Ipods / Mp3 Players ?

[Guest Andybarbet]

Ive decided to get a decent mp3 type player & am looking at ones with around 30gig of memory.

 

The ipod 30gig does video and pics aswell but reading the reviews, the battery life is very short & its casing scratches very easily. Also you dont get a mains charger so you have to plug it into usb to charge ??? Good thing with ipod is the amount of add ons you can buy for it, car chargers & docking stations etc.

 

The Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB sounds very good, bit more expensive but amazons owners reviews look much better than the iPod. They reckon the software is much better than itunes & the video playback is far superior to iPod ??

Also it can be used as a memory stick which is handy

 

So has anyone got any recommendations for me ? have you got 1 and what do you think of it ? good or bad feedback please

 

Cheers......Andy

[Guest Dredd]

Ipod is good, battery life is fine. I've got a 30gb video. You can get mains charger and any number of accessories. I've got a Griffin road trip so I can play the ipod through the car stereo without wires.

[Guest stu205]

Ive got a pure pocket dab 2000, does mp3's fm and DAB radio, with a 1gb sd card it fits about as much music as you will need for a week on it, lasts about 20 hours on its AA rechargable batterys but you can get better MHa ones prob takes it up to 25-30 hours

[Guest richlloyd]

ipod video 30 gig its great!!!! im never with out mine and its great to show people picktures and videos of my hood as alot of people dont have a clue what it is im building. buy a ipod !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[eddieH]

Hi Andy,

I've got an old style 20 gig iPod (no colour screen). I've had it about 18 months and dropped it a few times - still no scratches! I don't know if they've changed the materials since then but mine seems pretty durable. The iPod can also be used like a memory stick so you can back up work and stuff. It's a bit cheeky of Apple to charge you extra for a mains charger but it's still very good value. Also, if you're at school or uni, there's the Apple Education Store - you tell them where you're studying (they do check though!) and you get a 10% discount on just about everything Apple.

 

The April '06 edition of T3 magazine reckons the 30 gig iPod is "the best hard disk MP3 player. Period." and gets 5*. The Creative one gets 4* although it "tops the iPod in several areas".

 

Regards,

Edward

[Jon Bradbury]

I think you'll find the video iPod's battery will drain quickly if you are watching videos.

 

I have a 60 gig photo iPod and I love it. Would recommend it all the way. I would have the video iPod but they came out a week after I bought my Photo iPod.

 

D'oh!

 

Still love it, though.

[Joel]

Just to add some balance to this debate....

 

I've got a mini iPod, and it's been an utter bag of shyte since the day I got it. Definately would never touch another one and wouldn't wish one on my worst enemy. :gdit: :gdit:

[Guest Battery Bill]

Joey has a 4 Gig IPod and he loves it, and it does not seem to scratch that easily especially as its in his pocket at all times (And Just Imagine what else is in his Pockets, Urgh!)

His sister Katie has the 2 Gig one and is really pleased with that as well.

[Guest docter fox]

my sister got the video one for christmas, it broke on boxing day, got that replaced and then it broke again a couple of months ago but the third one is going strong

 

it may not have the posing factor which Ipods seem to have but I'd go for the Zen

[Guest charlyfarly]

The Zens are good - after all Creative have been doing MP3 players longer than Apple...

 

I also like the iRivers - again longer than Apple

 

There is now a trend of putting iPod dock connectors on car stereos, which might be handy.

 

Whatever you do dump the white 'please mug me now' white headphones and get yourself some decent ones - it'll sound better too.

 

Personally I'd get the largest hard drive one I could find, the flash based ones (even the 4Gb ones) will wind you up shuffling music on and off all the time.

[Grim]

i use a cd based mp3 player, write your mp3s to cdr / cdrw. Yeah, not brilliant in terms of capacity, unless you want to carry othe discs, but easy to use and it also only cost me £20. Scratch it, break it, lose it, get mugged... doesn't matter.

Also takes AA batteries, so i'm never without spares, can even buy them from a shop.

[Guest timswait]

Also Ipods use a proprietry file format (they aren't actually mp3 players, they don't play mp3's), so any songs you download from Apple can only be used on an ipod, so if you buy one now, you're tied to it forever if you still want to be able to listen to the music you've bought.

[Jon Bradbury]

Err, no, they do play mp3 files. And WMA, too. They do not play Vogg Orbis, though.

 

It is the iTunes format (Apple AAC "lossless") that is proprietary. The iPod handles it, of course.

[Grim]

Err, no, they do play mp3 files. And WMA, too. They do not play Vogg Orbis, though.

 

It is the iTunes format (Apple AAC "lossless") that is proprietary. The iPod handles it, of course.

not that i have one, but as far as i understand it they don't.

You can get it to play the music you have stored as mp3 by converting it to their proprietary format, which takes more time (it may well do this when you copy them across without telling you).

 

Tim's point is that if you buy music from iTunes, you'll have to have an iPod 'forever' if you want to carry on listening to it.

[Guest turbo]

i like my 20gb sony hd5 it does the job very well on music and 20gb is enough for anyone.

best advantages are its very small and battery life is also very long