IPOD or an alternative ?

[johnwibble]

As I'm off to Portugal for the Euro 2004 Championships in June, I'm looking for something to put all my music on.
Is the Ipod as good as the hype or should I be looking at the other hard disk based players as well ? Has anyone listened to an Ipod and one of it's rivals ? If so what was the difference.

[master baits]

some folk i know swear rant about the creative zen is it?

[johnwibble]

That's one I've been considering, along with the iRiver IPH-120. There's also the new mini ipod coming out, but I need about 30-40GB if I want the whole lot on.

[Proplus]

Totally recommend the iPod. Those that diss them are just jealous they haven't got one!! :p And the battery problem only applies for the 1st generation of iPods.

[johnwibble]

That's pleasing to hear as I think I really want one :)
What sort of average battery life do you get between charges ? I'm thinking of the logistics of being in portugal and maybe not being able to re-charge.

[slartiBardfarst]

http://publish.it168.com/2004/0115/20040115009502.shtml?cPositionCode=318

released in march i believe.

[johnwibble]

That looks interesting. I think I'll wait a couple of months to see what else turns up.

[Lord Kordir]

The iPod has a pathetic battery life. Whats the point in having all that capacity if you can only play it back for 8 hours at a time! :D

[Welly]

that was then.. the new ipods battery life has vastly improved.

[njg291075]

You have got to see what babelfish makes of that webpage !!!

ridges on the side of a sword :confused:
assistant secret/assistant oven hole :confused:
village ™ò type droppings :D
MP3 garden :confused:
constant-volume oven :confused:

and the best one:

discussion catalpa prisoner hearing friendship fart :D

[Lord Kordir]

Originally posted by Welly
that was then.. the new ipods battery life has vastly improved.

I assume you're not talking about the iPod mini. If you take a look at the following page you'll see that the newer full iPod battery life is indeed 8hrs

iPod specs (http://www.apple.com/uk/ipod/specs.html)

[slartiBardfarst]

in fact it has got worse.

the 1st and 2nd gen ipods lasts for 10 hours while the new 3rd gen lasts 8.
it is a smaller battery though.

[DarkEntity]

Ipod Mini i must have one...credit card must have one :D

[NickB]

I'm still not convinced on the mini iPod, especially when I'm possibly going to get a much cheaper 40GB iPod from the US. $250 is too much to pay for that amount of storage in my opinion.
Nick

[Brownie]

I can confirm that the iRiver IPH-120 is a great portable hard drive MP3, I got it so that I could record direct to MP3 or WAV using an amplified external mic and it is brilliant.

I know you say you want 40gig so you might want to consider the new iRiver IPH-140 it's due out any day.

They aren't cheap.... but the good things in life never are :D

I've used http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk they are very customer focused, the strike me as very like Kustom.... they're Scottish.... go on lads merge!

[[GPO]Solitaire]

If you want to stand out from the crowd you could pick up one of these

AKMP3 (http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/kalashnikov/ak-mp3.asp)

I'd suspect you'd be the most popular Fan there (well by the Police anyway)

[johnwibble]

:D
It would also make the flight over there interesting.... to say the least !

[Clarksy]

I know its not a hard drive player but, I have one of these:

http://www.mpio.com/goods/fl100.php

Its teeny-tiny and comes ing 128/256 and 512MB flavours. What made it a good buy for me was the fact it takes MMC/SD Cards meaning you can swap music on the move.

The 128MB version is about £120.00

[johnwibble]

That's quite spooky, as I had started looking at that exact model on the advanced mp3 players web site !
I was attracted to it because it uses normal batteries and also because I have quite a few SD media cards I could use with it.
A few questions:-
Is the sound OK ?
Can you use rechargable batteries ?
Can you create playlists ?

[Clarksy]

Spooky indeed...


Is the sound OK?
Yeah it sounds great, the only limit would be your choice of ear phones. I use the ones supplied. I'm not sure how it would fare through amplified speakers - i've never tried it.

Can you use rechargable batteries?
It uses a single AAA battery so if you can get a rechargeable AAA your laughing. I'm still using up my Xmas Duracell collection - i get about 8 hours of playback for 1 battery which is pretty good.

Can you create playlists?
No. But you can't really store enough music in one go to warrant it. The player can create folders, which you can drop your tracks into. You can then play a folder - plus with SD Cards you can make compilations and swap them at will. It also interfaces with windows media player nicely. Using an SD card also means you should be able to drag and drop MP3 or WMA's straight onto it from your hard drive.


I use mine more as a walkman for travelling on the train etc. MPIO do make other SD compatiable players so it may be an idea to browse their site.

[johnwibble]

Excellent, thanks for the info mate. I see what you mean about playlists - it's just not worth it, far better to create folders on small devices like this.
I think this may be the way to go for me, as I won't have access to be able to re-charge a disk based player as I'm travelling around, whereas with this one I can just buy another battery.

[tristanc]

My friend just got an ipod, he can't stop talking about how good it is, he say's he gets about 10/11 hours of battery life and its also cool looking :cool: