recommend me an mp3 player?

$50 new:

http://www.giiks.com/images/ifa/sandisk-sansa-clip-01.jpg

(only 1GB, 2GB and 4GB versions though)

i have only great things to say about the sansa. plug it in, drag and drop.

The Cowon iAudio 7 looks great, but it's very expensive.

cheaper than an ipod though!

Ah, I thought iPods had got cheaper than they actually still are. I don't think the iAudio is cheaper, at least not on amazon.co.uk, but the prices for 8GB versions are roughly comparable now that I look a little closer. I think I was initially aghast at the over-£200 prices for the 16GB iAudios I was seeing.

> because some stuff i've only got in FLAC format

does not compute. you do realise you can convert flacs to anything else, don't you, and because it's lossless then it'll be as good as ripping it to mp3 or whatever directly?

newer versions of oggenc can even read flacs as input and copy all the tags across to the new file.

my 20G iaudio m5 played ogg and flacs nicely. but the battery died within 15 months. now using a 1G atmt xseven with a 2G micro sd card. is tiny, plays oggs but takes forever to start up (because, i think, the 2G card is very slow). there also seems to be a 500 file limit. and it's discontinued afaict.

(oh, they've updated it. now plays videos as well and is a third the price. but mp3 and wma only
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ATMT-V-PLAY-MP4-PLAYER-EXPANDABLE/dp/B000PPJMCM/ref=pd_sbs_ce_img_5
)

i guess sandisk might have some updates for its flash players later this year:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/06/sandisk_43_nanometer_nand_flash

i have been told ipods can't do this but maybe i've been told wrong - i haven't looked into it

jon's right - just set to manually manage in itunes.

my 80BG ipod was $227 on sale. i love it. hoping it lasts as long as its predecessor, a 3rd gen 20GB which gave 4 years of faultless service.

so far i <3 my iaudio, sounds better than any ipod (and yes plays my .OGGs)

Dude, graphic eq "does not sound better"

Although you might get more volume out of them, which does sound better

I use a Sandisk Sansa e250. Bought it refurbed for $65.

Does the job. no itunes needed.

my drag & drop sony NWZ-A818 sounds fantastic. especially with my atrio headphones.

I bet you guys couldn't tell the difference in a blind test!

Bet I couldn't either!

well i never had an ipod where i could adjust the eq settings. i dont know if the newer ones have these. i did have an ipod that i couldn't use with my old mac because i couldn't get the newest itunes without upgrading my OS, which meant my computer didn't even recognize the ipod. that is so ridiculous. this just plugs in and shows up as a usb device and i don't even have to bother with itunes bullshit, just drag the files in. this is what an mp3 player should be IMO, not some fancy white little bitch.

i've got a peeve about the newer ipods. they've got this kind of screensaver album art collage goin on, right? cool! but there's no way to actually LISTEN to one of these albums you're seeing the artwork of, short of exiting whatever screen you're on and digging down through all your mp3s. i've got loads of albums and singles whose covers i barely recognize; most of the time i don't even know what album is prancing around on the screensaver thingie but i'm often like "whoa what's that? i want to listen to that!" but there's no way to tell!

okay that graf was atrocious. but new, confusing technology requires new, confusing paragraphs.

btw is there any way of turning OFF the half-screen thing, and have menu options stretch all the way across the screen?

I am so mad at Apple right now - I want a small flash mp3 player and will probably get the 4GB nano (do not want a shuffle because they have no screen, wtf?), but it seems obscene to charge a third of the price of the entire product for the 2-year warranty. It's making me try to calculate how mad at myself I'll be if it breaks in a year and a half - mad enough to justify the $40 warranty?

Alternately, anyone know of one that's cheaper and Mac compatible to the extent of being able to play whatever format itunes changes your music to? Unfortunately all my music is there.

