Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SpacemanSpiff]

I've been thinking about buying a harddisk based MP3 player for quite some time and I tried the Iriver iHP-120 and the Creative Zen some time ago, both didn't do the job quite right.
But now, several interesting products have emerged. I was going to settle for the iAudio X5L but then Apple released the iPod Video so now I'm not sure anymore.
So I'm asking for your help. Recommend me what you think is the best player. If you have any information about the other players, be it negative or positive, please share. What I don't want is unnecessary fanboy talk, I need objective arguments.

Here are the things I'm looking for in that player:

• 20gb or 30gb capacity (more is better, of course)
• Very good sound quality (I have Bang&Olufsen headphones so I do notice a difference)
• Should ideally work without any additional software and if it needs additional software, it should be easy to use and DRM-free
• Long battery life (12 hours or longer)
• Size of the iPod or smaller
• Ability to browse the files (as opposed to browsing an ID3 database)
• Ability to handle or import my own m3u playlists
• Ability to create playlists on the go
• Should also work as a normal USB-harddisk if necessary
• OGG support
• Line-In is a huge plus
• Video playback is nice, though that necessary
• 350€ (roughly) or cheaper[/list:u]
  
  I think that's it. I'm able to live without some of these features, but the m3u-thing, the playlist-on-the-go-thing, the USB-harddisk and the battery life are a must.
  
  The ones I've been currently looking at were the iPod video (30gb), the iRiver H10 (20gb), the Samsung YH-J 70 (20gb) (I desperately need more information about that one, if you have reviews or something like that, link me up, please) and the Cowon iAudio X5L (30gb).
  
  By the way, OS-wise, I'm using Linux and Windows XP. Ideally, the player should work with both.

[est]

*looks into the can you've just opened*

ooo, worms!

this thread will be the most helpful if people give detailed explanations of why they are recommending what they are recommending.  if you don't give an explanation then your post is basically worthless.

[lordjim]

I'm curious on this one as well.  With the request of ogg support I think that may limit you to the Rio Karma and they aren't made anymore, hell rios aren't made anymore period.

Anyone know of anyother Portable music player with ogg support?

<edited b/c I can't spell>

[SpacemanSpiff]

Up there in my list are already two. The Samsung and Cowon one both support it.

[DustyLens]

iPodlinux might have all the features you requested, and might work for you seeing that you allready have linux on a computer. But, of course, it's a lot of work.

[Mr Putter]

I can only really tell you about the iPod as it's the only one I've used, but from what you've written it might not be quite what you're looking for

Cons:

- Out of the box it requires iTunes to use, and you have to keep a copy of your library on your computer as well.  There are programs to get around this but I haven't used them so I don't know how well they work.  Also iTunes doesn't work with linux of course.  It is pretty easy to use, until your library gets bigger than your iPod, then it's a real pain to take albums on and off.

- The iPod's filesystem is completely whack - it's not really possible to browse the files themselves - the interface works on an ID3 database

- Battery life is OK to start with, but it degrades pretty quickly, especially if you leave it lying around somewhere hot or cold.  Mine is down to about 6-7 hours after a year.  You can probably replace it yourself, but they're still pretty expensive

- No ogg support, no wma support, no line-in

- From what I hear, sound quality is not so good when compared with some other players - I don't really notice because I can't afford to replace Apple's shitty earbud things.

Maybes:

- You can make your own playlists via iTunes, but I'm pretty sure they're not m3u. You can make playlists on the go

Pros:

- Can easily be used as a USB hard-drive

- Has nice big buttons that are easy to push

- Video playback

It looks like iPodlinux could be pretty useful, but it's only supported up to 3rd gen at the moment - the video will be 6th gen

Also, I'd recommend getting as big a hard-drive as your budget will allow.  When I got mine I thought that 20GB was heaps, but when they say 20GB they actually mean 20 billion bytes so the "real" capacity is more like 18.5.  Then you need at least another 3GB for it to actually be useful as a hard-drive so already you're down to about 75% capacity for actual music.  This might not be a big deal for you but like I say, I didn't think it was a big deal for me either and now it's kind of a major problem

[Matteh99]

I know iTunes can import m3u lists although it isn't very smart about it.  so if you import the m3u's and the mp3's you get duplicates..  You can export play lists as text or xml files but I have no idea how well they import into anything else...

Line in you could get an adapter on the older ipods.

The ogg thing you might be SOL

iTunes keeps the files all nice a neat on your computer but once they get on the iPod they aren't very acessable

You could download iTunes and see how it works with your playlists.  So you don't have to blow the cash on an ipod and find out it doesn't work the way you want it to.

[Skippdog]

If you want line in and care about sound quality and a good bang for your per-gig buck, check out the stuff from iRiver, Creative and Cowon.

Looking at your list, it sounds like your feature set is best suited to an iRiver model, but those things are ugly as sin and pretty clunky to operate. Cowon has some really nice players that might suit your taste such as the iAudio M5

Creative makes excellent mp3 players, but their strengths lie in their flash players and micro HDD players like the Zen Micro. I have a Zen Micro, personally, and I couldn't be happier with it. But since your interest lies in the higher storage capacity range, focus your search on iRiver and Cowon.

[Storm Rider]

My first MP3 player was a Creative Zen Nomad. It's got 20 gigs, better sound quality than an iPod, and gets about 20 hours battery life (no joke). I also like the layout more than the iPod, because the volume is separate from the touchpad. It is bigger than the iPod, though, so if you care about size, don't go for that. It was only $250, but I'm not sure what it would be in Euros, and I don't think they make a video-capable one.

[Switchblade]

Mine's a Creative Zen Micro. Unfortunately, the Micro only has about 5Gb to it's name, but the battery has a marketed span of 16 hours (I'm pretty certain mine's lost its zero point, however). The sound quality is awesome (and I've compared it next to my sister's iPod using a very good pair of headphones) and I'm finding the interface nice and easy to use as well.

Of course, if falls short on the memory capacity, so I'm not sure how much use this will be to you.

[SpacemanSpiff]

I've decided to buy the Cowon iAudio X5L.

It's the first player where I can actually organize my MP3 collection the way I want to, so I guess I'll stick with it. It's all pretty good, the only downside for me is that it has no ID3-database (yet, firmware updates with that feature are apparently coming soon) and that jack you have to use to hook it up to the USB and AC cable.
I have yet to figure out if the 35h battery life are true though.

Apart from that, I'm happy. It sounds better than everything else I've tried, plays OGG and FLAC as well, videos ... yup. I guess I'm all set.