Nov 17
I’ve decided i need an mp3 player, well - i’ve known it for a long time but now it’s time to action it. Do I want an iPod? I’ve read a few reports of their being better products out there but having just played with an iPod mini I’m well impressed. I had a Sony Network walkman thing and it took ages to copy music to it but i just saw a CD ripped and copied in minutes! Do any folks have other recommendations - I think i only need about 4gb of storage and want to spend as little as possible but don’t want a piece of rubbish. Thoughts?
November 17th, 2004 at 1:36 pm
John - Wired recently came out with a special issue where they compared all kinds of gadgets. While the iPod came in first for mp3 players, they also really like Rio’s Carbon. It’s a 5gig player.
November 17th, 2004 at 3:47 pm
my vote is an IPod, i have other HDD and memory based mp3 players ranging from sony memory stick ones to the archos jukebox, but after owning an IPod I will never go back to anything else…
November 19th, 2004 at 12:01 am
Here’s my take:
I spent quite a bit of time looking at reviews and test driving several models before ponying up the cash to buy an iPod.
Thing is, there are "better" players from a sound quality standpoint, from a price standpoint, from a features standpoint, from a "things you can do, hack-wise" standpoint. Better players all.
But there are a couple things that made me skip over that and go with the iPod:
- Usabilty of the menuing and the physical device. The iRiver iHP-120 was superior with sound but was nearly impossible to deal with. How cares if the sound is better if you want to throw the damn thing every time you use it?
- Ease. I’m a features guy, and of course I wanted the device withe most features. But honestly, I realized pretty quickly that I rarely, if ever, used 99% of those extra features. I wanted ease of use with as few steps as possible go from CD to device to ears. OH, and I wanted a to use the device as a portable hard drive.
I’ve had my iPod nearly a year, and I’ve not once said "Damn, i wish I could upload my lyrics and play along".
I will say that you should NOT bother with the old style iPod. Pony up the extra cash and get the photo iPod for no other reason than the color screen. I’m about to go upgrade mine. I have a small iRiver flash based player with a tiny screen (1/3 the size of the iPod) and a iRiver monochrome screen that is 1.5x bigger than the iPod and the color does AMAZING things to the ease of use. Trust me on this one.
And in my opinion, money well spent on whatever device you get. I’ve rediscovered music because of that device.
November 19th, 2004 at 9:16 am
I have a Dell DJ. It has 15 GB (there’s also a 20GB model). It has twice the battery life of the iPod. I said I would only buy a player when I could get one for less than $200 and that’s the main reason I went for the Dell.
Unless you’re like me and tend to listen to an album at a time the efficiency of the UI is important. It takes a little more effort with the Dell’s scroll-wheel because you can only move a few lines at a time before lifting your thumb and the movement is kind of jerky.
November 19th, 2004 at 9:20 am
Yeah, I’ve looked at the Dells as i already own a Dell PDA. They aren’t available in the UK until next year but they sure look nice - that could be the one!
November 19th, 2004 at 9:22 am
Patrick, does it need a driver to hook it up to a computer to just use it as storage?
November 19th, 2004 at 11:35 am
Yes, it does need drivers to use as a storage device. I guess that can be a pain if you want to use on more than a couple of computers.
I just noticed they have they have their second generation players out. One is the same size as an iPod mini and holds 5GB.