Ipod, Cheap please, To ipod or not to ipod Options

[Mase]

Can anyone tell me where i can get cheap ipod from, and also does anyone have an mp3 player thats not an ipod that is as good as an ipod?

[philt]

The only thing ipod's have going for them is the name. The Creative (Xtra, Zen, Micro) are cheaper, sound better, support a wider range of compressed music formats (apart from the loathsome DRM infected AAC) and have longer battery life..... Have no fear about creative - they invented/pioneered the hard drive based jukebox in the late 90's. Apple copied them

If you want something "kewl" then the Sony NW HD3 makes the ipod look like a tin opener

[Downsy]

Irivers are supposed to be good, I've not looked into the MP3 player market too much but it's certainly worth a google

[frostitute]

I have a 256MB iRiver () and it works wonders (currently have 50 songs on there), no problems as of right now! Except maybe the "loop around" headphones, which are dumb.

[Jubei]

We have many mp3 players in our house. In order of capacity we have:

Philips Key 003



This is a very good little mp3 player, but is only 64 Mbs, which limits it to about 2 albums. However, on the plus side it has NO cables, not for charging or data transfer, this is ALL done through the USB port which is under the cap on one end. Solidly built and it looks pretty cool too. This was my first mp3 player. Very handy as a file transfer thingy as well.

MPMan 128Mb MP3 player



Load of rubbish, my housemate broke two before he bought a different one. He was happy then.

Packard Bell Audidream 1Gb



A nice little machine, plenty of room, although it doesn't like lots of files, even though it has the capacity. Over a certain quantity of individual files ot kind of gets confused. Requires cables to plug into a PC.

iPod mini (green)



Looks very nice, and it has a swixh box, but my housemate took an hour just installing the software on the PC and stopping the iPod from ruling the PC. He then had to format it to work on a PC AND he still hasn't actually put anything on it yet. Also, limited by the file types it can take. Means that 4 Gb capacity is the equavilant of a 2Gb MP3 player made by anyone else, because the compression in .wma's is greater.

Philips Mp3 Jukebox 20Gb



This is my current one, and is a beast, although its a bit chunkier than an iPod, it can handle .wma's so that makes up, plus it is a dictaphone (might be useful?). I think it looks quite cool in its own way as well.

Ultimately though, if I had the choice, I'd have the Sony beast, it looks the bomb, its tiny, and its bound to be well built. Thats my 2p worth.

This post has been edited by Jubei: Jan 12 2005, 08:12 PM

[tameblue]

I heard the battery life is causing the ipod serious probs, at least in the mini one.
Any clarification?

[widowspider]

i've got the packard bell audio dream, i really like it. it's small and the sound is great, and has enough memory for about 160 songs i think. more than enough to keep me happy! it's not really much of a faff plugging it in to my comp, it's got a usb port and a lineout so you can plug into a computer or a cd player and record songs from it.

This post has been edited by widowspider: Jan 13 2005, 10:07 AM

[Mase]

Cheers everyone good info.

Thanks jubei appreciate the pics, i like the look of the phillips and that dictaphone could be amusing!

[Cubie]

I've got an mp3 player, not too sure of what it's called, its small black and apparently has 1GB. And it was only £100 from Comet and the battery life is stupidly long! espesh since how its only a AAA battery powering it. Hats off.

[pots]

ok so i got the old 20gb ipod last year before all the new ones.

it holds a massive amount of songs and i love it because i have wide ranging tastes so i can listen to whatever i want. everyone complains about the batteries but i can plug it into the stereo at work and listen to it all day and then on the tube home.

you just gotta think where you're going to be using it. commuting, you just need a mini cos you can update it whenever you want so you don't need to carry around 10,000 songs.

it also depends on what computer you have - i'm a mac guy so ipod is so easy to use. if you have windows you might want to pick something else.

the bottom line, tho, is that ipods just look and feel so good. techy people might want something else but apple gear is just so much cooler - i know that sounds shallow but then i'm a very shallow guy.

[ also check out the new ipod shuffle - ooh i want one! ]

[Ade]

I don't like the look of the Apple iPod range at all - I much prefer Creative's range:
the Zen Touch & Zen Micro look particularly sexy, the beauty of the latter being you
can remove/replace the rechargeable battery, which has a reasonable 12-hour life.

I have an extremely varied taste in muziq... I just might need a big MP3 player.

[The_Fuckest_Uppe...]

I'm having some trouble with my mp3 player at the moment, perhaps someone can help. I've got Windows media player 10 and when I use it to rip music from CDs, it stores them at an incredibly large file size (about 19MB). My mp3 player can't seem to cope with the large size. Is there a way to compress it, or should I rip CD's using Realplayer etc.

Thanks in advance

[Rob Wells]

I don't like the look of the Apple iPod range at all -  I much prefer Creative's range:
the Zen Touch & Zen Micro look particularly sexy, the beauty of the latter being you
can remove/replace the rechargeable battery, which has a reasonable 12-hour life.

I have an extremely varied taste in muziq... I just might need a big MP3 player. 

Yah, and the Creative Zen Micro has 5GB which is a grand size. Creative it is, dudes. Though, I do like the look of the iRipper.

[tameblue]

I notice no-one has actually answered the question, me included.
I too want an iPod...yes I've listened to the arguements, and chosen not to listen to what is probably very sensible advice, in the face of being a name whore.

Cheap iPod's.....where?

[Sarah Llama]

Try on www.kelkoo.co.uk search for what you're wanting...for example a 5GB iPod or whatever. It'll come up with a range of prices from tons of sites.

I bought a Creative Zen Xtra this week...40GB of greatness. I love it...and I'd recommend it to anyone.