Lions and tigers and MP3 players, oh my!

QuarterMaster

Copied from the ABI forums (sorry, I'm lazy right now). :P

So many MP3 players, so little time (and money). I'm currently in the market for a relatively low-capacity, portable, durable MP3 player. Here's a link to the four that I'm considering:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4504-4_7-0.html?id=32588460&id=31960038&id=32591623&id=32896579&tag=boxcoco

All of them are essentially the same price, so that's not an issue at this point. What I want is something portable, but that can withstand riding around in a pocket without sustaining any (or at least much) damage. I currently own a 30Gb iPod Video, which is really overkill considering I only have around 3-4 gigs of music that I actually listen to right now. Plus, it gets scratched way to easily. The Fuze is so tempting because it has the microSD expansion slot, but will that integrate nicely with the player (unlike the Zen)? Thanks for any help!

Kate of Lokys

I would highly recommend the Sansa e280. It's under $100 US, it has twice as much space as you think you'll need (the 4GB one is only $13 less or something ridiculous like that, so you might as well). They're small, sturdy, easy to use, and have great battery life. My boyfriend Rockboxed his and watches TV shows on it, I use the default firmware and just listen to music. Drag and drop interface, or you can sync it with your iTunes or your Winamp or whatever the kids are using these days.

It's not perfect - getting playlists onto it is a pain in the ass, and there are a few little things I wish it did (like skipping automatically to the next album when the previous album reaches the end). But it's a good cheap little player that does everything you'd expect it to, plus a bit more - voice recording, FM radio, plus it does have the microSD slot for expansion. I've never had occasion to use the slot on mine, but I haven't heard of anyone having complaints with it. The Sansas are pretty durable, too; I slapped a $6 skin on mine, and after a year and a half of riding around in my pocket, there's not a scratch on it.

QuarterMaster

Both of my parents actually have the e260, so I've had some experience with them. While I agree that the price/capacity ratio is certainly right, I'm not a fan of the quality. While they both worked fine for a while, both have also started to exhibit some issues (buttons not working correctly, etc.). I'm also not a huge fan of the SanDisk interface, which is one reason I'm a little wary of the Fuze as well. Thanks for the info though, I'll still consider it.

Page-

I have the Zen Micro 8 gig, which seems to be about the same as what you're looking at. It works great for listening to music. I haven't tried video because I really don't need it. I've taken it to work, dropped it, fallen asleep on it; it can take some wear and tear. My only problem with it is that the software it comes with sucks balls. Actually, the CD is was packaged with wasn't even the right software version and couldn't recognize my player.

Thankfully, there's a drag+drop upgrade on the Creative website, and both MediaMonkey and WMP work with it.

It recharges fast. I'd say less than 2 hours for a full charge most of the time.

The radio is a nice feature, but the Micro I have lost the record function of the last generation. It's also only FM radio, which sucks since I only listen to AM. Still, it's nice for getting CBC Radio 1 for news and such.

The audio recorder is great. It picks up sound fine, even in busy places like restaurants, but I can be overwhelmed in truly loud environments (I whipped it out at a concert once just to see what would happen. I got an hour of totally random, high-pitched fuzz.).

If you just want to listen to music, with maybe a radio and voice recorded as a bonus, the Zen is perfect.