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So, i'm finally in the market for an MP3 player, after having become fed up of my 10-year old albums skipping in my car. Any suggestions as to what I should get? Don't want to pay over the odds just for a name, so the ipod is out of the question. In fact, since I own fewer than 100 albums anyway, I can't imagine i'd need more than 8GB, maybe even only 4...

What are peoples' experiences with the Creative Zen Mosaic?? That seems very reasonably priced....

Don't assume it's just for a name...Nanos are better than Mosaics (unless you absolutelly flinch at the thought of iTunes/finding some other manager or at lack of support for wma)

If you don't need exact play control a used Shuffle is pretty cheap.

I have an 8GB Zen and love it. Yes, the ipods are nice, but you're paying a lot extra just for the name. There's only a few (and I mean a few) extras that the ipod has that some other players don't have. Keep the money in your pocket and look at the Creative line up.

If you're talking Shuffle type prices then there are absolutely zero features the iPods have other other players unless you're a heavy podcast listener. Otherwise the Shuffle is a poor option given its price, even old models.

awakeningcry wrote:

So, i'm finally in the market for an MP3 player, after having become fed up of my 10-year old albums skipping in my car. Any suggestions as to what I should get? Don't want to pay over the odds just for a name, so the ipod is out of the question. In fact, since I own fewer than 100 albums anyway, I can't imagine i'd need more than 8GB, maybe even only 4...

Get a Zune 120 before they go EOL and you can put all those albums on the Zune in lossless coding.

JJCDAD wrote:

Sansa Clip

This^^. Has what you need, doesn't have what you don't need. If you think you might want to take it out of the car now and then and watch video on-the-go, then for another thirty bucks you can get the Sansa Fuze. Coincidentally, it happens to be on sale for $50 right now, same as the regular price for the Clip.

There is also the recently launched Clip+ which adds an SD slot, could be handy for more music in the future. Newegg doesn't have it yet of course because they're doing the Neweggy thing of not listing new products until the old ones are sold down.

Skrying wrote:

If you're talking Shuffle type prices then there are absolutely zero features the iPods have other other players unless you're a heavy podcast listener. Otherwise the Shuffle is a poor option given its price, even old models.

Last.fm scrobbling support; all iPods keep a list of played tracks (yes, even that 512mb 1st gen Shuffle you can still sometimes find unused for 10 bucks or so). Players from other manufacturers generally don't, unless they are from a price bracket that is no longer that price competitive with iPod (or unless they support Rockbox, but this also excludes cheaper models). Yes, alternativelly you can scrobble using your phone as a media player, if yours has a scrobbler available, but a) I don't like to use up the battery of my mobile phone that way b) those that support scrobblers are generally more expensive than "cheap phone + media player" c) UIs for music on those phones completelly suck. Yes, I've tried it for some time.

(and please don't convince me I don't need it / "it doesn't count as a feature")

zima wrote:

Last.fm scrobbling support; all iPods keep a list of played tracks (yes, even that 512mb 1st gen Shuffle you can still sometimes find unused for 10 bucks or so). Players from other manufacturers generally don't, unless they are from a price bracket that is no longer that price competitive with iPod (or unless they support Rockbox, but this also excludes cheaper models). Yes, alternativelly you can scrobble using your phone as a media player, if yours has a scrobbler available, but a) I don't like to use up the battery of my mobile phone that way b) those that support scrobblers are generally more expensive than "cheap phone + media player" c) UIs for music on those phones completelly suck. Yes, I've tried it for some time.

