MP3 Player Bleg
Looking at getting relatively inexpensive MP3 player for the car. Something like this. It must have a random/shuffle feature. Any recommendations? I don’t want an iPod.
24 Responses to “MP3 Player Bleg”
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June 10th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Sansa makes a great line of players.
I’ve bought several for my kids over the years. They last a long time, good battery life and most have ports for expansion cards.
http://www.sansa.com/players
June 10th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I’d second the Sansa recommendation. However, do not leave it in your car all the time. The batteries used in these players cannot take the temperature extremes from being stored in a car all the time, unless you are always parked in a climate controlled garage. I have had batteries freeze and fail, and then looked it up and found that they can also overheat and burst.
Regards,
Pol
June 10th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Why not an iPod? Frankly at this point getting any other player is an uphill battle. Especially if sometime in the future you want some sort of car-audio integration. The one you linked to even looks like an iPod nano.
I have used a full sized iPod (original iPod, third gen, fifth gen, and now an iPod classic) in my car since they came out. The big tactile wheel makes it easy to operate by feel to do things like play/pause and skip tracks.
But yeah, if you really don’t want an iPod, a Sansa is a good choice too, as is the original Zune, which can be had cheap if you look around.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Spendy and I hate itunes with a passion.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Uncle,
I hated itunes and pod for years too but they really do make an excellent product. Once you get things organized in itunes, you just plug it in an sync and it’s taken care of. The software on the ipod itself sorts music most efficiently. They are a high quality build, attractive, and dependable. Just get a nano. Also, if your car has steering wheel audio controls, think about getting the USA SPEC integration kit. I just installed one in my new car and it charges the ipod and controls playlists, next songs, volume etc..
Buy right or buy twice…
June 10th, 2009 at 11:45 am
To each his own, but I would also seriously reconsider your position on iTunes/iPod. Music management is very fast and efficient with iTunes. Click and drag makes setting up playlists a breeze. The ipod itself I think is superior to any other MP3 player. A buddy of mine went the “anything but an iPod” route and ended up getting one anyway after being displeased with what he had.
The key though is to get yourself a good quality head unit for your vehicle compatible with your iPod. I have 35 gigs of music sitting in my glove box which i never have to open to dick around with. All done through the deck. Pricey up front, but definitely worth it if you are serious about your music management.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
p.s…. I am one of the only people left on the planet who still does not own a cell phone. Not even a Jitterbug!
So take my technology comment FWIW. 😉
June 10th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I’d recommend a SanDisk Sansa. I personally don’t own one (yet), but I bought a 256MB SanDisk MP3 player several years ago and it has worked just fine. If you just want to play music and don’t want to pay a fortune, SanDisk is the way to go.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
My wife and I have had Sony Walkman players for several years and have been very satisfied with them. I chose the Walkman over an iPod because they have a built in FM player.
We have the model previous to the one in the link. The model we have has the headphone jack on the top as opposed to the bottom.
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Walkman-Video-Player-Black/dp/B001F50UHM/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1244653769&sr=1-7
June 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
QQ moar nub. Wha, I want an MP3 player but not an iPod! I want a car but not a gasoline one! I want a good looking woman but not one with boobs or a nice ass!
June 10th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
your analogies make no sense.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I’ll second (or more like 5th) the recommendation for an iPod (or iPhone for that matter). Apple does make a fantastic product and you’re generally not saving much with other players..plus there are tons of accessories out there designed for iPod and iPhone. You can also go the Apple site and get a refurb if you want to save a little money.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I had a Sansa, and it died fairly quickly. My most recent buy was a Sony Walkman mp3 player. They do video as well as mp3s for about 50-70 USD. I have a non FM version, but it has good size 2.4inch screen. Makes break time a bit more enjoyable. If you chose to use the video feature, you may want better software though. Otherwise, for mp3, the layout of both the screens and controls are good, sound is superior, and its a good size. Harder to find accessories for it, but I found a cellphone case that has access for its headphone jack too.
