Recommend me an MP3 player (no Zune/iPod)

Giganticus

Ok, so apparently I'm getting an MP3 player for my birthday. However, there's two problems that would prevent me from making an easy choice.

1. Zune not available in UK.
2. I hate iTunes with an unholy passion.

Essentially, I want a large HD-based MP3 player that's not a Zune or an iPod. I don't follow the MP3 player market much so I have no idea what is any good. OGG support and the ability to use as a hard drive are big bonuses. Help a Giga out, PA!

The Not

You don't HAVE to use Itunes to use an Ipod.

Other than that, try a Creative Zen. I've heard good things.

SporkAndrew

For my birthday last year I got a Creative Vision:M and I'm pretty happy with it. It's a nice video player, has outstanding battery life, has all the features you'd want and is pretty cheap really.

30gb and you don't have to reformat it or anything to use it as a portable HDD.

Plus it has the best feature ever which is integration into the explorer shell so you can right click on a music / video folder and just click "send to -> creative vision:m"

I haven't had to use the software that came with it since installing it for the drivers.

Xantus

if you can find an Iriver ihp-100/120/140 on ebay they are great units.

otherwise.. Iaudio makes good stuff, like the x5.

varland

iRiver is the way to go. OGG support for the win.

japan

I have an Archos Gmini XS202 which I have no complaints about.

Echo

What was that Sandisk thing someone posted a pic of in another thread? It kinda interested me.

My iPod mini is reaching the end of its battery life, so I'm pondering alternatives that I can actually replace the battery in.

Rohaq

Xantus wrote:

if you can find an Iriver ihp-100/120/140 on ebay they are great units.

otherwise.. Iaudio makes good stuff, like the x5.

I love my iRiver iHP-120. It's also known as the H-120, but in any case, get an iRiver player supported by the third party Rockbox firmware, and flash it for pure awesomeness.

Echo wrote:

What was that Sandisk thing someone posted a pic of in another thread? It kinda interested me.

My iPod mini is reaching the end of its battery life, so I'm pondering alternatives that I can actually replace the battery in.

You can buy replacement, higher capacity batteries for the iRiver H1xx series, I know that, and they're easy to replace with nothing more than a set of jeweller's screwdrivers.

Xantus

Rohaq wrote:

Xantus wrote:

if you can find an Iriver ihp-100/120/140 on ebay they are great units.

otherwise.. Iaudio makes good stuff, like the x5.

I love my iRiver iHP-120. It's also known as the H-120, but in any case, get an iRiver player supported by the third party Rockbox firmware, and flash it for pure awesomeness.

rockbox...rocks. its audio geekery heaven for anyone with an attention span.

I mean.. it supports musepack(.mpc) which is a feature I feel was written entirely for me.

If rockbox didn't exist I would probably still be using Minidiscs.

Rogers101

I have a Sansa E250 that I like. It's not awesome but it gets the job done. It's actually more than what I need (I couldn't give a crap about video and voice recording) but I had to find a player that was compatible with Yahoo Music Unlimited.

It's actually in for RMA repairs, but I can't say I've babied it (although I haven't been overly rough with it either). Sandisk support was helpful and mostly competent so I have no complaints.

EggyToast

If you're looking for max features, iRiver has regularly maxed out its players capabilities.

Giganticus

I've been looking at iRivers but it seems they've stopped making the HD based ones? Or am I just looking at the wrong shop?

ZackSchilling

My friend has a Sansa because he refused to buy an iPod or Zune and he wanted a higher capacity flash player. He's not thrilled with it but uses it in his car. He went back to his old iRiver 512MB player for headphone listening presumably because of sound quality. Just something to think about.

Personally, I'd go with an iPod Nano 8GB, but then again, I'm a Mac user, so iTunes isn't a the giant flaming abortion that it is on Windows.

Giganticus

ZackSchilling wrote:

My friend has a Sansa because he refused to buy an iPod or Zune and he wanted a higher capacity flash player. He's not thrilled with it but uses it in his car. He went back to his old iRiver 512MB player for headphone listening presumably because of sound quality. Just something to think about.

Personally, I'd go with an iPod Nano 8GB, but then again, I'm a Mac user, so iTunes isn't a the giant flaming abortion that it is on Windows.

I use my player as a mobile HD to ferry work and videos around so a Nano would be out of the question anyway, even if I loved bloatware with all my heart.

Akilae729

Giganticus wrote:

ZackSchilling wrote:

My friend has a Sansa because he refused to buy an iPod or Zune and he wanted a higher capacity flash player. He's not thrilled with it but uses it in his car. He went back to his old iRiver 512MB player for headphone listening presumably because of sound quality. Just something to think about.

Personally, I'd go with an iPod Nano 8GB, but then again, I'm a Mac user, so iTunes isn't a the giant flaming abortion that it is on Windows.

I use my player as a mobile HD to ferry work and videos around so a Nano would be out of the question anyway, even if I loved bloatware with all my heart.

iPods work without iTunes and they can be utilized as portable USB hard drives without and reformat or bloat ware. (And they have an 80gig version). I use mine
(60gig) to ferry videos between my PC and my laptop.

If you are dead set on the iPod being the devil, my friend had one of the dell offerings a while back, however, he stopped using it after a few months because it was pretty shit quality

Giganticus

I *do* have an iPod, but the screen is cracked, the battery is shit, and it's much more expensive to get an iPod now than it's rival counterparts. Plus the first rule of "a good product" should not be "remove all the firmware and install your own".

imbalanced

This is a repost from a similar thread, but I stand by it.

The one I always recommend is the one I've never met anyone else who owns one: JetAudio (www.jetaudio.com). I've got their big media player COWON, but their A2 line is sexcellent when it comes to audio quality (only limited by what headphones you have). For the life of me I don't know why there aren't more of these circulating on the market, but you can find them at Newegg.

Let me put some pics and links for you because I would seriously recommend them. They show up as a removable drive so you don't need any middleware if you don't want it, and they're just such high quality for a relative unknown.


JetAudio 30GB iAUDIO X5L $260
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855603827


JetAudio 30GB A2-30WH COWON $307
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855603835


JetAudio MP3 Player 2GB Model U2-2048BL $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855603837


JetAudio iAudio6 4GB USB Model I6-4096BL $175
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16855228001