Ipod Or Alternatives Discussion

[Warpshade]

You want an mp3/media player with 120GB+ space, warranty, decent battery life?

It's a fairly simple requirement, but I said I'd ask around on her behalf for alternatives to the iPod, since she's not a very big fan of Apple but will get an iPod if she has to.
Any suggestions, or is the iPod the best choice here? Thanks in advance.

 

[(naw)mcx]

Can't beat a Zen for sound quality.

 

[danielliu88888]

shit, 120gb+?

 

[Nova]

The only iPod with that kinda capacity is the classic, which I've heard are quite unreliable. Try something by Cowon? Or I've heard good things about the Zune 120.

 

[Tag5]

120GB is pretty excessive for music alone. How long would it take to listen to it all without any repeats? I have a 2GB MP3 player and thats more then enough for my car. I've only used up about 300MB which roughy gives about 4 hours of music. I will be adding more to it but just a pain to convert them from CD. Just pretty lazy I guess. Imagine searching for a song on the 120GB version.

 

[fischju2000]

Archos does up to 250gb players, not a bad price, $190 for 250gb http://www.amazon.com/Archos-250-Internet-Media-Tablet/dp/B001D0E4DA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262039677&sr=1-1 - This is not the model that runs Android, which is $100+ more.

 

[daclassicgamingmaster]

120GB is pretty excessive for music alone. How long would it take to listen to it all without any repeats? I have a 2GB MP3 player and thats more then enough for my car. I've only used up about 300MB which roughy gives about 4 hours of music. I will be adding more to it but just a pain to convert them from CD. Just pretty lazy I guess. Imagine searching for a song on the 120GB version.

Some people (myself included) like to have all their music in one place. I personally keep my current ~22GB of music on an external drive as well as my 60GB 5th gen ipod. Very rarely do I seek out a single track; rather, I listen to music via artist. I assume there are many people like me.

When it's time to upgrade ipods, I hope to get one that is even more massive than my current one.

 

[Ravnos]

Some people (myself included) like to have all their music in one place.

This. I generally have a large chunk of my music collection on my mp3 player at any given time. I might not listen to it all constantly, but sometimes I get the urge to listen to something I wouldn't normally think of or a situation makes me think of a band or song, or I'm listening to one band and want to hear something else like it when the album finishes, or whatever. I also tend to listen to music by album, which takes up space. Basically, I'm a music nerd and I like to have a variety with me at any given time. That's great for you that you don't feel the need to have a PMP with a ton of space, Tag5. I do, and so I need a player with a lot of space.

As for the original topic, I have an Archos 605 160GB. It's ok, I imagine the newer Archos devices are better. The firmware is kind of unresponsive and the battery life isn't so great but I can get through a day with it going non-stop. I plug it in and my PC treats it like an external hard drive, which was a huge selling point to me as I hate using iTunes or whatever to load up my MP3 Player. On the downside, you have to pay for some of the codecs, and everything except the headphones has a proprietary plug, but that last thing is true of just about every PMP. More players need to just use USB on both ends. If you need capacity and don't want an iPod Classic, it's really the only choice, which is kind of a shame because it's not a great choice, but I'm happier with it than I was with my iPod.

 

[danielliu88888]

listening by album is the best.

 

[Titcher]

You people must have massive music collections, I keep discographies in FLAC on my 30GB ipod video and I don't run out of space.

 

[fischju2000]

250gb is a lot for just music, but the Archos 5 has a great 800x480 screen and doesn't need transcoding to play most media files (Last I heard it couldn't play mkvs, but h264 and xvid avis work) - I have about 60gb of music, but only have a 4gb Archos 605 and 16gb SD card. The 5 also has an great Opera browser with flash.