Clashman said:
^ ^ That's quite interesting.
Being there when things start rolling over so to speak...
Best HD-based MP3 Player?
- Thread starter Clashman
- Start date
^ ^ That's quite interesting.
Being there when things start rolling over so to speak...From what I've heard, the battery life is awful. 2 hours or so, even for just music and not video.Clashman said:
Well, I think I've somewhat narrowed it down, (although of course it still has the potential to grow again if new players are introduced). So here are my choices:
Archos GMini 220 Series (Cheap. 250 bucks for 20gb. Also, apparently very well built. Smaller than ipod. Allows photo storage and voice recording. Battery life is kinda low, though.)
Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 gb (Another budget choice. Only 210 dollars. Has a 15 hour battery life plus (and this is a big plus) a modular battery, so that 15 hour life can be significantly extended by buying another battery)
Dell DJ Series (Good battery life. 15 gb for 200, 20 gb, (with remote and carrying case) for 275
iRiver 20gb Jukebox (Around 300. Comes with Remote. Pretty much top rated, from what I can tell)
Archos 3X0 Series (HD based A/V players. around 390 (20gb) to 480 (40 gb. Addtl module allows it to double as a 3.3 mp digital camera/camcorder with 3x optical and 10 digital zoom. Has ability to capture directly from DVD/VCR. Internal battery)
iRiver PMP 120 (Not yet released A/V player. Comes out at the end of the month. Initial launch prices are around 449, hoping it comes down. Long battery life, (20 hrs MP3, 5 hours Video), and modular batteries are a plus.
So, the more I read, the more I'm liking the Archos players. I don't know if I can justify paying that much for a video player, though. There's also the older Archos models, which feature a much smaller screen, but also only cost about as much as the MP3-only players. We'll see, though. I've still got about 3 months before I head off to China, so maybe something new will pop up by then.
Archos GMini 220 Series (Cheap. 250 bucks for 20gb. Also, apparently very well built. Smaller than ipod. Allows photo storage and voice recording. Battery life is kinda low, though.)
Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 gb (Another budget choice. Only 210 dollars. Has a 15 hour battery life plus (and this is a big plus) a modular battery, so that 15 hour life can be significantly extended by buying another battery)
Dell DJ Series (Good battery life. 15 gb for 200, 20 gb, (with remote and carrying case) for 275
iRiver 20gb Jukebox (Around 300. Comes with Remote. Pretty much top rated, from what I can tell)
Archos 3X0 Series (HD based A/V players. around 390 (20gb) to 480 (40 gb. Addtl module allows it to double as a 3.3 mp digital camera/camcorder with 3x optical and 10 digital zoom. Has ability to capture directly from DVD/VCR. Internal battery)
iRiver PMP 120 (Not yet released A/V player. Comes out at the end of the month. Initial launch prices are around 449, hoping it comes down. Long battery life, (20 hrs MP3, 5 hours Video), and modular batteries are a plus.
So, the more I read, the more I'm liking the Archos players. I don't know if I can justify paying that much for a video player, though. There's also the older Archos models, which feature a much smaller screen, but also only cost about as much as the MP3-only players. We'll see, though. I've still got about 3 months before I head off to China, so maybe something new will pop up by then.
^ ^ U call that narrowing down...?
I've had a 10GB iPod, a 20GB Rio Karma and now the I-River iHP-120.
Sold the iPod to get the larger Karma. Dropped the Karma, not even very hard and the LCD shattered, making navigation impossible.
iPod has the nicest aesthetic, and is easiest to manipulate while walking down the street.
Karma had a cool Java client and ethernet capabilities, a bit fragile (sob) even before I dropped it, the thumbwheel was getting a bit loose Nonetheless, the I-River wins hands down.
Slim form factor, sturdy design. FM Radio and Mic/Line In, optical out (which can be used as a second heaphone jack if you're commuting w/ your sweetie.
The best feature, which the Iriver shares with the Archos lineup, is that it just mounts as a USB drive and you don't need ANY software to xfer your music back and forth. Thus if you're unscrupulous you can hook it up w/ a standard USB cable to any Win, Mac or Linux PC and trde music w/ your friends no software, no hassle.
