but there was soemthing...

i'm not so much in need of an FM tuner as actually i'd much perfer to have a built in AM tuner as i listen to quite a bit of talk radio and sports broadcasts. absent of that though a tuner would be a perk that's not a make it or break it item.

hadnt looked at the dell and pretty much hadnt even considered them because if seems as if dell's overall quality at least in the pc market has been declining recently and i'm not sure if that would carry over to the mp3 players they make...

and no dont worry about the toshiba. the interface was downright confusing. i couldnt figure out how to run the things and i spent about 5-10 minutes trying to figure it out. it's got a huge LCD display but that's about the only plus for it. so no dont worry about looking into them.

usually what i end up doing for comparoson's sake would be just reading each review and then comparing specs in seperate windows. takes a bit more work but tyipcally i'm looking at 1 model at a time and debating it's pro's/con's so comparing to other models isint really that but of a deal. one place that i try to look when i'm thinking about soemthing is epinions.com. typically i look at what problems people are having but havent really done an exhaustive search on there as i havent compiled a list of what to look at.

- Collapse -
here's another one....
Oct 29, 2005 5:20AM PDT

that's intriging...

sticking in the archos vein the gmini xs 202. retails for somewhere just north of $200. is a 20 gb hd. the only thing i'm not sure on is exactly how the interface works. it's said it's pretty intuitive but it's not as simple as far as bottons go as the recorder 20 was. think it's worth a look. gets a 7.7 on here too so that's pretty good.

- Collapse -
check out for philips hdd6330...
Oct 27, 2005 6:58PM PDT

check out 4 the new philips hdd6330 product. It looks promising...

- Collapse -
hmm yea definitely 1 to watch
Oct 28, 2005 7:08AM PDT

hopefulyl cnet will do a full fledged review of it soon. definitely an intriguing possibility