Need a new portable music player

bamjo · September 2009

I'm in the market for a new mp3 player. My current one is an ancient 256mb iRiver. It worked fine for what I needed, but I need an upgrade. My music collection is not large, I'm more focused on quality than massive storage capacity. I listen to a lot of classical music, and recently bought some pretty high end Bose headphones. Now I want an mp3 player to go with them.

What is the best player out there currently? My brother has an ipod nano, but I'm not sure I like it all that much. Thanks very much for your help!

wunderbar · September 2009

there are a ton of options for you. What is your price range? You say you're not sure about iPods, would you clarify the reasons why? Also what kind of capacity are you looking for? you can get anywhere from 1GB to 160GB.

logic7 · September 2009

I have a Sansa C210 2GB player with a 2GB microSD card in it. It plays MP3's and had FM radio. That's all I ever needed in an MP3 player.

bamjo · September 2009

Sorry I wasn't more specific. Price range $100-300, 1-5GB. I don't really have a problem with the ipod nano, other than it seems kind of flimsy. I can easily see it getting crushed in my pocket or a carry on luggage. My real dislike is the itunes software, which to my understanding is required with an ipod.

Are ipods really the only thing going on the market these days? If so, I guess my choice is made for me.

Edit: In thinking about it what I'd really like is something that functioned like a flash memory stick. I just want to drag my music from a folder to the device and be done. I don't want a complex software front end that throws ads and stuff at me.

And thanks for your replies! I feel like such a geezer trying to shop for stuff like this.

elliotw2 · September 2009

A lot of players that aren't iPods work that way, the aforementioned Sandisk Sansa works that way, and it allows you to expand it with external memory, which you can edit as a memory stick

wunderbar · September 2009

if you're just looking for a small player, with drag and drop, I'd look at the SanDisk players. Something like the SanDisk Fuze, or even the new Clip+ if you want something tiny.

And as an added bonus, a player in the 4GB range from Sandisk will be in the low end of your price range, or even below.

tofu · September 2009

The second generation Zunes are all on sale now that the HD is out (they're all being discontinued). If you're in a Windows environment I would buy one of those.

Zilla360 · September 2009

A friend of mine just got a SanDisk Sansa Fuze, seems like a great buy if you can't afford an Ipod Touch.

wunderbar · September 2009

tofu wrote: »

The second generation Zunes are all on sale now that the HD is out (they're all being discontinued). If you're in a Windows environment I would buy one of those.

He wants an MP3 player you can just drag/drop files to, can't do that with zune, otheriwse I would have recommended that as well.

Mike Danger · September 2009

If you're solely looking to manage music on an iPod on Windows, you can probably swing it with foobar and the ipod plugin, if that's still around.

shadydentist · September 2009

songbird also can do iPods. I own a nano, and the thing is pretty sturdy, since its machined from one piece of aluminum.

As for drag/drop players, Sandisk makes very inexpensive ones. I had one for a while, it was okay.

Diarmuid · September 2009

I have one of these. It's quite good, not mind blowing, but it does what I need it to do. If you don't want an iPod it's a decent option.

logic7 · September 2009

When you plug in my Sandisk Sansa, the automounter in Windows pops up twice, once for the player and once for the microSD. The only annoyance I have with it is the amount of time to rebuild the database when you have a lot of stuff on it, and the fact that it rebuilds every time you turn it on if you have an SD card inserted (if not, it just turns on and off you go).

The great part is that the battery is user replaceable. You can also load up pictures on it to look at for whatever reason but the screen is too small to make this feature useful.

bamjo · September 2009

About the Sansa with the SD card, is the card the main memory component or an expansion? If I had one without a card, would it have any storage capacity?

shadydentist · September 2009

bamjo wrote: »

About the Sansa with the SD card, is the card the main memory component or an expansion? If I had one without a card, would it have any storage capacity?

Sansas come with their own memory. Actually, I would avoid using the SD storage if absolutely possible. This may not apply to the newer sansas, but mine would take almost a minute and a half to boot up if you inserted a 2 gb card mostly filled with music.

logic7 · September 2009

shadydentist wrote: »

bamjo wrote: »

About the Sansa with the SD card, is the card the main memory component or an expansion? If I had one without a card, would it have any storage capacity?

Sansas come with their own memory. Actually, I would avoid using the SD storage if absolutely possible. This may not apply to the newer sansas, but mine would take almost a minute and a half to boot up if you inserted a 2 gb card mostly filled with music.

^^^ That's the annoyance I was talking about earlier. My C210 has 2GB of space on it's own, and the only time it rebuilds the db is when you disconnect it from a PC. If you have the 2GB card in it, it rebuilds it EVERY TIME you turn it on. It's annoying, 'cause like shadydentist my 2GB card is pretty much full with an assload of tracks, so it DOES take a while to boot. Since I use it in my car most of the time, I just turn it on while I'm walking up to the ride, connect it to the cassette adapter, then by the time I've backed out of the driveway/parking spot, it's ready to go.

bamjo · September 2009

Thanks for all the advice guys, this helps me a lot.

Crashtard · September 2009

You might consider one of the Zen players from Creative. I used to own one and loved it. No software besides the drivers, easy drag and drop for loading music.

Penny Arcade

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