A friend has the Archos 120, which is a bit large, but quite a fine player. The Gmini-220 looks nice, and has comparable fetures to the I-River. I love the iHP-120, but if the Gmini-220 is significantly cheaper, I might opt for that player.
Sold the iPod to get the larger Karma. Dropped the Karma, not even very hard and the LCD shattered, making navigation impossible.
iPod has the nicest aesthetic, and is easiest to manipulate while walking down the street.
Karma had a cool Java client and ethernet capabilities, a bit fragile (sob) even before I dropped it, the thumbwheel was getting a bit loose Nonetheless, the I-River wins hands down.
Slim form factor, sturdy design. FM Radio and Mic/Line In, optical out (which can be used as a second heaphone jack if you're commuting w/ your sweetie
.The best feature, which the Iriver shares with the Archos lineup, is that it just mounts as a USB drive and you don't need ANY software to xfer your music back and forth. Thus if you're unscrupulous you can hook it up w/ a standard USB cable to any Win, Mac or Linux PC and trde music w/ your friends no software, no hassle.
A friend has the Archos 120, which is a bit large, but quite a fine player. The Gmini-220 looks nice, and has comparable fetures to the I-River. I love the iHP-120, but if the Gmini-220 is significantly cheaper, I might opt for that player.
Hello again. Sorry to drag this thread up from the dead, but decision time looms near, and I need help again.
After waiting to see if anything new and exiting would come up before I headed to China, (and with the possible exception of the Creative Nomad Zen Touch, which I can't seem to find available anywhere), and after reductions in the amount of money available to purchase have ruled out several of the models, I've narrowed it down to 2 possible models.
Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen 30gb (210 bucks)
Pros: Cheap, large storage size, serves as 2nd HD. Long Battery life. Replaceable battery.
Cons: No extra bells and whistles. Possibly uncomfortable navigation, especially in the dark.
Archos AV120 or AV140 (240 and 290)
Pros: Not much more expensive than Jukebox, video recording and playback capability. Digital camcorder module only 15 bucks.
Cons: Short battery life, (only 7 hours for Audio).
So here's my dilemma: I'd probably snatch up the Archos in a second if it weren't for the battery life. And battery life is a huge consideration, given the fact that I'll be flying on a plane for 15-20 hours to get to China, possibly followed by a considerable train/bus ride. For the price of the Archos, I can get an extra battery and possibly the remote module with the Creative. At the same time, it's damn tempting to get the Archos with the camcorder module and send VCD's and/or DVD's back home to friends to let them know of my exploits, not to mention be able to record TV Programs, etc and have the unit serve as a TIVO. It's been awhile since I've been on a plane, so I don't know if there's any way for me to get around this low battery life, (are there car adaptor plugs in most Airplanes? Or does anyone know of a piggyback batterypack that you can buy that will fit an MP3 player's powerconnector?), and that's basically the crux of my dilemma.
So, what would you do?
Help me B3D, you're my only hope!
After waiting to see if anything new and exiting would come up before I headed to China, (and with the possible exception of the Creative Nomad Zen Touch, which I can't seem to find available anywhere), and after reductions in the amount of money available to purchase have ruled out several of the models, I've narrowed it down to 2 possible models.
Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen 30gb (210 bucks)
Pros: Cheap, large storage size, serves as 2nd HD. Long Battery life. Replaceable battery.
Cons: No extra bells and whistles. Possibly uncomfortable navigation, especially in the dark.
Archos AV120 or AV140 (240 and 290)
Pros: Not much more expensive than Jukebox, video recording and playback capability. Digital camcorder module only 15 bucks.
Cons: Short battery life, (only 7 hours for Audio).
