Suggest me MP3 players

What I want :

At minimum 6GB storage
Nice interface (Absolutely need on-the-go playlists)
Not Apple
High quality sound (but don't care about included earphones)
Pocketable (Under 100g and the smaller the better while remaining with a useful user interface)

What I'd Like :

Changeable battery

Gimmicks I'd Like :

FM Radio and fm radio recording capability
Sound recorder

What I don't care about :

Videos
Photos
Colour screen


I've been searching for a while, but so far haven't found the one.

Creative Zen X-Fi
http://www.anythingbutipod.com ... eative-zen-xfi-review.php

Why not Apple?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Why not Apple?

Too expensive?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Why not Apple?

Because of iTunes...!

why buy one, u'll get killed for it anywayz

Quote from Lible :

Suggest me MP3 players

What I want :

At minimum 6GB storage
Nice interface (Absolutely need on-the-go playlists)
Not Apple
High quality sound (but don't care about included earphones)
Pocketable (Under 100g and the smaller the better while remaining with a useful user interface)

What I'd Like :

Changeable battery

Gimmicks I'd Like :

FM Radio and fm radio recording capability
Sound recorder

What I don't care about :

Videos
Photos
Colour screen


I've been searching for a while, but so far haven't found the one.

I've just ordered a Cowon iAudio 7, don't know about the playlists and has a fixed battery pack, but has everything else you ask for... Another one I've heard only good things about is the Meizu M6, which has Apple-like playlists, but also a fixed battery pack and it's only 4 GB...

I've got the larger Cowon iAudio X5, no complaints with it although it doesn't meet all the criteria on your wishlist. Rockbox runs on it fine too (although you lose their fancy propriety sound features, investing more money in earphones and portable amps cures that issue anyway).

Just adding my support for the brand in general really.

I don't want Apple mainly because of iTunes and the price.

I guess I can let the replacable battery go, but the on-the-go playlist is a much as I mostly like to listen to music track-by-track rather than album-by-album. Mostly I even listen to music track-by-track in the sense that I don't even use playlists, on the iPod I used to manually press play for every track.

So, you can suggest those without replacable batterys too.

Now on to the comments:

the iAudio X5 looks almost excellent, I'll be looking into it. Does it support making playlists on the fly?

Creative Zen X-Fi is too cool for what I want - I don't need a highres screen or internet. I've got both of these on my nokia already.

And I'm worried about the iAudio 7 control interface.

EDIT: The iAudio X5 looks almost perfect now. It supports dynamic playlists, folder browsing, tons of options.

Rockbox is a fine piece of firmware (I personally translated it into Estonian), and as I hope you can dualboot into it, and the folder browsing means I could use the best of both firmwares.

EDIT2: It seems the X5 has everything, except user reviews I've read say that the battery quality is bad and the adaptor will break soon. I see a usb adaptor is being sold on the web but what about a new battery!?

Quote from Lible :

I don't want Apple mainly because of iTunes and the price.

I was a staunch Creative fanboy for years before I caved and got an iPod Touch. I think they're awesome now. Even so, I avoided iTunes like the plague after trying it (version 7 I think), even spending £10 on a plugin so I could use Windows Media Player (where I had all my music organised and properly tagged) to sync everything.

I gave iTunes another go a few months ago, and the new version is actually really good, and I use that now. The Genius playlist especially - it selects a playlist based on the characteristics of a song you choose so if I want to listen to stuff for a while, I randomly shuffle through until I find something I want to listen to, then hit Genius and it throws a playlist of similar songs together for me.

I have an old Cowon M5 running rockbox, brilliant player, 20GB HDD, wouldn't change it for anything else.

Quote from Lible :

EDIT2: It seems the X5 has everything, except user reviews I've read say that the battery quality is bad and the adaptor will break soon. I see a usb adaptor is being sold on the web but what about a new battery!?

Well, I've had mine about 2½ years now, it gets extensive usage (~6 hours most weekdays), and I've not had a single problem with it. The battery doesn't hold quite as much charge as it did when it was new but I still get 10 to 12 hours playtime even with the battery aged after all this time (maybe more, I tend to charge it before it runs down completely so I don't get my music rudely cut out). Takes about 2 hours to charge. Mine is the 60GB version, so as the drive is thicker, it can only have the standard battery pack. The smaller capacity versions can have longer lasting batteries as an option when you buy it.

I'd recommend getting the carry case too, as I've dropped it badly once (fell out my pocket while cycling quite fast) and was happy it was only the leather that got scratched.

If I were you I'd get a Zen Vision:M. Got one last year and it's the best MP3 player I've ever owned

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Why not Apple?

yeah good point. my apple iPOD nano has an 8GB hard drive. i put movies on it! its so awesome.

Quote from danowat :

I have an old Cowon M5 running rockbox, brilliant player, 20GB HDD, wouldn't change it for anything else.

wow. 20 gigs. and i thought my iPOD held a lot.

did you even read the posts of lible?

Clearly not even half the posts in the thread, as I would have thought a 60gb player would create more of a wow than a 20gb. Although I didn't think either were huge by latest standards (Apple and Archos mp3 players are both available in up to 160gb form).

Quote from Lible :

...

I got my iAudio 7 now and yeah, the playlist is its (very) weak link... Ergonomics and interface are really fine though...

The iAudio X5 and the cheaper M5 seem like good choices. They support all codecs I use except a MPCs, concentrate on music, have a nice audio quality, have an usable interface and much more.

There's only one minus in it for me: the size, but it's still pocketable.

The battery is probably bad with most players and the problems with connectivity aren't that serious.

Thanks for everyone's help, feel free to continue the discussion and comments about different players, maybe something even better will come up.

@GrIp DrIvEr - Obiviously you are a person who knows nothing about tech - e.g not a geek

To me, watching movies on a anything smaller than, say, 17 inches is bad. Some cheap video to show others on a handheld, but watching a movie!? Come on.

I don't know why people want 160gb of music storage space, that's like 5million tracks

8GB is enough really. I was going to get a 16GB Touch but I know I wont use all the memory so I am getting the 8 gig instead. I like the apple players personally.

Quote from sam93 :

8GB is enough really. I was going to get a 16GB Touch but I know I wont use all the memory so I am getting the 8 gig instead. I like the apple players personally.

8GB isn't enough if you have >8GB of music though is it. Which a large number of people do. I ran out space on my old 20GB Iriver, and it's pretty annoying not having it all with you. Nowadays though I'm limited to 8GB to I have to choose more carefully what I want on there.

I've heard good things about the X5, isn't it a fair few years old now though?

But how often do you ever get the chance to go through 20gigs of music?

You won't listen to it all in one sitting of course, but what if you really want to listen to a track in your collection, but due to the storage being 1/10th of the size of your collection you had to leave it out? Frustrating. I duno, I just don't like being restricted. I especially don't like the write/read rate of the flash memory in the iPods/iPhone etc.

Tweakers.net, a Dutch website, has a very handy search feature. I entered 'FM radio' as the only requirement, and then sorted them by rating. It shows the most popular ones on top. Linky

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Why not Apple?

Negatives :- Overpriced, over hyped, piss poor quality sound (when compared to many far cheaper alternatives)

Pluses :- Looks nice.


Honestly, there are so many better alternatives to iPods, and they will provide far better value for money and, most importantly, better sound quality.

I'm not going to recommend any particular models, just don't waste your time with an iPod.

I've said it before and i'll say it again. Apple=style over substance.
The best thing about apple is their marketing departement. That really is top quality (On a par with BOSE)