I'm in the process of buying a new mp3 player as my Creative Zen Touch has finally died after a long battle of broken keys and random crashes. The problem being, i have no idea what's good anymore or where to even start looking for a new one to replace it. Essentially, i'm looking for suggestions or recommendations of what models people think are best or what to avoid. I would consider an ipod as that appears to be the default but im looking for the most out of my money, which i'm sceptical the ipod gives you. I'm wanting something in the range of 80gigs space; good music organisation; not too fussed if it has movie player as well - i mainly want it for the music and doesn't have a terrible program to transfer music onto it. Any suggestion are very welcome!
To be honest, I'd go for an iPod. The classic version is 80GB and comes in either white or black. They've improved even more over the last model. They were always a bit overpriced in the past, but I think they have got a reasonable price tag at the moment. The only thing I personally dislike about the new one is the split-screen album browsing. My music-database does not contain the albums for the cd's so this means that the left part of the screen is black most of the time. I hope they incorporate a way to turn that off in the near future. Maybe add some extra useful data instead of the silly artwork. The big difference with an iPod compared to every other music player is that you will need to use iTunes, if you don't already this could take some time to import everything the way you want it too. It also requires a rather 'clean' & consistent database to start out with; not folder wise, but the tags inside of your music. Ones you get past that though, it's fantastic. Good luck on your choice, but my vote goes to the iPod Classic any day.
As someone who thinks that Apple is 60% hype and 40% product, and who actually enjoys doing research and thinking before jumping, I highly recommend an iPod Classic. (I have an iPod Video, and while I would never trade it for a "Classic", I'd probably buy a classic if I didn't have one.) The only downside I see to the new line is the A/V cables don't work, you have to buy new Apple branded docks and whatnot. (I have an old Apple branded video dock with S-video out that refuses to work with my wife's Nano, but we don't use our iPods for video anyway.) Of course I never buy iTunes music, and I only rip to MP3, but after getting used to it, I quite enjoy the iPod and iTunes. There are still some basics that iTunes doesn't handle very well (such as letting me manage multiple iPods' podcast subscription under the same username, my wife and I listen to the same podcasts, and if I sync first, it marks most as read and she never gets them), but for the most part it is very intuitive and they are always improving on it as people give recommendations. There are still other very good brands out there, like Creative Labs, iRiver, and Archos, many of which have more features than the iPod, but you won't find the compatibility with other devices that you'll find with iPod. (Of course, I still only use analog speakers, I refuse to lock myself into my specific player by buying a digital speaker set... that's just silly.) Keep in mind this is coming from someone who is not a huge fan of Apple products (not a hater of Apple products either), and who did a few months of research before settling for the iPod. Looking for my wife's MP3 player, I was happy to show her the cool Sansa SD expandable players that did all the iPod nano did and more, and did it for cheaper, but the menu was a little clunky for her, and that day the new nanos came out for the same price as the Sansa player we were looking at. It became a reluctant no-brainer. (I never like spending money on things that are popular, I just feel like a sheep when I do, but sometimes there is a reason it is popular.) Hope this longwinded post helps.
Thanks a bunch everyone, that has made things a lot easier! I will have a look at both the ipod classic and zune just to make sure which one will suit me best, but i am swaying towards the ipod from all the comments so far. Although OneSeveteen you've given a pretty nice run down of the ipod already! Thanks for that
iPod nano, if 8gb is enough it's an amazing tiny player with an excellent screen does a load of other cool stuff too.
Nothing that i know off in the Creative range has near 80gb of storage, which to my knowlegde leaves the ipod. (Never thought i would say this) but an ipod is prob your best bet, however, if you don't mind having 60gb, then the Creative Zen Vision M would be my ultimate choice. Sam
Creative actually don't make any HDD-based MP3 players anymore, and although the Vision:M is a nice player with a decent spec, it is a bit dated and bulky now. I don't wanna harp on like a fanboy, but wait for the Zune 80s to come out on the 13th and see what the reviews say- technically it's a great player: Slim, large screen, Wifi, FM Tuner, great navigation...much more going for it than the Classics imo- which as I said are great players, but apart from the iPod ecosystem don't seem to offer too much in the way of features, and don't appear to offer the best sound quality in the iPod line. <A88>
I'd go for any of the latest sony products now that they are drag and drop (no sonic stage needed anymore). The sound quality is far superior to that of the ipod's and the creatives (i've had both).
