need a quality MP3 Player

I'm going to safely assume this will turn into an ipod vs zen vision m thread

Depends...

It all depends on your usage, of course.

I have had two iPods til now, and the reason I bought the second after the first died after 11 months was all the accessory junk i had aquired. If you dont do too much customization the iPod is fine. It automatically renames and organizes your mp3 files if youre not looking - some hate it others find it simplifying - and you have to use it with Apples dedicated software, iTunes.

I have now the 60 Gig video, and though this one too nearly died on me (you hear the HD scratch like a chalk on a board) it is still working. But i suspect i need a new one before the end of this year. They are not sturdy. The video is cool but small, low volume, and lasts only 2 hours. I imagine a bigger screen would just suck more battery, so that part is a trade-off. You need an extra battery pack for watching more than one film anyway. Also you need to buy film conversion software from, say, DVD to iPod format, separately. But it has a nice wake up/sleep function i use all the time, as well as calendar, contacts and whatnot which i dont use.

I have friends who have the iAudio X5, and they are almost as fanatical about the unit as the iPod people were just a year or two ago. Apart from the playlist - which you can organize on your computer but not on the unit - it gets rave reviews, with awesome battery life. I dont understand what you mean by not able to sort by artist - i think that just depends on what folder system youre using.

Aslo, you plug it in without drivers to any PC, and it will function as a drag and drop HD/MP3 unit - as opposed to the iPod, which need iTunes and a dedicated PC for the unit.

Hey tlo.

I have the X5, and to answer your question, no, the latest firmware (including the beta firmware I'm running) does not support ID3.

However, I like the freedom of the iAudio's explorer organization, but that's just personal preference. My reasoning? Like many people I know, my 30+ gigs of MP3's and their respective ID3s are shot to hell, and I have no time to fix each one. Even if I had the time to automate this, the tags that most programs pull from the 'net are sometimes too accurate; by this I mean that if I have a song by John Doe, and he has a song on the same album featuring Jane Doe, this is tagged and then often MP3 players will put this song in a seperate folder altogether, depending on browsing variables. I end up retagging just as much. It's easier just to drag & drop songs into folders I create on the X5, because it is mounted as a hard drive. There is an auxiliary USB jack on the side that mounts the unit as a WMA-compliant media player if you download from Napster or Rhapsody, etc.

Also, the iAudio has a bunch of extra features, like FM radio/recording, line-in recording, voice recording, but many people don't need this if all they want is a straight up PMP, though I find I use them a lot. The sound quality is also very tweakable, with a 5-band EQ and licensed sound processing courtesy of BBE and a few other companies that slip my mind. I will say this though, and this is important: the screen is HORRIBLE. "Viewing" angles are almost non-existent, it's grainy, and videos look terrible. Playing a quick music video or a few minutes of a particularly good movie scene are OK to show off to your buds, but don't expect to watch even a full-length television episode on it. For displaying your music info, though, it's more than sufficient.

Of course, if you have a stellar MP3 collection, perfectly tagged, then by all means, get a Creative Zen Vision:M. That used to be my primary player before this X5 and is now used by my wife. I stand behind it because it is far and away the closest thing to a perfect PMP I can find. The screen obliterates the iPod video's (even hardcore Appleheads will agree), and it has a wider format support. It does tend to lean on the treble a bit, but the EQ helps alleviate this a lot.

If you need any further help, it's just a PM or post away. I've owned a bunch so let me know.

-Brian

Ipod any time wins with the competition

I have a Zen Vision M and love the thing to bits. I went from an ipod mini (eh) to a zen touch 40gb (pretty cool) to the vision m (sexiest player ever). I use the media explorer to import all my video and stuff. It's pretty easy just drag a drop. and it plays both mp3 and wma. It also comes with a lot of easy to use utilities to compress video and what not and there's a lot 3rd party software to find on the 'net. If i wanted i can set up my player as a music server that puts out an address and i can access it with all its files from any other computer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...SubCategory=23

I have been looking at a few different players and this is what I have come down to unless someone else can add to the list which one would you guys get.

I have a mac and pc so iTunes isnt a hugh issue but my buddies iPod crap out on him after 8 months so that isnt cool.

At this stage I prefer the ipods with rockbox installed. I have the iAudio X5L, it's ok but kinda delicate and bulky. I don't recommend it anymore. My fav is the iRiver H120/140, but it's hard to find and a little antiquated. I will never suggest creative products as history has proven they sell mostly crap.

The Rockbox firmware supports all of those players(not creative's) and also supports tag browsing, but I don't know many people that use that. The only downside to an ipod is no fm tuner or line in recording.

If you hurry, woot.com has a 5Gb Rio Carbon for $99 with speakers.

The thing is with X5 id3 tagging; it can either be changed in the options to be seen by title or Id3, but its not native id3 support. I have had the X5 30GB(not L version) for a year or so and its been amazing. Great sound and is alot better looking than the ipod. Have fun with it, its worth the money.

there are linux programs out there that read vison:M... i got it to work but i forgot the damn program name. But ohh well... you still got a good player.

i use RockBox H300 Experimental v1.01 build on my iRiver H320 and its pretty damn sxy

i do agree that the H120 is a l33t player, though I <3 my H320 over an iPod anyday.

Last i checked ipod rockbox is still hard lagging behind the Archos and iRiver development branches

Not that it matters much but you guys definately gave the iPod a pretty unfair spin. While it does have its downsides many of the most common ones can be easily fixed. I HATE iTunes it is HORRIBLE and everyone knows it. http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/ go there and get that...simple fix it works great. Drag and drop ease. As far as "It automatically renames and organizes your mp3 files if youre not looking" that is just flat out wrong. If you tell ITUNES which I have already stated sucks, to manage your library it will do it for you and it will do a quite horrible job but even using that atrocious program you can simply tell it not to mess with your music. The renaming aspect is not at all iTunes OR the iPod that is messing with your music. You put it on there and it gives it a name based on the id3 tag that YOU have set. Changing id3 tags really isn't that hard and there are plenty of programs out there that will do it in batches. In the end I probably will end up switching to a non iPod mp3 player next time if something else happens to be the best when I want to buy it. When I bought my iPod 5th gen it was the only one of its kind and i got it for $379 with a 2 year satisfaction money back guarantee

Help got my friend the new sansa from sandisk. Having a Ipod mini and tried a nano, and used my friend's Ipod video. I say i love the sansa a lot more. Only drawback I believe is that the buttons to change songs is kinda small hence not as easy as the ipod to change, but seeing how I tend to use mp3s on the go (hiking and such) the buttons are still a lot better than the clickwheel in terms of changing songs.

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Cata...3_Players.aspx

Just to make sure this is fully on its way to becoming an iPod thread:


Its not. By when youre not looking, I mean when you are unaware. The "Let iTunes manage you library" is the default setting in iTunes. When you first start out importing your MP3 files via iTunes onto your player, it WILL rename your files. Getting the MP3 filenames back to normal takes a shitload of time for a 40GB plus library, especially since iTunes also creates new folders for each song on a compilation (It sorts by artist).

Fortunately I had a complete backup of my MP3s, or Id have a lot more work than I needed. Eventually, of course, you know that this is the first setting to change when installing iTunes, but it still sucks.

Regarding the other posts, I think there is a difference between flash disk players and HD Players. Im only in the market for 60GB plus players, and therefore both Zen and Creative both are out of the question.

And if you realllly, realllly, realllly, realllly, realllly, realllly, absolutely realllly want an iPod, just because the other shee-ple do, you can use the iPod plug-in for WinAmp.