So here's my dilemma: I'd probably snatch up the Archos in a second if it weren't for the battery life. And battery life is a huge consideration, given the fact that I'll be flying on a plane for 15-20 hours to get to China, possibly followed by a considerable train/bus ride. For the price of the Archos, I can get an extra battery and possibly the remote module with the Creative. At the same time, it's damn tempting to get the Archos with the camcorder module and send VCD's and/or DVD's back home to friends to let them know of my exploits, not to mention be able to record TV Programs, etc and have the unit serve as a TIVO. It's been awhile since I've been on a plane, so I don't know if there's any way for me to get around this low battery life, (are there car adaptor plugs in most Airplanes? Or does anyone know of a piggyback batterypack that you can buy that will fit an MP3 player's powerconnector?), and that's basically the crux of my dilemma.
So, what would you do?
Help me B3D, you're my only hope!
Some planes have laptop adapters (12v, funny plug--not cigarette lighter type), but its a bit of a crap shoot if you'll get one.
Dell's jukebox is (15g) is $199, and I'm sure you could find some coupon or something to knock it down a little more. (They have a 'turn in your broken ipod promotion for $100 off, for example)
Dell's jukebox is (15g) is $199, and I'm sure you could find some coupon or something to knock it down a little more. (They have a 'turn in your broken ipod promotion for $100 off, for example)
Saem said:
The problem is, the Archos uses a proprietary, internal battery. It's not changeable. Which is why I was wondering if there was a kind of piggy-back battery extender. The Ipod has something kind of like that:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProd...n_Id=201526&pcount=&Product_Id=148969
but I haven't been able to find anything similar for any other type of MP3 player.
The Dell is tempting also, but I would need the 20 gig version at minimum, (I already have around 12 gigs of MP3's and i still have 50 or 60 CDs I need to rip). The 20 gig is 250 right now, (but also includes the remote).
I hope I'm not too late with this reply. Anyway, I have done some extensive research before buying mine and finally decided on one player.
For me, the most important priority was sound quality. Around 8 years ago, I had a portable Sharp Minidisc and the soundquality was unbeatable. The bass was strong and responsive and most importantly didn't distort. After that one, I then switched to Sony portables due to better smaller size and longer batterylife (aswell as a more sleek design). Let me just say that since then, I have went through a couple of Sony Minidiscs and for all I love the company and their classy products, I wouldn't recommend any of their portable music products ever again. The sound quality is crap and easily distorts, even with good headphones. The output is far too weak, meaning that if the source wasn't digital - it will most likely not be loud enough.
After starting using a laptop and listening to music while work times, I never thought I would ever be able to enjoy good sound while being on the run ever again. Being sceptial and haunted by memories of my beloved Sharp Minidisc, I then started looking for a new MP3/HD based portable.
After a bit of research, these are the players I finally checked out:
One day, I checked out a store that had all 3 players in stock and was ready for a good comparasment using my own music (consists of music in the genre of goa/psychadelic, smooth jazz, bigbeats, ambient and some recent pop music) and my own headphones (which for the record is the Sony MDR-EX71SL (but the older model) (<-- which btw, i very much recommend)
Anyway, here is more or less what I gathered when comparing the 3:
Creative ZEN Jukebox
The ZEN was my most anticipated player. The reviews seems quite good and I was convinced by a few reviews that this player was the one with the best soundquality. The tech. specs also seemed to confirm this.
I started of with some of my goa stuff, which incase you never heard of, is atmospheric electronic music (techno), similar to progressive but features psychadelic effects, usually good use of stereo type effects and a few 'real' instruments such as gittars (sp?), drums etc. It's very rythmic stuff with a lot of bass - exactly the best thing to check out how responsive the bass is and how easily it distorts.
The ZEN left a pretty good impression in this regard. With the equalizer switched off and normal settings, the bass was sufficient and didn't seem to distort. Even when turning up the volume, it seemed to be fairly capable. Certainly much better than the Sony portables I've experienced the last few years, so I really didn't have any reason to complain.
