Got a player, now I need a case.

[jnj1033]

Edit:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I bought a Creative Zen Vision M 30 gig player, and I am in the process of downloading all my CD's to it. So far, I'm very pleased with the sound quality and the interface. The only problem is, I'm a little paranoid after my last MP3 player's display got smashed in my backpack :sigh:, and I'm trying to find a really good, solid case that will protect the device and not just look good. Any suggestions?

If I don't find something I like, I'm considering custom building a case with duct-tape, foam, and possibly some hard plastic rectangles.



Original Post:

I'm looking for a new portable music player. I had a bad experience last year with a cheap player, and there are some things I'm trying to avoid. My last MP3 player required me to create playlists for everything, and then sync my entire music library every time I wanted to add even a single track. Additionally, if I deleted a track or playlist from my computer, it would be removed from the music player the next time I synced.

Needless to say, that got on my nerves. This time, I'm looking for a player with which I can add or remove individual tracks without creating playlists, and without syncing my entire music library. I want to be able to delete music files from my computer hard drive, but still keep them on the music player. If possible, I would like to be able to transfer music files just using Windows Explorer.

Here are a few additional criteria:

Must have:
1. At least 30 gig. The more the better.
2. Must be able to create playlists on the fly.
3. Must have a custom equalizer with at least five bands.
4. Must be able to "bookmark" my place in a track, such as for
audiobooks.

Optional, but preferred:
1. Ability to function as a plug and play hard drive without installing any
drivers.
2. Gapless playback.
3. FM tuner and recording capability.
4. Line-in direct to MP3 recording.
5. Battery life: the longer the better. User replaceable a plus.
6. Decent video capability is a plus, but not necessary.

I'd prefer to keep the price below $300, but I might be willing to go higher if I had a compelling reason to do so. Any suggestions? Recommendations for specialty forums are also appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[carrot]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

The iPod closely meets your requirements. I don't know about bookmarking a track, I never use audiobooks, but it works with Audible.com's audiobooks. However, it is not plug and play (you need iTunes) and has no FM tuner, though you can buy one from an Apple store for $49. Not sure about the line-in recording, but it used to be a hidden option on old iPods. It's pretty excellent for watching videos.

You might consider the old iRiver iHP-140 / iRiver H140, if you can find one. It supports gapless playback (with the latest firmware), plug and play capability, FM tuner and recording/compression to MP3, and a 14-hour Li-poly battery, and line-in to MP3 recording. I don't know if you can make playlists on the fly or change the equalizer, but it may be possible with the user-made firmwares that I've seen. It will remember where you stopped in a track when you turn it off, but will not remember if you change tracks.

I hear Cowon has been making some serious competition for iRiver (and granted, iRiver's new stuff is not as versatile as they used to be).

DAPreview.net might be a good resource to check out. Anythingbutipod forums and DAPreview forums also might be a good place to ask too.

 

[gromit]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

Sansa but I think they top out on 8 gig. But they can do most of what you want.

 

[paulr]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

It is difficult. If I absolutely positively had to have 30+ GB in a player I'd probably hold my nose and buy an 80gb ipod. The other alternative is to look for a used Archos Jukebox Recorder 20, make sure to get the one that runs on four nimh aa cells and not the lithium ion version. That has a 20gb 2.5" laptop hard drive but you can upgrade it to 160gb by swapping in another drive. That is a pure USB mass storage device, you can run Rockbox on it and have a simple folder interface, but it is a clunky unit and its battery runtime isn't all that great considering its size.

My preference these days is to give up on hard drives entirely. The Frontier Lab Nexblack takes a compact flash card so you can get several 16GB cards (about $125 each at newegg.com right now and of course they'll keep dropping) and swap them around. The player itself is around $75. I don't like swapping cards around that much, but 16gb is really all the storage I need for audio at the moment. 32gb cf cards will probably be available within the next half year or so. The nexblack runs on two AA cells for around 20 hours, again not so great for a flash player (it is about the size of a hard disc ipod) but at least they're standard. Rechargeables work fine.

I still mainly use a Sandisk M260, which is a 4gb player with an insane interface, but it's tiny and runs for 12+ hours on a single AAA cell.

The Frontier Nex 3 is a real nice player, about the size of a belt pager and also runs for maybe 12 hours on one AAA, and uses an SD card, but unfortunately it doesn't currently support SDHC so you're limited to 2GB capacity. If they upgrade it to use SDHC, then 8GB cards are around $60 and I think that's also enough for most portable audio purposes.

The iriver h140/h340 is nice but getting replacement batteries for it is probably more hassle than getting ipod batteries.

dapreview.net is a nice portable audio site with a discussion forum good for this type of question.

 

[Sigman]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

Consider the Sansa e280 w/8gb & a microSD expansion slot.

 

[gunga]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

I have and enjoy iPods (Video and Nano) but they can be a bit limited if you are a crazy power user.

My friend has a Creative Zen (I think it's the M model) in 30 GB. It has a lot more features and capabilities than my iPod, but it is thicker, and can be really slow when using large lists of songs.

Personally, I like all the accessory choices available to iPod, and that almost everything out there can be connected to one (clock radios, stereos, cars, etc), but there are other good choices.

Other ideas: Toshiba Gigabeat, and yes, maybe even a Microsoft Zune!

:green:

 

[James S]

Re: Looking for a new MP3 player. List of criteria included.

If you go with an iPod you will have to spring for a plugin thing to do FM and recording. But both exist at mostly reasonable prices and work well. The other downside for some folks is that you cannot just arrange things in folders on the disk and copy them to the iPod, in order to put music on you must use iTunes to transfer. Frankly I'm a bit amazed at how adamantly some folks hate doing this. I have no problem just making playlists in iTunes and telling it to put that playlist on my iPod.

The other good thing about the iPod is that there is a good used market out there and you can get last generation ones at decent prices.

I can't help with other choices as I haven't used anything but an iPod in the last couple of years. I used to own several older ones and the biggest switch was just using iTunes for playlist management.