Posted: 5/24/2008 3:49:25 PM EDT
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I'm looking for an MP3 player. It will be mounted in my company truck for music/audiobooks/podcasts. My requirements are: -Huge storage capacity. No tiny 4GB flash-based players, something 20GB+ -Decent battery life -Durable enough to take the heat/cold of staying in a car 24/7 -No strict DRM nonsense. I want to be able to put anything on it from any source -A slick video screen is not a necessity, since I'll likely never watch a video on it I've had good luck with a Creative Zen hard drive based model in the past, but the headphone jack has since failed. I didn't like the Creative software either - too slow and buggy for me. Since then I haven't kept up with the new models from Sony, MS, Sandisk, etc etc. Any suggestions? |
Alright, good to know - I always thought the ipods/itunes were tricky with DRM. I'll keep the 80GB ipod classic as an option. So that's one vote for iPod. Thanks. |
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Flash based ain't all bad with the benefit of battery life. I upgraded to a Sansa E280 (8GB). Nice. Great battery life. Holds all the albums I want even at 320 KBPs bitrate. I can add add 2 GB more which I haven't found a need for. If you are careful can get flash-based that is upgradeable with even more memory. Course an Ipod classic may fit the bill nice with large buttons in the truck. |
Ipods themselves are great pieces of hardware, simple, streamlined, idiotproof. The problem is not playing music/whatever you have, it's that you can't play music bought off of Itunes on anything else or another media player. If you hate dealing with Apple/Itunes there is this: www.mgtek.com/dopisp/ It lets you use windows media player to sync the Ipod without using any Apple software  . You have to pay, but I have "heard" of ways to get around that
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I vote for the iPod also. I have one. One detail: technically, while iPod can use MP3, it uses a better standard called MP4. It can use a variation of MP4 called "Apple Lossless". In short, MP3 compression can lose you some sound fidelity, especially for "difficult" types of music like classical, jazz or electronic. It is less critical for '50s and '60s rock (because they were highly compressed to begin with) and word oriented things like Rap. Apple Lossless MP4 encodes and decodes the music WITHOUT ANY LOSS OF FIDELITY. YOU CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE between MP3 and MP4. The Apple iPods support MP4 and Apple Lossless MP4. Most of the other brands do not. I suggest iPods. Also, the iPod audio circuitry was designed for high fidelity sound. You often get what you pay for, and the inexpensive MP3s sound TERRIBLE. Hope this helps. 
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At some point I'd love to get a Zune I've tried one out at Best Buy and like it. Then again, I've used my sister's iPod and liked it. From what I hear though, you can put any source on a Zune, but you have to do a LOT of converting on an iPod. |
| IPOD, kind of off topic but here vixy.net/ you can turn You Tube vids into just about anything, download the converter it works best. ITunes sucks donkey balls. |
Negatory. Straight MP3s can go straight onto your iPod. If you rip CDs in iTunes then they get ripped to the (good) MP4 standard. |
+1, I use mine at work constantly and I can go for a couple of days without having to charge it back in. Also the sharing abilities are awesome. Only thing I dislike about the Zune is not being able to do a video playlist. Mine has been through heat and cold, though the cold does seem to zap the battery some. They are now 80 gig and have a pretty big video screen vs. the Ipod Video. I did quite a bit of research and tried a few out before I got my Zune and I wouldn't go back. |
You are asking for too much actually... anything with that capacity will be hard drive based, and have a display. No display is going to take kindly to below freezing temps. Also may be a concern for any Lithium battery packs, I'm unsure to what extremes they can withstand. |
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I got an 80 gig ipod classic. I like it for the most part. Pretty slick... Ipod video converter I use that program to rip dvd's and put them on my ipod. I've got most of the arfcom classics on it, red dawn, heat, dawn of the dead, planet terror..... |
I got a black 30gig with the travel kit Im looking to sell, |
How much music do you have? I have a 4gm ipod nano that I got as a gift. It still has tons and tons of room. If it wasn't big enough, they make 8gb ones too for $50 more. |
I have one and I love it. Great battery life. It'll play about anything. Comes with a program to manage it but WMP will sync right up to it with no problems.. |
I have about 300Gb, an assload of CDs not ripped yet... and that doesn't take into account the DVD movies/concerts I use my media player for. |
How is the compatibility of a ipod with a PC that runs Windows XP? I have a ton of CDs I want to put on a device and I'm not certain which is the best way to go. |