The draw-backs were quite evident though: didn't quite like the browsing tool (basically, what enables you to browse through folders in search of the music you want to play). On the other hand, the player in itself is quite big, especially compared to the iRiver and the iPod. Still, my highest concern was sound quality, so size really wasn't an issue.
then, I went on to the iRiver iHP-120
Going through the same set of music like the ZEN, one thing became quite evident really quick: the sound quality was spectacular. I was quite blown away actually. I thought the ZEN was good, but the iRiver beats it flat out - easily. I was that amazed by the sound that I started playing around with it. Upped the bass settings and the volume and amazingly, it didn't distort at all. On thing though; as you turn the player louder, it will turn back the bass acoardingly slightly to prevent distortion. It's hardly noticable and only really when you have the bass on its highest settings.
The size of the player is quite small - in fact, contrary to it looking bulky, I found it quite suprising to be just slightly larger than the sleek iPod next to it. The display is nice and big and has a cool blu-ish backlight. One thing that I didn't like though, is most definately the joystick in the middle of the player. While it enables the user to operate all functions with one hand, it just didn't fair too well with me, probably because I usually have bad experience with joysticks (especially the one on my cell-phones). Another thing that striked me as bad was the uneffeciant display. While browsing tracks, the characters are displayed far too large for my liking. If your albums names consists of a few long words (mine are basically "LABEL - ALBUM NAME (BITRATE)" or "ARTIST - ALBUM (BITRATE)" - you often only see the first word, often the label or the artists name. If you have a few albums off the same label or artist, you have to wait till the words scroll so that you can read which album it is. This could have been avoided easily with a smaller font.
On the other hand, the settings you can change are quite amazing. Balance, equalizers, SRS, bass, treble and lots more. Biggest drawback: the price. The iRiver was by a lot, the most expensive player.
after the iRiver, I finally checked out the iPod
It's stylish - in fact the most stylish player on the market. Easily. Still, headphones in, music on the player and I was disgusted to say the least. It's by far the weakest player in regard to output volume and with that, the bass in itself is weak. The sound quality itself may be better than the ZEN, but it in no way beats the iRiver. In fact, I was so disgusted by it, I ditched going through all sound genres and gave it up. Yeah, sound quality is a big factor for me, so it left me no choice but to get back to the iRiver. Sorry to all that may feel offended by my opinion on the iPod, but it's definately not my player. Since then, I had a closer look at it (a friend has one) and the style is incredible. My portables hide in my pocket though, so I can't say it would bother me not having a stylish player.
From what I gathered, the iPod also requires software such as iTunes to copy music on to the player, though I heard some reports that this can be cracked. Officially though, the iRiver is the only one of the 3 that is capable of copying music onto it without any additional software. Connect it to your laptop/computer and you'll see it like a external mass-storage device and you can use it as such. The Creative also, requires software and can't be used as such (as far as i know).
After this comparasment, the choice was clear and I got the iRiver iHP-120 the weak after that. There is a larger variant out, the iHP-140 which features a 40GB hd, but in turn, it's also slightly larger, which is why I went for the smaller model. The prices of both variants are pretty close though, so someone out for the best bang for your back, may be better off with the 40 GB variant.
The price of the player is, admittedly, the highest and that by a large margin. In my opinion and after the comparasment I made, the price is worth it though. Let me state why:
If there are any other aspects you like covered, drop a line and I'll try to answer them. I am aware that there are other mp3 models too and while I didn't test them all, I do have a fair idea about the others too. Cheers Phil
For me, the most important priority was sound quality. Around 8 years ago, I had a portable Sharp Minidisc and the soundquality was unbeatable. The bass was strong and responsive and most importantly didn't distort. After that one, I then switched to Sony portables due to better smaller size and longer batterylife (aswell as a more sleek design). Let me just say that since then, I have went through a couple of Sony Minidiscs and for all I love the company and their classy products, I wouldn't recommend any of their portable music products ever again. The sound quality is crap and easily distorts, even with good headphones. The output is far too weak, meaning that if the source wasn't digital - it will most likely not be loud enough.
After starting using a laptop and listening to music while work times, I never thought I would ever be able to enjoy good sound while being on the run ever again. Being sceptial and haunted by memories of my beloved Sharp Minidisc, I then started looking for a new MP3/HD based portable.
