O/T - Portable MP3 player

[Podie]

Contemplating a portable MP3 player... primarily for use in the gym and whilst jogging.

Any recommnedations? (or ones to avoid?)

[pdv6]

If you're going to be using it at the gym, I'd avoid the hard disk-based models (size & shock-proofness) and go for a miniature solid state jobbie.

[Spoonman]

Get an iPod (now PC-compatible for geeks). They're 100 per cent stunning.

[pdv6]

Spoonman said: Get an iPod (now PC-compatible for geeks). They're 100 per cent stunning.

A bit big for gym use, though, I would have thought (100mm tall), plus afaik its disk-based, so probably a bit unhappy if you take it on the treadmill...

{edited to add:} Nice bit of kit, though.

>> Edited by pdv6 on Wednesday 30th October 11:12

[dern]

Goodmans do some cd-walkmans that take mp3 cds. I'm not sure how they would cope with jogging and are quite large but the capacity of a cd is a fair bit larger on a cd than on a 64Mb stick type thing. We bought one to take to france as it comes with a car kit and I just burnt 6 cds of about 10 albums each and it was great.

Mark

[Mr E]

Spoonman said: Get an iPod (now PC-compatible for geeks). They're 100 per cent stunning.

Nice bit of kit but unbelievably expensive.....

www.priceguideuk.com and stick mp3 in.

Rios are usually regarded pretty highly...

[Mr E]

This looks quite tasty...

www.jsihardware.com/reviews.php?ID=81

Richersounds will do it for under 200 notes....

[pdv6]

I quite like the Sony Network Walkman range, purely because they're very small. Not usually very upgradeable, though, which could be a problem if you find yourself using it for more than just the gym.

[Spoonman]

iPod is actually very small and light – I can't recommend it highly enough. It's also got an anti-skip thingy of about a week, so that ain't a problem.

I originally thought MP3 players were a bit of a blind alley, but after buying an iPod for my girlfriend, I'm seriously considering one of my own. They're just so damn cool.

If you reckon they're expensive (prices start at £250-ish, I think), check out what else they can do: http://ipodlounge.com/

All you need is a decent reason to justify spending the dosh.

[dern]

This isn't portable but if you have already encoded a lot of stuff on your pc to mp3 then you'll probably be interested in this...

www.slimp3.com/

I've had one of these for about a month now and it is absolutely superb. I encode all my cds at 320KB/S (currently about 40Gb) and have this thing sitting on top of my hi-fi in the lounge. It's easy to use, looks great and sounds as good as the mp3s are going to sound. The only pain is running a network cable from your pc to the slimp3.

Regards,

Mark

[Podie]

Check out the Creative Labs MuVo...!

It's a portable drive thingumy AND an MP3 player... cool!

Seems about right to me... just got to wait for the 128MB version to be launched!

[plotloss]

Theres one, I forget the name, thats a solid state memory based player but its in the shape of a cassette tape and you can actually use it as a cassette. Very clever on the whole I think.

Matt.

[incorrigible]

At my gym they have live music

Oops, my mistake, it's a pub

[Podie]

incorrigible said: At my gym they have live music

Oops, my mistake, it's a pub

[Podie]

Spoken to Creative Labs about the MuVo... 128MB version out in a few weeks, and will be about £120.



>> Edited by Podie on Wednesday 30th October 12:19

[Mr E]

plotloss said: Theres one, I forget the name, thats a solid state memory based player but its in the shape of a cassette tape and you can actually use it as a cassette. Very clever on the whole I think.

Matt.

Firebox.com have that.

Nice idea, but it's a bit short on memory and it's not cheap....

[andytk]

Spoken to Creative Labs about the MuVo... 128MB version out in a few weeks, and will be about £120.

Hmmmm. Interesting. quite a lot of memory for the cash. Solid state memory I assume.

The nice thing about the solid state units is the really low power consumption. All the unit really has to do is produce the output to your headphones. The disk based units on the other hand need to turn the disk which consumes shed loads more energy thus they need bigger batteries and still don't have the same kind of run time.

Of course it could just be that I'm fed up with my 1999 sony MD players battery capacity which is now a measly 2 hours. One of my friends has a 2002 unit which lasts at least 10 hours but then his is a playback only unit, mine is the recording/playback type. But still I only ever use it to play back these days, I haven't had the time to get up to any major piarating these days.

Andy

[nmlowe]

www.firebox.com or www.iwantoneofthose.com are good places to look for gadgets like mp3 players.

[rich1231]

www.mp3players.co.uk
or www.advancedmp3players.co.uk