June 10th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
As a pretty much die hard iPod/Apple fan, I have to third or fourth or fifth Sandisk. I love the iPod for all it can do, but it just doesn’t fit the requirements of cheap and easy.
I got a 2GB Sansa Clip last Christmas for my mom on sale at Best Buy I think for about $30 bucks. It is TINY, sounds great, you can just drag & drop songs onto it, and it can do shuffle. $42 bucks on Amazon. And if she can figure out how to use it and not kill it, then it has to be good!
The one thing I really liked about it…..the interface was standard miniUSB, which means you don’t get stuck (like with the iPod) having to find a proprietary cable that’ll cost you 10-20 bucks.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Avoid creative and zune. They both are garbage. My friend’s and my creative both died within a year. The Zune’s sync is the ugliest, least helpful computer program I have ever encountered.
I use a 8 gb sansa e280 or something now. Solid player, but unfortunately the scroll wheel is busted now.
My friend’s Ipod is pretty nifty, about 200+ for a 120 gb 6th gen. If it was not apple, I would probably get one myself.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Ah that’s right BigFrank, I forgot to mention the easy drag and drop ability of the SanDisk players. Plug it in and your PC recognizes it as mass storage, just like your flash drive. Drag and drop your tunes, even arrange in folders if you like, and away you go. You can even put other files on there if you want it to double as your thumb drive.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Definitely Sansa Clip. Inexpensive and easy to use. Click and drag or use Windows Media Player to sync. Be sure to update the firmware – for some reason they usually ship with outdated rev.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Dude,
Go with the Sandisk Sansa. You can find refurbs in the 4-8 GB range for under $50. They are well worth it!
June 10th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Uncle, do you want to be the guy that buys a linux computer when you just want to do blogging and photos and basic stuff? I hate apple computers and I use a PC but the iPod is the real deal. Do they even sell accessories for those other players? What if you need a charger for the car or travel? Is is able to integrate into your car radio’s controls? Plus the music management of itunes/ipod is second to none out there.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Sansa.
It’s the Glock of digiTunes.
(Where Glock = reasonably priced, reliable handgun, rather than some over rated omnipotent holy relic of mystical perfection and veneration)
June 11th, 2009 at 4:07 am
Gonna recommend Sansa as well. I bought a Zune (because I didn’t want an iPod) and have regretted it ever since. Turns out, the features that are important to me are:
1. Good battery life. This usually means no stupid shit like LCD screens that show album covers.
2. Ease of use. I should be able to plug it in, have my computer recognize it as a drive, and drag’n’drop my music on it. Any device requiring extra software (other than maybe drivers) to do that are a waste of money and time.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Eh, I swore of iAnythings a very long while back, and have been very happy ever since. I highly recommend just about anything Creative Labs produces, and I seem to recall that they make some teensy-assed little thing like the Shuffle, only it actually has a screen. My Zen Vision:M is about four years old now, has seen two deployments, and has had nary an issue… not to mention it was great fun to have the iPod junkies ask me how I got a background on the interface (something iPods could not / cannot do). With drag-and-drop file transfer, with the option to partition off part of the hard drive as an external drive, and I was pretty much set.
Otherwise, anything made by SanDisk appears to be easy to use, given they also make removable storage cards/drives/etc.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Check woot.com. It’s a one deal a day company out of Texas. You can get different mp3 players (refurbs usually) there pretty cheap. I prefer the Sansa 260 running Rockbox firmware, mainly because Rockbox supports sdhc cards, so for 40 bucks plus the price of the card you can have 30+ GB storage.
And just because you have an iPod doesn’t mean you’re stuck with iTunes. Songbird or Winamp (and others) will manage iPods just fine. Rockbox even has firmware replacements for the older iPods.
June 11th, 2009 at 8:20 am
If you are talking super-cheap, dealextreme.com has a number of mp3 players in the sub $20 zone.
Free shipping, 3-6 week wait