After a bit of research, these are the players I finally checked out:
- Creative ZEN Jukebox
- iPod
- iRiver iHP-120
One day, I checked out a store that had all 3 players in stock and was ready for a good comparasment using my own music (consists of music in the genre of goa/psychadelic, smooth jazz, bigbeats, ambient and some recent pop music) and my own headphones (which for the record is the Sony MDR-EX71SL (but the older model) (<-- which btw, i very much recommend)
Anyway, here is more or less what I gathered when comparing the 3:
Creative ZEN Jukebox
The ZEN was my most anticipated player. The reviews seems quite good and I was convinced by a few reviews that this player was the one with the best soundquality. The tech. specs also seemed to confirm this.
I started of with some of my goa stuff, which incase you never heard of, is atmospheric electronic music (techno), similar to progressive but features psychadelic effects, usually good use of stereo type effects and a few 'real' instruments such as gittars (sp?), drums etc. It's very rythmic stuff with a lot of bass - exactly the best thing to check out how responsive the bass is and how easily it distorts.
The ZEN left a pretty good impression in this regard. With the equalizer switched off and normal settings, the bass was sufficient and didn't seem to distort. Even when turning up the volume, it seemed to be fairly capable. Certainly much better than the Sony portables I've experienced the last few years, so I really didn't have any reason to complain.
The draw-backs were quite evident though: didn't quite like the browsing tool (basically, what enables you to browse through folders in search of the music you want to play). On the other hand, the player in itself is quite big, especially compared to the iRiver and the iPod. Still, my highest concern was sound quality, so size really wasn't an issue.
then, I went on to the iRiver iHP-120
Going through the same set of music like the ZEN, one thing became quite evident really quick: the sound quality was spectacular. I was quite blown away actually. I thought the ZEN was good, but the iRiver beats it flat out - easily. I was that amazed by the sound that I started playing around with it. Upped the bass settings and the volume and amazingly, it didn't distort at all. On thing though; as you turn the player louder, it will turn back the bass acoardingly slightly to prevent distortion. It's hardly noticable and only really when you have the bass on its highest settings.
The size of the player is quite small - in fact, contrary to it looking bulky, I found it quite suprising to be just slightly larger than the sleek iPod next to it. The display is nice and big and has a cool blu-ish backlight. One thing that I didn't like though, is most definately the joystick in the middle of the player. While it enables the user to operate all functions with one hand, it just didn't fair too well with me, probably because I usually have bad experience with joysticks (especially the one on my cell-phones). Another thing that striked me as bad was the uneffeciant display. While browsing tracks, the characters are displayed far too large for my liking. If your albums names consists of a few long words (mine are basically "LABEL - ALBUM NAME (BITRATE)" or "ARTIST - ALBUM (BITRATE)" - you often only see the first word, often the label or the artists name. If you have a few albums off the same label or artist, you have to wait till the words scroll so that you can read which album it is. This could have been avoided easily with a smaller font.
On the other hand, the settings you can change are quite amazing. Balance, equalizers, SRS, bass, treble and lots more. Biggest drawback: the price. The iRiver was by a lot, the most expensive player.
after the iRiver, I finally checked out the iPod
It's stylish - in fact the most stylish player on the market. Easily. Still, headphones in, music on the player and I was disgusted to say the least. It's by far the weakest player in regard to output volume and with that, the bass in itself is weak. The sound quality itself may be better than the ZEN, but it in no way beats the iRiver. In fact, I was so disgusted by it, I ditched going through all sound genres and gave it up. Yeah, sound quality is a big factor for me, so it left me no choice but to get back to the iRiver. Sorry to all that may feel offended by my opinion on the iPod, but it's definately not my player. Since then, I had a closer look at it (a friend has one) and the style is incredible. My portables hide in my pocket though, so I can't say it would bother me not having a stylish player.
From what I gathered, the iPod also requires software such as iTunes to copy music on to the player, though I heard some reports that this can be cracked. Officially though, the iRiver is the only one of the 3 that is capable of copying music onto it without any additional software. Connect it to your laptop/computer and you'll see it like a external mass-storage device and you can use it as such. The Creative also, requires software and can't be used as such (as far as i know).