Maria I've recommended the Sansa Clip many times on this thread but I don't know what format you mean when you say "whatever format itunes changes your music to". If you search for Sansa Clip, the Sandisk website will give you all the specifications.

maria, the cowon iaudio that i just got was about $50 cheaper than the comparable nano (the 8 gb). the 4 gb one is about $115? i think it only has a 1 year warranty. the screen is much smaller than the nano's, so if you want to use it mainly for watching videos the ipod may be better.

itunes only plays mp3s, which im sure works with any player. just make sure it is compatible with your OS.

itunes only plays mp3s

Uh?

itunes plays quite a bit more than just mp3s!

like what?! i mean you can play .ogg and .wma using plug-ins

I actually had an earlier, smaller model of the Sansa player before my PC died and I got a Mac, it synced through Windows Media Player (there's a version for Mac, but it only plays .wma!). Regular Windows Media Player can play mp3s from CDs, but not ones from my itunes library, so I had to re-import the CDs into a different location to update the player. It seems that everything in itunes gets imported and automatically converted to "protected AAC," I guess that's the problematic format?

My worry about the cowon iaudio is that it says "data transfer only," and I do not know what it means, so if it caused problems I wouldn't know why. I will have to look more into this.

Itunes plays pretty much anything. Or, at least, will convert pretty much anything to an mp3.

well i never had an ipod where i could adjust the eq settings. i dont know if the newer ones have these.

All of them can.

i did have an ipod that i couldn't use with my old mac because i couldn't get the newest itunes without upgrading my OS,

http://thepiratebay.org/

i want it

though the zooms are cheaper and h4 has xlr inputs

i know these are not mp3 players
i need to make a bunch of sound-related purchases (but i won't post like pics of amps here or anything)

kingfish, how's that sansa holding up? I'm seeing refurbs for under $30 like http://www.buy.com/prod/sandisk-sansa-e250-2gb-mp3-player-fm-tuner-fm-on-the-fly-recording/q/loc/111/205562657.html

I was looking for something with a card slot and a fm tuner. is the microphone any good?

I am happy with my 2GB Zen Stone. It works. I am easily pleased.

Ooops. I do not mean to imply it has an FM tuner or card slot. I was speaking in a more general way.

<3 <3 <3

http://www.cowonglobal.com/images/main/S9_main.jpg

<3 <3 <3

Best looking (both externally and the video on screen) and sounding (and that's even before I tried any of the 36 equalizer settings + 4 user-defineable ones) mp3 player I've ever experienced. Watched 4 full length divx movies on it, listened to twenty albums, battery is still like 2/3 full. (up to 55 hours if you only listen to music, 12 if you only watch movies)

It looks spiff! How big is it?

Call me old fashioned but I just can't get into touchscreens. My 120gb two-buttons-and-a-"zunepad" Zune is my favorite thing on the planet

Smaller than I expected, just a little bit bigger than and about half as thin as my cell phone, a normal size sony-ericsson. :-)

idle research about a month ago pointed toward either the samsung p3, the cowon or a lower-end sony walkman. expensive choice would be either x-series walkman or maybe that creative egg thing if it gets a full release

S9's first accessory ordered: anti-fingerprint screen protector thing, since this attracts fingerprints like crazy.

so my (rather expensive) creative zen bought in 2006 is about to give up the ghost. i need a replacement. what's the best thing? i was thinking an itouch, but then i'm not very current with these things. are iphones still ridiculously expensive? what's the average GB on an iphone and is it worth it or do i just stick to a regular mp3 player? any decent non-apple contenders out there?

still like the creative zen tbh, but gf has an itouch and it's great too- wasn't expensive but i think it's only 16gb so do the research if you need more.

the market is glutted - you'll need to provide us with more criteria in order to narrow the field

just in general though this site is pretty reliable for tech stuff ime

http://www.trustedreviews.com/

just get a Sansa Clip for like £15 and be done with it - they weigh nothing, hold a lot of music and sound great

dog latin, did you have the 60gb vision m?
i have this it's been great, could do with something similar, but haven't found anything yet that'll do the same job, movies/ external hard drive etc.

30gb vision m. i was very happy with it but a lack of available accessories on the market meant i kept forgetting to seek out a protective case, hence why it keeps going into rebuild mode and the screen's gone funny.

what do you mean by external hd?

i found that with the zen, while it was fairly reliable, it would often malfunction if i tried to fill it to capacity.

i like the idea of being able to go online etc with the itouch.

ipod touches go up to 64GB and going online, playing games, using apps is very nice. also no moving parts so you probably won't lose data by dropping it (however you might break the screen).

in the extras, there's a removable disc option for storage and usb host option.