MP3 Player Shoppers Guide

An anonymous reader writes "Says this three-part rundown of the latest DAPs "When Sony execs crowed a few weeks ago that their latest MP3 players were THE iPod Killers one thing was obvious. They were oblivious to the fact that the term "iPod Killer" had already gone from clever market-speak to running joke." Still, quite a few neat players here and I bet most don't scratch up as bad as iPods do."

Comments

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers

Ogg on iRiver

[Anonymous Coward]

iRiver - most of their models support ogg. And beats mp3 anyday. iRiver H320 (out of production) works like a charm with ogg - though is not flash. iHP-120 is a flash player.

Also, you will get FM, inline recording, voice recording, and better sound quality as a bonus (over iPod)!!

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[fizze]

Also noteworthy, listening to ogg vorbis files on my iRiver H320 does chow up battery faster than listening to mp3 files.

Re:Ogg on iRiver

[E IS mC(Square)]

>>As regards sound quality - that mostly depends on the headphones you use rather than the player.

True. But then, if you listen to different players with the SAME headphones, iRiver scores much better. Check this 'blind' test performed by cNet a while back. See where iPod stands compared to others (esp iRiver).

As for RDS, iRiver scores there, irrespective of RDS, as long as iPod does not have it.

Trojan Horse?

[jpellino]

I just upgraded Tunes on an XP box the other day, and I'm pretty sure it told me that it was going to install QuickTime and gave me chapter and verse on the progress as it did so. I believe I even agreed to it in the click-thrus.

That would pretty much mean it's not a trojan, but something I decided to install and use.

I suppose I could have just modded this troll, but I'll be posting to this thread - the rest of the comment rates insightful, but that seemed like a cheap shot.

Re:This is the iPOD

[TheRaven64]

Hmmm. Mine didn't seem to come with the bundled way of life - it seems to be just a portable music player.

I bought an iPod because it was the first HD-based player I'd seen which supported AAC (I jumped on the AAC bandwagon when the Ogg one was just getting ready to leave, and seem to have stayed on it). At the time, the only other players I was seriously looking at were made by Philips, and could play AACs from a mini CD. The iPod was smaller than the Philips device, and much smaller than the stack of CDs I'd have had to carry.

It's quite a nice device. The user interface is not perfect - I filed a series of UI bug reports with Apple (none of which have been fixed in firmware upgrade, by the way, although they have been locked in the Apple bug tracking system. I think a few have been fixed in newer iPods). It is, however, far better than anything else I've seen.

Is it possible to make something better than the iPod? Yes.

Are Sony in a position to do it? Probably not.

one they missed

[Eil]

I noticed that iRiver's line of MP3 players is (mostly) absent from this listing.

I recently got an iRiver IFP-899 and absolutely love it. I don't have any particularly overwhelming urge to store my entire music collection on a portable MP3 player, so a very expensive iPod or any of its very expensive clones are pretty much overkill for me.

Simply put, the iRiver is a great middle-of-the-road MP3 player. Rather than copying and pasting the specs from the corporate web page, I'll just list a few things that I particularly like about it.

• It's very small
  
• Receives FM radio
  
• Can record from the built-in mic, the line-in jack, or the FM radio (sheduled too, if you like)
  
• Plays MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, WMA, ASF, OGG
  
• Built-in EQ
  
• Some Linux support
  
• Can be connected as a USB mass storage device (with a firmware upgrade)
  
• Runs for 40 hours on a single AA battery
  
• 4-line backlit LCD

With prices on the unit dropping to almost $150, even Apple would have a hard time beating that. At $50 more, the iPod nano has double the storage but still only half the features.

Re:It's iTunes

[TheRaven64]

You don't need a license from Apple to support AAC. Philips used to with some of their players (I was going to get one until Apple added AAC support to iTunes and the iPod). You do need a license from the MPEG-LA and / or Dolby, however.

Note that if you do this, you will still not be able to play tracks bought from the iTunes music store, although nothing is stopping users using HYMN to remove Apple's DRM.

Re:Not Creative anyways

[Jesselnz]

PlaysForSure just means it has the ability to play DRM files. Cowon, iRiver, etc are labeled as PlayForSure, but they work fine in Linux and play ogg and mp3 files.

Re:what, no iAudio X5?

[saldek]

3. Built-in battery which isn't user-replaceable.

Granted, the specs on that player look pretty good. However, I've had to toss out perfectly-good hardware before because the battery died after 18 months.

For nearly $500, I expect a bit more in terms of longevity.

Re:Vorbis Support

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Samsung YP-T6. I got the 512MB version but 1GB ones are available. It plays mp3 and ogg, plays FM radio, records (in mp3) from mic, line in, or radio, and it uses one AAA battery. As my last player (an Archos Jukebox Recorder 20) died due to battery issues, having a standard battery was a major selling point for me. It's standard USB interface is another must-have in my book.

Re:Vorbis Support

[anonymous22]

I agree with 2 or 3 others here. The X5L would definitly be my choice. It can do your ogg AND flac, along with mp4 and the video crowd. What catches my attention with the 'L' variant is the long battery life. Cowon claims 35+ hours which may seem like a little overkill, but according to user reviews I have read it is not far off. If you can't afford the 'X', they also have an M5L with the same battery life and audio codec support, but no video or pictures.

Re:It's iTunes

[Overly Critical Guy]

AAC isn't Apple's format. AAC is MPEG-4 audio (aka MP4) and will be used on next-gen formats like Blu-ray for film audio. What is proprietary is Apple's Fairplay DRM scheme that sits on top of AAC.

Re:Vorbis Support

[k31bang]

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)