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Hey All,

I'm looking or a new mp3 player. I don't want another ipod. Ipod's have not been very kind to me and I don't want to have to get a new one but...

Any suggestions. All I want is something relatively inexpensive, has a good amount of storage and is compatible with Itunes or the files my Itunes songs are saved with.

Is there anything like that out there or is another Ipod my best bet?

Thanks,

Ian

Iain will be along shortly, with his Creative Zen thingy or whatever it is.

I'm looking at this:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Video-Player-Black/dp/B001GCQ3KM/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_c


Should I avoid it or is it good?

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:compatible with Itunes or the files my Itunes songs are saved with.

Sorry to say it, but another iPod is your best bet. Apple are actively blocking other MP3 playing devices from talking to iTunes

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:I'm looking at this:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Video-Player-Black/dp/B001GCQ3KM/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_c


Should I avoid it or is it good?

It appears to have scored an average of nearly 4.5 out of 5 from nearly 200 reviews. There's your answer right there, lad. I would say you're pretty unlikely to be disappointed.

kolm wrote:

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:compatible with Itunes or the files my Itunes songs are saved with.

Sorry to say it, but another iPod is your best bet. Apple are actively blocking other MP3 playing devices from talking to iTunes

Couldn't I convert the songs and move the folders to other media players? As tedious as that would be...

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:Ipod's have not been very kind to me and I don't want to have to get a new one but...

How exactly have they been unkind? I've gotten my one from Coke (Strategic competition entering is great!) quite a while ago and it's still ticking...

Replicant wrote:Iain will be along shortly, with his Creative Zen thingy or whatever it is.

I second the motion!

I have a Creative Zen and it is far, far superior to the iPod, just not as pretty. Unfortunately I had to purchase one for my wife's birthday, she loves it though, because it is pink.

Creative all the way. They have always been at the forefront of the mp3 player market in technology terms and as for iTunes being unfriendly to it, who cares?

I hate iTunes, it's cumbersome, over engineered and complicated. What was wrong with the good old days of drag and drop?

Online music sales are becoming more mainstream - Apple didn't invent it, and they've never been the only market player.

eMusic were around way before Apple got involved, and their selection of music is much more exciting than the mainstream toss that iTunes seems to specialise in.

And if it's mainstream toss that you want, Amazon seems to be offering downloads theswe days too.

I've bought music from eMusic, and from Amazon, but I've never yet bought a single file from iTunes. I just don't like the whole browsing experience, their treatment of indie labels and artists hasn't been good, and the whole thing seems designed to push mainstream pop pap that I have no interest in.

Pete

Just in case anyone hasn't heard about it take a look at www.TuneChecker.com - the latest in comparison websites!

I have this : http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zenvisionm/ for more than 2 years.
Excellent Sound, copy paste DivX movies to it and watch them on the screen or TV through Tv-Out, FM Radio (with recording option), voice recorder , synchronizes with outlook to have a backup of your phone book and you can allocate a part of it as flash drive and use it to carry anything (it will be recognized as a flash drive on all PCs).
If I had to buy a new one I would go with Creative again.

I've got a Sansa Fuze and find it brilliant. Dead easy to use and never had any problems with it all.

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:
Couldn't I convert the songs and move the folders to other media players? As tedious as that would be...

Yeah you can do this with about a million programs that are available through the web. It'll take a looooong time if you have lots of songs though.

Or you can just use iTunes to convert them

Nightfall wrote:I have this : http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zenvisionm/ for more than 2 years.
Excellent Sound, copy paste DivX movies to it and watch them on the screen or TV through Tv-Out, FM Radio (with recording option), voice recorder , synchronizes with outlook to have a backup of your phone book and you can allocate a part of it as flash drive and use it to carry anything (it will be recognized as a flash drive on all PCs).
If I had to buy a new one I would go with Creative again.

To offer an alternative point of view, I have one of these and I think it's w**k. Ok, it has a few gizmo's that an iPod doesn't, but honestly: how many times are you going to go to your friends and plug in your little player (with the cable you had to take along with you) to watch a video from it? Or use it like a naff little dictophone? Or use the radio on it, ever?

The buttons are unconvincing, the menu is in no way intuitive (most people are zipping around within minutes with an iPod, I still get frustrated by the clunky way you have to go about things on the Zen). And the battery life is not great too, although probably compares reasonably with the iPod.

I bought it trying to be humanitarian and not fall into buying cool names just because they're cool - buy a cheapPod and give the rest to charity etc, but I wish I'd saved myself the money and the frustration and splashed out on another iPod, despite having mixed experiences with those too. At least when your iPod goes wrong, it goes wrong, and you can swear at it, try and send it back, smash it etc. The annoying thing about the Zen is it's never actually "broken", it's just never a joy to use, so I resent it all the more