MP3 players forum: What's your ideal mp3 player?

iPod
iPod
iPod

iPod spends a lot of money on ads, which is passed onto the consumer. It's just bad value.

I think you should get one of iRiver flash players. It's cheap and durable. Also, the eq settings are good. When properly tuned, it sounds far better than anything coming out of an iPod costing many times the price.

http://www.bananapc.com/promo/general/0412_iriver/0412_iriver.htm

First, Zen has user-replaceable battery. In a year or two you'll pay good money for Apple to hard-wire in a new one.

Secondly, Zen has excellent software and user-interface, Quite manageable for a non-hip boomer like me.

Third, we have had excellent service with Crative's retail outlet, "Cambridge Soundworks." My younger son dropped his, about a month after we bought it. We took it back to the retail outlet, and it was replaced on the spot, no questions asked. I didn't even have the receipt!

But I wasn't too pleased with the earbuds; I use Koss QZ50 headphones instead.

Note that Creative offers different accessories at different prices for different promotional packages. I got mine with an extra lithium battery.

Unless you're enchanted with the iPod cult status, I think you'll get more value with the Zen. But it's a consumer's market--watch them try to outflank each other with extra features or price cuts!

The looks of the Philips HDD120.
The battery life of the Sony NE1 mp3 cd player (i.e. 150 hours playback), which is removable like a Creative Muvo2.
The touchpad of the Zen Micro.
The sound quality of the Creative Zen/Muvo2 units.
The format support of the iRiver H320 (no DRM restrictions).
The video capabilities of the Archos Gmini 400 (colour screen).
The physical build quality of some of the Sony units (titanium).
An FM radio with no static and no hiss recordings.
Drag and drop capabilities - can act as external hdd.
An 80gb hdd with the g-protection technology of the Sony NW-HD3.
The price tag of a 256mb Creative Muvo TX. ^^

Notice how I didn't include any iPod aspects?

thats 18 hours battery life, not "batter" life
on the new $199 mini and new 6gb mini.

sorry folks, should have edited the post. With all the accessories and the great battery life, you have to admit that only a fool would buy anything else than an iPod

In a world where;

- mp3/CD players are available that have 200 hours of battery life.

- mp3 flash players are available that get 70 hours of battery life.

- mp3 HDD players are available that get 30 hours of battery life.

...it was only a matter of time until iFanatics would point to 18 hours of battery life as one reason that "only a fool would buy anything else than an iPod". Some of have been using mp3 HDD based players with 18 hours of battery life for well over a year if not more.

How's Steve Jobs coming along with his work inventing the wheel??? I hope to see some cool ads of people dancing around one in sillhouette with a turqouis and mandarin colored background any day now!

"if you choose anything but an iPod thats YOUR PROBLEM.. and youll live with it too."

Well that's polite!

"iPod mini has 18 plus hours normal batter use. This BLOWS AWAY any competition including the bogus carbon's "20 hours" which is a sad joke on the consumer."

No. The Sony NW-HD3 gets 24 hours of battery life.

"I-Pod photo @ $349 is a great bargain if you have a huge collection and want a usable feature. (camera and tv compatible for photos)"

No. In fact it makes it a bad choice for many people. Gyms and pools and such places are now banning camera cell-phones because some people take voyeur photos in the locker rooms and post/sell them online.
So the I-Pod Photo will also be banned from these places, which makes it a bad choice for the I-use-my-MP3-player-at-the-gym crowd.

Personally, I like unit's with removable batteries. It gives me that piece of mind that when the battery dies I don't have to send it back to the manufacturer - even if that's after 3-4 years of heavy use. I like the radio option as well, cos I can listen to radio talkback or whatever when I wanna hear someones opinions...

a player that has nothing to do with wma or itunes propriatory limitations.music without the ball and chain.Terry

It has got to pick up playing when powered up where it stopped playing when powered down. Essential for those 60 minute audiobook files.....

Any PDA that also plays MP3s is a step above just an MP3 player, and possibly can be deducted for tax purposes.

some features of my ideal player:
has a built-in > 8X dual-layer DVD+/-RW drive
if it doesn't come with a hard drive, accepts the regular 3.5" hard drives so I could put a > 320GB HD in it (I wouldn't mind some extra bulk maybe)
has enough protection so that even if I dropped it from a roof to a driveway while accessing the hard disk, it would survive unscathed. (sp?)
has multiple line and microphone inputs for recording, and has the full LAME encoder options, plus Ogg Vorbis, and Wave.
USB 2.0 and firewire interface
displays pictures and movies on a screen about the size of the 3.5" hard disk, at a resolution of at least 200 pixels per inch
There's lots more I'm sure, but I'll maybe post some more later.

Meanwhile, to be more realistic, I'm looking for a player that has the same features as the IRiver IFP-799 or 899, but has an expandable memory slot and works like a USB flash drive (lets me upload mp3s without complaining from the player to the computer).