(and please don't convince me I don't need it / "it doesn't count as a feature")

Unless I'm mistaken, this seems slightly inaccurate zima. Yes, all iPods keep track of the number of times a song has been played, when it was last played, and will update/append your iTunes library with these new playcounts upon the next sync. However, songs played on an iPod do not update or "scrobble" last.fm accounts. A possible exception goes to the iPhone, although I'm not sure on that, either.

zima wrote:

Last.fm scrobbling support; all iPods keep a list of played tracks (yes, even that 512mb 1st gen Shuffle you can still sometimes find unused for 10 bucks or so). Players from other manufacturers generally don't, unless they are from a price bracket that is no longer that price competitive with iPod (or unless they support Rockbox, but this also excludes cheaper models). Yes, alternativelly you can scrobble using your phone as a media player, if yours has a scrobbler available, but a) I don't like to use up the battery of my mobile phone that way b) those that support scrobblers are generally more expensive than "cheap phone + media player" c) UIs for music on those phones completelly suck. Yes, I've tried it for some time.

(and please don't convince me I don't need it / "it doesn't count as a feature")

I'm a big fan of Last.fm and I use iTunes. The problem with this though is that the Shuffle is really in an entirely different price category compared to other manufacturers products. A 4GB Sansa Clip is about $45~, the iPod Shuffle 4GB is about $80~. $30 doesn't seem worth it for me in this price category. Certainly though in a higher price bracket, Nano and up prices, I would consider it a nice feature (one I'd want) to have. It's a value question, not "it's not a feature!" nonsense. This falls into a similar area as podcasts. Super easy on an iPod thanks to iTunes. However, again... we're in the low budget realm where $30 is nearly the cost of the products... yeah. Value call.

Cowon all the way.
more file format support + best sound quality.

16GB version:
http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-Video-Playe ... =pd_cp_e_2

32GB:
http://www.amazon.com/Cowon-Video-Playe ... 376&sr=8-2

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Unless I'm mistaken, this seems slightly inaccurate zima. Yes, all iPods keep track of the number of times a song has been played, when it was last played, and will update/append your iTunes library with these new playcounts upon the next sync. However, songs played on an iPod do not update or "scrobble" last.fm accounts. A possible exception goes to the iPhone, although I'm not sure on that, either.

It is innacurate only when discussing iPod + iTunes funcionality out-of-the-box. Last.fm player plugs into iTunes to support scrobbling, some of the other iPod managers and audio players also do that (foobar does, if you're completelly anti-iTunes , with foo_dop and foo_audioscrobbler plugins ; and yes, even (usually not supported...) 1st gen Shuffle: http://www.lastpod.org/ , and BTW, "managers" (just copy files onto Shuffle disk from file manager and run the very small app (yes, the dreaded drag'n'drop)): http://shuffle-db.sourceforge.net/ http://koti.welho.com/hylinen/ipod/ ). While not strictly an iPod funcionality, it is enabled by its design, making iPods the cheapest dedicated audio players that support Last.fm.

Skrying wrote:

I'm a big fan of Last.fm and I use iTunes. The problem with this though is that the Shuffle is really in an entirely different price category compared to other manufacturers products. A 4GB Sansa Clip is about $45~, the iPod Shuffle 4GB is about $80~. $30 doesn't seem worth it for me in this price category. Certainly though in a higher price bracket, Nano and up prices, I would consider it a nice feature (one I'd want) to have. It's a value question, not "it's not a feature!" nonsense. This falls into a similar area as podcasts. Super easy on an iPod thanks to iTunes. However, again... we're in the low budget realm where $30 is nearly the cost of the products... yeah. Value call.

Fair enough, I just wanted to point out that iPods do have some nice functionality for their price. For me it was Last.fm support; I tired it for some time on Symbian S60 mobile phone, but even when only shuffling through tracks its music player is horrible (and eats battery). 1st gen Shuffle found for 15€ was a sensible choice for me (yeah, and I guess I'm one of the target demographic of "shuffle only player"; heck, I basically kept only one cassete in my Walkman for a few years; most I expect from my one playlist is for tracks to be grouped by mood, and since I modify the playlist very gradually there are no problems with navigation)...yeah. Value call.

The "scrobble:normal word" ratio in some of these posts is way too high.