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Let's talk about MP3 Players
Sanius
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright, since I got an MP3 player, I thought how nice it would be to make a topic to discuss MP3 players.
So yeah, today I made the decision to get an MP3 player, and so I did. I got an $80 Sandisk c240 Sansa. It holds a decent 1GB, which is anywhere from 250-300 songs depending on how big your files are.
Features are pretty bleak, so it's just pretty barebones. It supports FM radio and you can upload photos to it, and, well, listen to music. You can equalize it, shuffle, set to repeat, sort items, but basically it's just a cheap and good player with a nice display from what i've had with it, and the audio quality is really decent for something below $100. My only irk is that the ear bud covers are a bitch and a half to get on, because the whole seems to be about a centimeter in diameter and it feels like trying to fit a man's condom around an elephant, but of course, if you don't shove the ear buds in your ear, they'll feel just fine, in my opinion.
There's also the ability to record stuff with the built in microphone which is pretty rad and I guess works for keeping notes.
One thing I hate is that well, it's one gig, but the bonus is that it supports MicroSD (and since SanDisk is known for flashdrives, SD cards, ect..) so i'll probably pick up that for an extra 2 gigs.
And if anyone is curious, it's rechargeable by USB, it doesn't require batteries.
Here's a picture of it:
So yeah, today I made the decision to get an MP3 player, and so I did. I got an $80 Sandisk c240 Sansa. It holds a decent 1GB, which is anywhere from 250-300 songs depending on how big your files are.
Features are pretty bleak, so it's just pretty barebones. It supports FM radio and you can upload photos to it, and, well, listen to music. You can equalize it, shuffle, set to repeat, sort items, but basically it's just a cheap and good player with a nice display from what i've had with it, and the audio quality is really decent for something below $100. My only irk is that the ear bud covers are a bitch and a half to get on, because the whole seems to be about a centimeter in diameter and it feels like trying to fit a man's condom around an elephant, but of course, if you don't shove the ear buds in your ear, they'll feel just fine, in my opinion.
There's also the ability to record stuff with the built in microphone which is pretty rad and I guess works for keeping notes.
One thing I hate is that well, it's one gig, but the bonus is that it supports MicroSD (and since SanDisk is known for flashdrives, SD cards, ect..) so i'll probably pick up that for an extra 2 gigs.
And if anyone is curious, it's rechargeable by USB, it doesn't require batteries.
Here's a picture of it:
![http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/8652/pliesgoon.jpg[/SIGPIC]](http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/8652/pliesgoon.jpg[/SIGPIC]){kind=link}
Sanius on
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500 songs? So, 2 gigs?
I also wonder what's the best way to compress songs to about 3-4 megs max, because I have a lot of 3-4 minute songs that can be around 6-7 megabytes at 128 kbps and 44 khz.
T-Nation blog
I picked it up for something like $40 at a Circuit City Thanksgiving sale. It's pretty awesome. The only real quirk is that certain podcasts reset if I try to fast forward, but it's a minor issue.
Pokemon FC: 2749 7579 5931
I was going to pick that one up today but they were out of stock so I went for the $80 one instead. But I hear it's still pretty decent.
How do I get podcasts set up on this player, anyway?
T-Nation blog
I just drag and drop the podcast mp3 like any other.
Pokemon FC: 2749 7579 5931
Currently have: 475 MB's left our of 996, and 144 songs. So, about 300 songs, in truth.
Man, I have 196 songs and under 200 megs left. I need to get my songs compressed but i'm not sure of the best software and settings I should run for to get my songs to a small size.
T-Nation blog
Different files are of different length. I've got a lot that are < 2 megs, and I've got a few that are > 50.
Saying that an mp3 player can hold 500 songs makes about as much sense as saying a cargo container can hold 60 animals, even though there is a huge size difference between a monkey and, say, an elephant, or a cockroach.
I have a four gig nano, and I've filled it already. It has about...six hundred songs of my library or so.
They're all around 192kbps, and although I'm not too familiar with that side of music anything lower sounds pretty terrible to me. I'm not an audiophile by any means, but at 128kbps I really notice the compression's effect on sound quality.
T-Nation blog
That shouldn't be possible 128kbps Constant Bit Rate means 16KB per second, so for 4*60s you get 3840KB or 3,7MB... You must be using some higher VBR setting or something.
Try messing around with the settings in LAME. There's a front-end for it called RazorLAME, which lets you choose all the stuff. Here's some wiki with recommended settings/LAME presets you could also use.
I always wondered why no one made a miniDVD mp3 player. One of those discs can hold ~1,4GB and I think it could be cheaper than a flash-based player.
Still, I suppose now you could just buy a bunch of flash cards and get the same result.
At night, the ice weasels come."
sure about the video? it's not listed as a feature.
anyways, this player has everything I want in a player. very tempted to spend my tax money on this.
edit: checked user reviews and they do say video.. nice plus. this really looks like the best bang for the buck.
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
Cowon D2
I'll be picking one of these up this week. Touch screen. 4 gigs flash with expandable memory via SD slot, video (mpeg, wmv), as well as a ton of audio codecs (ogg, flac, ape) . 50 + hours of music, 10 for video, as well as DMB when it rolls out in my city. It'll be around 300,000 won. (~280 bucks?)
about $320. it's retardedly expensive.
off-topic.. was going to go back to korea this year and I didn't know exchange rate has gotten this bad.
I remember when $1 was about 750won.
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
Yeah, it can play video, but it uses an inefficient video codec (MJPEG A/B) so files are huge if you don't play around with frame rates and picture quality. They most likely choose for longer battery life.
But I also recommend the e250, it's a solid player and I couldn't be happier with my purchase.
T-Nation blog
It's 2GB, looks fancy, and can play by artist, album or playlist, but it uses SonicStage, which is only available for Windows. As a Linux user, I have to resort to using my neighbour's laptop to update songs. It's charged by USB and has a pretty long battery life, and can also be used as a basic Flash drive, so it's quite useful for university work and my 40-minute walk from my room to my department.
I wondered that too actually. But I think you would need to have DVD-RAM or something similar to be able to delete only some songs, because with DVD-RW you just have to wipe the whole disc and start over.....or something like that.
Only downside to Zune is the Marketplace software really could use a an update or two because as it stands the Zune software is a ram whore and is somewhat unstable is you bounce around the menu too quickly from play lists to musicians, to downloads, to canceling downloads, adding new ones, etc etc etc. Just don't overload it and you should be fine.
One cool thing about Zune is though, I had to reformat my computer and reinstalled Zune software, and then realized that I didn't back up my music that I downloaded with it. Well I called them up and they took me to Account management, and then restore library and I clicked the songs I wanted to download back into my computers HD. Pretty handy, imo.
The 4GB E200 is $150 Canadian, which is really reasonable, and I have a friend who has one, so I know it's a really good player.
I've pretty much decided on a 30gb white video ipod (refurbished on apple.com for $179).
I want something for storage and music and from what I understand you cant access the Zune like a HD.
Sell me something if you think or know otherwise : )
My problem with current mp3 players and even my own, is the battery situation. Flat out, rechargeable batteries eventually die. The fact that Apple has each time made it more and more difficult to replace it yourself should say something.
The DS Lite has an easy hatch to access the battery, why don't all Mp3 players... I mean what could they gain from our mp3 players dying out of warranty..?
oh.
You can replace the battery on the e200's yourself, and it is rechargable.
That's excellent.