What kind of MP3 player are people using?? - Page 2

depends on how loudly the professor is speaking, if you can hear him/her fine then the recorder will pick it up at a slightly lower volume
and i haven't tried it yet, but i'm sure if you get an actual mic you would get better input
my suggestion- pick one up from a local circuit city, try it out, if you don't like it return it for a full refund

iRiver Slimx 350 with FM tuner. Was one of the 100 people in the US to buy one, got the bag to prove it.
Yeah it's CD-R based but I've 60 cd's of Furthur downloads and the BBC broadcast of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy to keep my ears busy at work.
Rechargeable batteries (last 24hrs straight) plust a nice remote LCD display.


P.S. if you want an iRiver messenger type bag. Give me your address and pay the shipping and you can have it.

Personally I'm not a fan of the iPod because of its custom hard drive and battery. I'd like to be able to open the device and replace these parts. Maybe they've gone modular with the newer models?

My criteria for an MP3 player was:
1. Runs on rechargeable AA or AAA batteries
2. No moving parts (solid-state design)
3. Compact Flash media is the storage medium
4. Good sound (low noise and programmable EQ)

I ended up getting a Frontier Labs Nex IIe MP3 player which met all of the above. The parametric equalizer has presets, but it's also programmable

The latest model now has a radio tuner and voice recorder - you can also record radio programs straight to the memory card), and the players all support MP3, MP3Pro and WMA formats.

There are 4 of the players in my household (2 for me, 2 for family members) and I'm looking forward to getting their newest model later this year

This is the Frontier Labs website in case anyone was curious. I bought mine from MP3 Player Store and there's also good prices for the players on eBay. I got a PCMCIA Compact Flash reader for $5 off eBay and leave it in my 8887's slot permanently. I pop in the flash memory and recycle my MP3s from the library I've built on one of the hard drives, pop the card back in my player and I'm good for hours on end

I go running with it, I work with it, and I lie in bed listening to old radio shows on it till I fall asleep, and I often wake up in the morning and find it still playing, while lodged under my arm, poking me in the neck, or trying to hide in my boxers. I lose so many earbuds...

The player may not be for everyone, but I can't part with mine.

Cheers!
- keal

Archos MP3

Anyone thinking about buying an Archos Multimedia player needs to go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/archosmultimedia/
and listen to the complaints of the unhappy Archos customers there. I haven't been there for a few weeks since I decided not to buy one because of all the problems. Things like poor quality, paint peeling off, no replacement batteries available, bad software, etc.

-- Daryl

Mr. Me, nope, and no one else (except perhaps Steve Jobs himself) does It should be soon though -- next couple months I'd imagine.

For those of you that think the iPod has moving parts, it no longer does. It's also smaller and lighter (weighs less than 2 cds!).

Sure there are cheaper alternatives, but you get what you pay for (IMHO). I can hardly fathom the lousy quality of the camera, recorder, toothbrush, whatever available elsewhere. And they probably transfer songs through USB, which is snail speed compared to the Firewire connection on the iPod.

Mr. Me, many alternatives have been listed, and some sound better than others. If you're spending the bucks, I'd check em out in person beforehand -- including a trip to a local Apple store if one's nearby.

USB 2.0 is as fast if not faster than firewire....

Neison,

I recently purchased the 30GB IPod and it does infact have moving parts, its called a HARD DRIVE.

ROFL USB 2.0 is much faster than first generation USB of course, but is not as fast as Firewire, I won't even bother finding specs on this.

ajtmcse -- you're right, I wasn't thinking in comparison of HD vs. memory/flash card. I was thinking of the the old iPod having buttons and a moving 'wheel' whereas the new one is touch sensitive.

edit -- I will find specs, here's one page of many USB 2.0 vs FireWire

Notice that FireWire is over 70% faster than USB 2.0

Actually in theory, USB 2.0 is a bit fater than FireWire (IEEE 1394). FireWire can transfer data up to 400 megabits per second while the new USB 2.0 specification promises data transfer rates of 480 mbps, which is 80 mbps faster than FireWire. But in real world many of FireWire devices still work faster than USB 2.0. I think that's because USB 2.0 is still new(compare to 4-5 years old FireWire) and they use CPU power to handle all tasks unlike FireWire which have its own DSP chip to process tasks.

Agreed Kasteo -- as per the article I linked too. But the speed differences in real world application are a bit staggering.

But let's not forget about FireWire 800 which is now available. Not available on Sager (yet), but on Apple's new products -- though I'm not sure if the iPod uses it yet

Info on the apple iPods

My co-worker picked up a 20GB iPod off of eBay last week, and it came with no cables. There's only a firewire port on this model, so we tested it with my Sager 8887. It works great, and you'll need the freeware Ephpod from this site to transfer songs to the player. His iPod is a Windows-formatted drive, and if you have a Mac-formatted drive, you will need the Ephpod program and also MacOpener to access files on the iPod. MacOpener needs to be purchased, though... so if you can choose, make sure you get the Windows iPod.

Here's the essential info. The iPod works flawlessly through the 8887's firewire port. It also charges the battery while plugged in, so you can forego a power adapter. If you get the iPod power adapter, it's actually a firewire cable with an adapter at the end, so you don't need a firewire cable if you get the power adapter.

My coworker then went and bought a Maxtor firewire card for his desktop at home. He found out that the Maxtor card is incompatible with the iPod. If you are in this situation, save yourself the trouble and get an Adaptec firewire card (3 ports, 30 dollars).

Connecting the iPod to your PC, it will show up as a removable drive, and you can drag and drop files directly to it, but if you do that with songs it won't show up on the iPod's menu. You need to use the Ephpod software or the special version of Musicmatch Jukebox that comes packaged with the iPod to transfer songs to the player, so that it can add the songs to the playlist file that the iPod refers to. Turning on the iPod, it doesn't scan the drive for songs - it just loads the playlist file.

Copying songs from the iPod back to a PC is tricky - you can't do it from within the Ephpod software. And going into My Computer and browsing the drive, you'll only see the folders for the playlists. You have to go into the Windows Folders settings and take the checkmark off of the 'Do not show hidden files and folders'. Once you do this, you'll see the hidden folder in the iPod that has all the songs inside. From here you can copy the songs to the PC.

It's fairly easy to figure out the iPod, and the sound is good. It's not my kind of player, so I don't think I'll be getting one anytime soon. But if you want one, I'm certain you won't regret it. It's solidly built and it's got a nice interface. And it works flawlessly with Windows, and the 8887!