Question:
i'd like an mp3 player with around 4 gigabyes and i thought the Creative Zen would be good since it has FM radio which i really want in an mp3 player, but in reading user reviews about it, i hear it breaks down after a few months and runs into all sorts of defects-- have any of you experienced this? and if so, know of a more quality brand? i'm not too keen on ipod.. i hear bad things about it as well.. is the iriver reliable?
i guess by 'most reliable brand' i mean, which brand's mp3 players (hard-drive) will be least likely to break down on me?
Answer:
Unfortunately all those MP3 players are mass produced devices. They are designed to fall apart in a few years. You would think spending more means its more reliable but thats not always the case.
My zen micro has been working well since I got it last november, but thats really not saying much about long terms.
Truthfully, I would get an ipod. Reason being I can always take it to an apple store within the year and have them look at it. Crappy battery? well most other brands its even harder to FIND the battery much less buy/replace them.
You can consider the Iriver... but just in that Mp3 player thread I have seen about 3 cases of the H10 dying on them.
~_~ price isnt the best... best example is my pocket pc. $413 doesn't really have memory so I have to buy memory cards. Headphone jack broke in 3 months, sent it in to Dell for a replacement. Cradle broke the next month. After that my screen stopped detecting the screen taps. Sent it in again.
You would really think a pocket pc that retails for $500 would be built a little better... =\
Answer:
iriver is good with mp3 players but only with flash mp3 players i think... the h10/20 was kind of a flop. the h300 is really good but it's not produced anymore. i would suggest iaudio.
Answer:
oh man i hope my pocket pc wont be like that .
like awdark said ipod has alot of accessories avaibile than other brands, thats why i got one...
Unfortunately all those MP3 players are mass produced devices. They are designed to fall apart in a few years. You would think spending more means its more reliable but thats not always the case.
My zen micro has been working well since I got it last november, but thats really not saying much about long terms.
Truthfully, I would get an ipod. Reason being I can always take it to an apple store within the year and have them look at it. Crappy battery? well most other brands its even harder to FIND the battery much less buy/replace them.
You can consider the Iriver... but just in that Mp3 player thread I have seen about 3 cases of the H10 dying on them.
~_~ price isnt the best... best example is my pocket pc. $413 doesn't really have memory so I have to buy memory cards. Headphone jack broke in 3 months, sent it in to Dell for a replacement. Cradle broke the next month. After that my screen stopped detecting the screen taps. Sent it in again.
You would really think a pocket pc that retails for $500 would be built a little better... =\
Answer:
I would recommend iAudio wholeheartedly if it weren't for the fact they don't have a 4gb player like what you wanted. iAudio tends to be very reliable, I've got two G3's since last July and there's been no surprises. And the iPod Nano is a very nice player but no FM tuner or voice/FM/line-in recording. The Nano is easily scratched without spending even more money on a case. The iAudio U3 has what you want but it's only 2GB. The iAudio X5 is a hard drive based player encased in a metal aluminum case, not cheap plastic. All of iAudio's products can do the FM and recordings, the U3 and X5 both can do simple video playback as well (although only 15fps xvid or divx).
iPod Nano 4gb= $229.99 (Newegg.com)
iAudio U3 2gb = $189 (Amazon.com)
iAudio X5 20gb = $239.99 (up to 14hrs playback)(Newegg.com)
iAudio X5L 20gb = $259.99 (up to 35hrs playback, otherwise identical to the regular X5)(Newegg.com)
All the players have nice color screens. And unlike iPods, you don't need to install extra software like iTunez just to transfer files to your player. That goes for most everything else that isn't made by Apple.
If you want a hard drive based player BUT you don't care about video playback, color screens and picture viewing... then instead of the X5 or X5L, you can get the M5 player. It does everything else the X5 does. Plays MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC lossless, ASF, WAV
iAudio M5 Silver 20gb = $209.99 (also made of metallic case instead of cheap plastic)(Newegg.com)
But if you can give up the FM tuner, OGG, FM recording and many more features I can't think of right now... then the iPod Nano would serve you well. Just buy a case.
Answer:
i think iriver is pretty good, i bought my h10 a year and a half ago and it never froze or died on me
Answer:
if you plan on getting a 4GB model.. i would actually get a flash based mp3player.. mainly because the hdd ones consume more power and they battery life isnt as good. my choice would probably be a YP-T8N which comes in a 4gb size.. but if i was to pay that much i would jsut save a few $$ and get something like a YP-D1Z. which is similar but smaller size (which is all i need) and a 2.0 mp camera.
Answer:
try the sony, it may cost alot and you may think it's not worth it but it actually lasts long, well compared to the ipod and such. only thing about sony is they dont have big space.
Answer:
try the sony, it may cost alot and you may think it's not worth it but it actually lasts long, well compared to the ipod and such. only thing about sony is they dont have big space.
umm sony do make a 30gb range you know..