After this comparasment, the choice was clear and I got the iRiver iHP-120 the weak after that. There is a larger variant out, the iHP-140 which features a 40GB hd, but in turn, it's also slightly larger, which is why I went for the smaller model. The prices of both variants are pretty close though, so someone out for the best bang for your back, may be better off with the 40 GB variant.
The price of the player is, admittedly, the highest and that by a large margin. In my opinion and after the comparasment I made, the price is worth it though. Let me state why:
- the size of the player is quite compact - looks bulky, but is infact not much bigger than an iPod
- the only player that also supports OGG files
- has a built in FM radio
- is able to record directly from the radio in either WAV or MP3 (all constant bitrates supported)
- has a line out
- has a line in
- only player with both an optical in and out
- best soundquality among all mp3 players
- has a built in microphone (can also record either WAV/MP3 directly from it)
- can be used as a mass-storage device (no software required)
- extensive equalizer and SRS
- comes with a soft-case for the player, required cables and a mic (? not sure anymore about that though)
- can read txt files
- should support winamp music lists
though) - play length is quite good (I get on my 256kbps+ bitrates albums over 8 hours with high volumens and constant fast forwarding etc).
- firmware updates possible
If there are any other aspects you like covered, drop a line and I'll try to answer them. I am aware that there are other mp3 models too and while I didn't test them all, I do have a fair idea about the others too. Cheers Phil
I don't own any of these things but I note Apple have launched a new longer-life iPod:
The article also notes Sony are about to launch a new player, which might be worth waiting to see, if you can.
The article also notes Sony are about to launch a new player, which might be worth waiting to see, if you can.
The iPod just isn't worth the bang per buck to me, and I've had terrible luck with Sony products, so that's a no-go too. I think I'm also ruling out the Archos, as the battery life is just too short. The iRiver would be nice,but it's still pretty expensive for a 20gb model. If the iPod price drop could effect everyone else to drop 50 dollars in a week, then I'd probably get it. As is, I'll probably place my order next week, and it will probably be for either the 30 or 40gb Zen Extra at 210 and 240, respectively, with a slight possibility of grabbing the 20 gb Dell at 250.
The sony player only plays ATRAC and ATRACpro.Diplo said:
They rely on host utilities to convert WMA/MP3/OGG/etc to ATRAC prior to downloading.
Schadenfroh
Newcomer
my local CC had this for $200 with all accesories, great price, longer warrenty, longer battery life, half the price of the ipod equivalent 40gb, only slightly larger
http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.j...mark_0&oid=75962&catoid=-8721&m=0
http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.j...mark_0&oid=75962&catoid=-8721&m=0
Just a quick note on the iPod, replacement batteries are available and not too hard to fit:
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
But as your not interested in them thats all I will say about that.
Otherwise, as you said you want to transfer all your cd collection onto a hd I am surprised you dont rip them all to a real hd at a decent quality and just get a smaller maybe solid state player or 1.5gb hd player like the rio nitrus. Then you get all your mp3s and a smart very small and light player with very good battery life.
So what are you going to do with your "cd collection" that you want to rip? I hope your going to burn them all after youve ripped them (how many have you got? That may take a while, and if you havent got that many you only need a small capacity player anyway) as if you sold them or gave them away after ripping them thats tantamount to piracy
So good luck on your travels and may you live in interesting times.
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
But as your not interested in them thats all I will say about that.
Otherwise, as you said you want to transfer all your cd collection onto a hd I am surprised you dont rip them all to a real hd at a decent quality and just get a smaller maybe solid state player or 1.5gb hd player like the rio nitrus. Then you get all your mp3s and a smart very small and light player with very good battery life.
So what are you going to do with your "cd collection" that you want to rip? I hope your going to burn them all after youve ripped them (how many have you got? That may take a while, and if you havent got that many you only need a small capacity player anyway) as if you sold them or gave them away after ripping them thats tantamount to piracy
So good luck on your travels and may you live in interesting times.
Well, if batterylife is important you may consider the iAudio M3L with 35 hours of playtime. (Obs. the L in productname, there´s also a thinner model with less capacity)
