Best Mp3 Player?

[Laxation]

My iRiver is going through a phase of being a cunt right now, and i'm sick of its crappy shuffling.

What is a good mp3 to get these days? From what little I know about them, ipods seems overpriced - paying more for the label than the actual player.

The Cowon O2(32gb) and Archos 605(30gb) look good to me, except the Archos is $200 compared to $400 for the Cowon.

Does anyone have any info on these players, and others on the market?

Are ipods worth their price?

(fwiw, I would be looking to spend no more than $200, unless its really worth it)

[JBreezey]

I myself was an iRiver user for a fair many years ( H10 rockbox modified) and was a user of Mysticriver. That thing was my baby till the day it fell out of my pocket whilst running down escalators to catch my train. i felt like a little part of me died with it.

Needless to say, i was in your position. After hours of research i settled on an iPod Touch and heres why.

- jailbreak, this is the SOLE reason why i evidently got one.
- applications, theres one for anything you'll ever need
- podcasting made easy
- incredible interface, one of the easiest to navigate and best looking.
- beautiful video and photo viewing
- decent quality audio

Its basically an iPhone without the phone, camera or size. heres an example of how its effected my life. I wake up in the morning, check the days weather on it, download nba podcasts for listening on the train, fire up news apps to download reading material for the day, take it to the kitchen and read any new nba headlines/forums, listen to music/podcasts on it on the train and read news, and as we speak im posting this on my iTouch.

Have a play with one, if youre a techno geek like me it'll be a worthwhile investment

[tee-pane]

+1 on iPod touch
a lot of great features, msn messenger, live NBA score updates, maybe you could even use it for its PDA features. As long as there is Wifi you could even use safari.

[Oznogrd]

the only problem with ipods is you are required to use the piece of shit known as itunes. The program is hell on Windoze machines. I love my ipod and it is probably my only material possession i give a damn about...but...It really depends what you're looking for. Im all about getting as much space as possible so a touch was really infeasible for me. Also, im just not a fan of the touch screen. That's just something else that can break

[Laxation]

How much does wifi cost?

I'm totally ok with my mp3 player ONLY playing mp3s. The main thing I want is ease to use. Drag and drop preferably...

[buzzy]

How much does wifi cost?

I think he means WiFi being provided on some places like Starbucks or McDonald's. I'm sure you'll find an open WiFi network on every second corner in the States though (don't quote me on that one). (edit: in Australia anyway )

If you could go without all the frills of a Touch, - get the cheaper Nano or Classic depending on the amount of storage you need.
I got my Nano two years ago, still happy with it.

[Laxation]

Then I have to run itunes...

The Cowon S9 seems to be pretty good, a bit expensive though

[buzzy]

Seriously, what's so bad about iTunes?

[Laxation]

Id rather be able to drag and drop.
Outside of applications, I dont know anything good about ipods and itunes. I dont need or want applications, just a simple mp3 player that does what i tell it to.

Im open to hearing how itunes isnt bad or annoying though, as compared to drag n drop

[Oznogrd]

Its resource hungry, is a challenge to make playlists, is a challenge to to sort in a way that's logical if you dont have every bit of information. Automatic fill in of genres and things is iffy...
Alot of itunes is for the ease of users. the problem is that makes customization next to impossible.

[JBreezey]

There's other applications I'm sure that can sync iPods (I know that Winamp does).

If you have readily accessible WiFi internet services (I have WiFi at home and at Uni, the 2 places I spend a fair chunk of my time), then the iTouch really shines

[Laxation]

At home, I have a computer in my room. At uni, I deliberately take nothing with me that can access the net, otherwise I wont listen in lectures...

I think the extra $200 for a touch cant really be warranted, when all I would use it for is downloading podcasts. On the other hand, if I get something thats easy to use, then putting podcasts on won't be a hassle, and I'll have saved a couple hundred bucks.

[Andrew]

I've got a third generation Nano these days, it's served me well for just over a year now. Still keeping its charge for close to the advertised period of time, compared to the first generation that is lucky to keep its charge for half an hour. As such, I keep that one to use with the RoadTrip in the car. I wouldn't call iTunes flawless software, but I have to say I don't find it as cumbersome or annoying as other people do.

[Laxation]

Is it easy to put files on/off the ipod with itunes?