Answer:
thanks ^^ -- great input, i've never heard of some of these before
i should start saving now though... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)
Answer:
are you seroius? the sony one is pretty bad, and freezes quite often...my friends have had a couple and they always have problems..
i think the best mp3 player on the market is IAUDIO, and if you ask any music player guru, they will agree... just go on any music player forum and they will rave iaudio..
next best i think is iriver, which i have and is really good..iriver has teh best battery life..mmine lasts over 45 hours on 1 AA battery. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Answer:
^ wow.. i'm guessing iaudio and iriver are flash players? i don't quite get that term though.. i just know its not harddrive which crashes like computers do (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)
Answer:
Iaudio has hard drive players. not sure about flash ones.
The Iriver flash players are the ones that get the real good battery life. They seem a lot more reliable than the iriver hard drive based ones.
Yes... they all have hard drives like computers... jsut a lot smaller.
(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/awdark/microdrive.jpg)
This is a microdrive... my Zen micro has one of these in it. (no didn't take the picture)
Answer:
Cowon iAudio, iRiver, and Creative are brands just like Sony. They all make hard drive-based mp3 players as well as flash mp3 players. It is only my opinion but iAudio, Creative and iRiver are the top three makers of mp3 players (both harddrive-based and flash-based) that isn't made by Apple and all three are worthy of your consideration. I myself have the most favorable opinion of iAudio's line of players although Creative and iRiver both make excellent players as well. And I gave both Creative and iRiver serious thought before settling on iAudio. To be fair, you really have to judge them on a model by model basis.
btw, again... iAudio makes both flash and harddrive players. The flash players are the U2, U3, I5, G3 and F1 models.
Answer:
trust us, just get iriver or iaudio, either flash or harddrive, and you WONT be disappointed (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Answer:
stay the HELL away from sony mp3players... i just read up on their program provided.. which is sonic stage.. it freezes and lags on your comptuer. you can only install it on 1 computer and you can only use that program to transfer music.. unless you find a 3rd party program to copy music to your drive.. stay away from sony.
samsung is drag and drop music.. simple =D. i can never get used to iTunes. so confusing..
Answer:
thats one of the biggest blows for sony mp3 players...they are little B%$#'s about copyright and they give you horrible software... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
Answer:
I would recommend iAudio wholeheartedly if it weren't for the fact they don't have a 4gb player like what you wanted. iAudio tends to be very reliable, I've got two G3's since last July and there's been no surprises. And the iPod Nano is a very nice player but no FM tuner or voice/FM/line-in recording. The Nano is easily scratched without spending even more money on a case. The iAudio U3 has what you want but it's only 2GB. The iAudio X5 is a hard drive based player encased in a metal aluminum case, not cheap plastic. All of iAudio's products can do the FM and recordings, the U3 and X5 both can do simple video playback as well (although only 15fps xvid or divx).
iPod Nano 4gb= $229.99 (Newegg.com)
iAudio U3 2gb = $189 (Amazon.com)
iAudio X5 20gb = $239.99 (up to 14hrs playback)(Newegg.com)
iAudio X5L 20gb = $259.99 (up to 35hrs playback, otherwise identical to the regular X5)(Newegg.com)
All the players have nice color screens. And unlike iPods, you don't need to install extra software like iTunez just to transfer files to your player. That goes for most everything else that isn't made by Apple.
If you want a hard drive based player BUT you don't care about video playback, color screens and picture viewing... then instead of the X5 or X5L, you can get the M5 player. It does everything else the X5 does. Plays MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC lossless, ASF, WAV
iAudio M5 Silver 20gb = $209.99 (also made of metallic case instead of cheap plastic)(Newegg.com)
But if you can give up the FM tuner, OGG, FM recording and many more features I can't think of right now... then the iPod Nano would serve you well. Just buy a case.
iAudio has a 4GB player. Its the new iAudioo 6. It has the new 0.85 HDD. Its so cool check itout at http://eng.iaudio.com/
Answer:
This is from my own personal experience.
I do not trust creative at ALL.
At the start of the year, i bought myself a creative micro after hearing about how good it is compared to an ipod etc.
first month, it was fine, loved it.
after that, it started to crash when using it, and the only way i could restart it was to take the battery out and put it back in, but at the time i didnt really mind.
after about another month, it got to a point where the crashing became exessivley frequent, and bam. it completely just crashed.
When trying to turn it back on, with would freeze in the creative screen, it wouldnt respond to any of the touchscreen pads, or the on/off button.
I tried to clean up the disk, and something about firmare, but it would just freeze as well =__=
I brought my dead mp3 player back to the store i bought it from, and they said to call creative tec. I did, and the service was really bad in my opinion. i already explained what happened, and told them what i did to try and fix the problem which didnt work, but they told me to do everything i did already again. In the end, they just said to send it back.
after about 4 weeks, i recieved a brand new creative micro, but it happened AGAIN =__= I just got fed up, so now i dont have an mp3 player
So now, i'm aiming my way for an iriver, i havnt heard anything badabout it yet, so hopefully it wont break down on me ==
Answer:
while the iPod is a lot of things, RELIABLE is not one of them.
