Best MP3 Player?

[Potsy]

My confession: I'm old, and have tried to avoid the fact that I'm clueless about technology by sticking my head in the sand and avoiding it altogether. But, when I hear some young guy rocking out on the lift I get envious, especially since my old fart friends don't ski much or at all anymore and I wind up skiing alone alot. I think some tunes would help keep the psyche up and push me a little (especially on those bad snow groomer-only days).

So what should I be looking for? I've heard the Apple iPod is the best, is that true?

What about simplicity of recording music?

What's a good price? I see what look to be good prices on ebay, but do I have to worry about counterfeits?

Anything else I should know but am too stupid to think of myself?

[The AD]

I just bought the iRiver IFP 790 and it's a great little player. It takes a while to figure out the interface, but the sound quality's great, it supports USB 2.0, etc.

When you're buying an mp3 player the main choice is do you want a hard drive based unit or do you want a flash based unit? The hard drive units have way, way more capacity. Say like 20 GB or maybe more. The flash units are typically 256 MB, but quite a bit smaller. That's the big tradeoff. There's really no question the hard drive units give you more bang for the buck, but if you want to use it while playing sports, you need to decide if the hard drive players are too big.

[skier0178]

If you need a lot of space, get the iPod (about 10000 songs). If you onlly need about 1000 on there at a time, get the iPod Mini. iPod is by far the best player hands down...

[tuffy109]

wait til they fix the kinks on the mini before you get one.

[The AD]

Originally posted by skier0178
iPod is by far the best player hands down...

What are you, a paid spokesman for Apple? Wanna tell us why the iPod is so superior?

[Schralper]

I Pod is the only way to go. Not only do you get your music you can partition the drive so you can store data, pics, etc. Pretty nice having such a small portable HD. $400+ for 40G is not cheap but show me a better mp3 player of the same size & capacity.

[The AD]

Just about every mp3 player can store other types of files. I don't know about partitioning, but you can certainly set up a folder structure just like you would on your computer's hard drive.

OK, here's one that's the same capacity as the iPod 40 GB:
http://www.iriveramerica.com/products/H140.aspx

Let's compare some specs:

Feature                     iPod             iRiver
Price                       $500             $379 (Amazon)
battery life                8 hours          16 hours
size                        4.1x2.4x.73     4.1x2.4x1.0
weight                     6.2 oz            6.5 oz
CODECS            mp3, acc, aiff, wav    mp3, wma, asf, wav, ogg
includes USB 2.0 cable?      no                yes
includes fm tuner?           no                yes
firewire support?            yes               no
includes voice recorder?     no                yes
includes a/c adapter?        no                yes
includes remote?             yes               yes

The iRiver player certainly looks better to me.

[tuffy109]

how come iriver couldn't come up with an original name then?

[Potsy]

Thanks guys, you've given me several things to look into that I wasnt aware of. I do like the idea of FM, but will have to ponder how much I will use it. I'll be better prepared to handle the salesman.

[3o3]

iPod owners, check out this stuff:
http://www.radtech.us/Products/Icecreme.aspx

Stuff took ALL the little scratches out of my iPod. Both the ivory and the screen. It took about 1/2 an hour of scrubbing, but it looks brand-friggin new now. Get the $24.95 package and it comes with the metal buffer for the backside too.
I'm gonna buff the scratches out of my iBook one of these days with it too.

[jayfrizzo]

Originally posted by tuffy109
how come iriver couldn't come up with an original name then?

No one used the "i" in a name before Apple?

[tuffy109]

Originally posted by jayfrizzo
No one used the "i" in a name before Apple?

no

[the gooch]

iRiver is actually the name of the company (founded in 2002). The product is called H320 or H340 (which aren't exactly "original" names). see iriver.com where you can see all products or
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/printfr...,69507,00.html