[Andrew]

I think so. You can actually drag and drop in iTunes, or copy/paste if you prefer. Removing is as easy as selecting the file(s) and hitting delete.

[el badman]

I realized I only needed a mp3 player to listen to music in my car, because I drive quite a lot each day. But ever since I bought a new stereo with CD player, that's really all I needed, I sold my 16GB Zune, which had battery problems, and that I was barely using anyway. I'd rather pop in a CD anytime of the day rather than using mp3s, that would probably seem strange for "younger" generations I guess...
I liked my previous iPod Nano better, but I really really couldn't stand iTunes anymore.

[Laxation]

Im going with the Cowon S9. Apparently its sound quality shits all over the ipod, and importantly, it has drag and drop!

[Martti.]

My Creative Muvo has worked for about 4 years without problems. Although I'm upgrading it for an iPod Touch in November.

[Oznogrd]

Another reason to hate itunes...i hadn't checked in awhile...90% of my "automatic" album artwork is wrong. Even easy ones like "Juno Soundtrack"...I'm currently fighting and copy/pasting out of google images and finding out three things.
1. Letting itunes count anything as a compilation makes it suck way worse
2. I should really do this as i get new stuff
3. Another gripe to have is how long info takes to adjust. Your song skips and if you're doing a mass of songs? (perhaps a lovely rolling stone 500 greatest songs taking away their album info)...it takes a few minutes and you cant do anything else while it's fixing that. Is that really necessary?

[Laxation]

The biggest compliment ive ever heard of itunes is that its 'not as bad as you've heard'.

[Joe']

I actually love iTunes, I'm a very organized person, though, and I actually enjoy taking my time to adjust every piece of information about my albums and make everything completely tidy. I hate it when my music library gets disorganized, most people like it, though, and those are the people who hate iTunes. I mean, obviously, if you put down "01.cant get you off my mind-lenny kravitz-" instead of "Can't get you off of my mind" on the "Song" field, it's not going to find the correct album artwork for that song.

Copying/pasting artwork from Google Images is not only impractical, but completely retarded (as is drag-n-drop): type down the correct info and, if it's in the store, it WILL find the correct artwork. If you don't know how the album is "referred to" in the iTunes Store, just check first. Not only will you get high-res artwork, you won't have to freaking look for it on Google. And I can assure you it actually takes a much shorter time.

As for drag-n-drop, it's even more retarded since it'll take you hours to find a particular song on your iPod/mp3 player, since everything's a mess...

[Oznogrd]

Joe'...i love mac..i love my ipod...but i just cant defend itunes. I have alot of singles...alot of stuff that i have no idea if it ever was on an album. Getting every piece of information will take way longer than just getting images due to the slow way itunes updates.....

I.E right now i have a song thats an acoustic rip from some radio station. I love this song. It wont let me update the info on it...period...

[tee-pane]

I actually love iTunes, I'm a very organized person, though, and I actually enjoy taking my time to adjust every piece of information about my albums and make everything completely tidy. I hate it when my music library gets disorganized, most people like it, though, and those are the people who hate iTunes. I mean, obviously, if you put down "01.cant get you off my mind-lenny kravitz-" instead of "Can't get you off of my mind" on the "Song" field, it's not going to find the correct album artwork for that song.

Copying/pasting artwork from Google Images is not only impractical, but completely retarded (as is drag-n-drop): type down the correct info and, if it's in the store, it WILL find the correct artwork. If you don't know how the album is "referred to" in the iTunes Store, just check first. Not only will you get high-res artwork, you won't have to freaking look for it on Google. And I can assure you it actually takes a much shorter time.

As for drag-n-drop, it's even more retarded since it'll take you hours to find a particular song on your iPod/mp3 player, since everything's a mess...

Sry, this is off-topic but...
My album artworks are messed up on my itouch, wrong pictures for wrong albums, videos, podcasts, genius playlists... Although in itunes, everything seems perfect. Anyway i can fix this?

[Oznogrd]

going through each one and checking it and fixing it is about your only choice.

[Laxation]

What if I dont want/care about album artwork?

My music is very organised, as far as albums/artist/songs go... so drag and drop is still organised. Its slow to put everything on originally, but once the bulk of my music is on - I find it much easier to just add and delete stuff as I go, which is why I like it.