[spectrum128kUK]

hello im thinking of buying a mp3 player
and im just wondering how they work ,
is it sofware that comes with it with usb lead
and then load the songs from desktop with software
to mp3 player ? how many songs can a 128mb
player store is it 4 albums worth of music ?
i seen the mp3 players now really cheap they coming
down in price so i might get one if i knew a bit more about
them , any way thank you hope to hear your info soon !

[sbaker002]

Usually the 128mb versions go in your usb socket and simply come up as a removable drive on My Computer. You can then just drag and drop mp3s into it. A lot of these nowadays don't require drivers on XP as it has them already installed.

128mb really isn't worth bothering with, as if you try to fit 4 albums into that, it will sound pants. Spend a little bit more and go for 256mb or even 512mb. That way, you can fit more songs on, and they won't need to be as compressed.

[coopermanyorks]

Hi

128mb ram is pants for storing music because each mp3 file is approx 3 to 4 meg big so you ll get around 30 ish songs stored onto its memory.
Basically you use the usb lead to transfer music from your puter to your mp3 player.

Why not spend a few £s and go for an Ipod ?

[coopermanyorks]

Hi

And the ipods not so dear

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...594445-4173432

[coopermanyorks]

and imesh is quite a good souce for music files

[sbaker002]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coopermanyorksh

Hi

And the ipods not so dear

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...594445-4173432

Compared to a 256mb mp3 stick from ebay they are.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...794197194&rd=1

[coopermanyorks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbaker002

Compared to a 256mb mp3 stick from ebay they are.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...794197194&rd=1

If you buy one of these from ebay dont be surprised if :-

1) It never arrives
2) It arrives and you get hit with an additional customs charges
3) It doesnt work if it arrives
4) there is no instructions included or they are in chinese only
5) it arrives with no headphones


I spend a lot of time on Q&A boards on ebay and see daily people who have problems just like i mentioned.

this is typical of the problem , see here

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa...082816&start=0

256m is still pants , and have you seen the delivery charges on the ebay .

Sure its cheap @£20 including delivery if you want to gamble , the ipod i mentioned as a memory of 4gb so its got many times the capacity and it is a proven product and is style icon.

[sbaker002]

I know plenty of people who have bought cheap mp3s like that from ebay and had no problems.
Ive bought loads of electrical goods from hong kong/china and had no problems with them whatsoever.
Also, I was just showing it as a price comparison to the (crap) ipods.

[coopermanyorks]

Hi

ok , its your money , see you on the Q&A board when it goes tits up.

As my mum always said

"you know the price of everything and the value of nothing"


cheap is not always best so you make up your own mind

[zoltron]

I've got to agree that ebay stinks for buying electrical goods due to import tax restrictions, I know people who have had goods go missing or have endind up paying huge amounts of money to get their goods and makes buying abroad no cheaper than in the UK.

However it does make me angry that the confused amongst us are led to believe that apple are the only company that manufacture mp3 players, I'm sure if people do their homework like I did after owning 2 ipods that went faulty after 9 months due to "battery problems" will come to understand a better and more reliable product is out there for the taking. Have a look through these posts some are good some are bad, but have a look and see if the ipod appeals to you.

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...0715031387.htm

I have to admit I have reliabilty concerns with the ipod, and so have 4 out of 7 friends who also have ipods. 2 friends have had hd problems (never been dropped), 1 battery problem, 1 missing segments from the display.

[Bill Clinton]

I'm one of them, I bought a 1GB MP3 player for £55 off ebay and had no problems, I would prefer that sort of thing over an Ipod any day. It should play .ogg though

[coopermanyorks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zoltron

However it does make me angry that the confused amongst us are led to believe that apple are the only company that manufacture mp3 players, I'm sure if people do their homework like I did after owning 2 ipods that went faulty after 9 months due to "battery problems" will come to understand a better and more reliable product is out there for the taking.

I can only speak from experience as we have two Ipods in the family and both work perfectly well and have good battery life.

Maybe you should not just diss the Ipod , but name some names of Quality alternatives so that we can do a google search and take them apart


Maybe based on the volumes sold the number of people unhappy with their purchases is not as great as you may think

[coopermanyorks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Clinton

I'm one of them, I bought a 1GB MP3 player for £55 off ebay and had no problems, I would prefer that sort of thing over an Ipod any day. It should play .ogg though

Hi

what make was it ? is 1gb big enough ?

given the choice of £55 for 1gb rocky no name or £139 for 4gb mini ipod there is no competition.

[Bill Clinton]

It has been big enough, I guess if you want your whole music collection at any one time it's going to need to be a few GB's.
But I use it for backup and to take important files between 1 computer and another, I'm not sure if the Ipod can function as a removable drive but if it doesn't that would be another reason to avoid it.
If spending over £100 products like the iriver tend to have far more functions than the Ipod.
I think the make of mine is Visual Land but It's a generic design used on many of the same type.

[idontthinkso]

Get one of these, you can put an sd card in aswell!

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/st...lickfrom=image

[zoltron]

I my son has a sony nw-hd3 & I have a Archos Gmini400, take those apart if you wish, I've had no problems at all with either of them. 4 of my unfortunate friends have also brought other players 2 of them have brought the Gmini, 1 has brought a sony nw-hd5, 1 creative touch 40gb, and what a suprise none have had problems.

I'm not dissing the ipod,I brought mine because it is a cool product, but a failure rate of 50% isn't good is it? I have my reasons for not buying another and so do my friends, I'm not saying I won't buy another ipod but things are going to have to change in terms of reliability before I do.

http://www.dukebox.com/player/archos-gmini400

this is the device apple have to fear the most.

[CHES DIGI MAN]

Something nobody has yet mentioned is many Mp3 players cannot play tracks seamlessly.
Imagine two songs segued together or say a live album you've put in your player. You go to listen to it and you find there is a two second silent gap between each track!

I believe the Rio Mp3 jukeboxes can play seamlessly but I thought it only wise to mention this subject.
I have a similar problem when I transfer Cd's to Mp3 burned to Cd Rom when I play them on a Mp3 compatible player.

[skrjones]

Netto have a 512Mb basic MP3/WMA player avilable on Monday for £40.

I reckon the best flash drive version going is the IRiver 512 which also plays OGG too.

[Sancheez]

I'd go for a minimum of 512mb or you'll just end up wanting more.

I started with a 256mb player (well, actually with a CD/MP3 player but it was too bulky) and if you have a long album or stuff encoded at 192 bitrate and upwards then even fitting 3 albums on it was a struggle sometimes.

You can always get a basic memory stick player with an expansion slot and see how you go or just spend a bit more and start off with at least 1gb.

Ipods are OK but there are plenty of alternatives out there. Have a look at them before you jump on the Apple bandwagon. I know plenty people who've bought cheap & cheerful players off ebay and they work just fine, sound quality is perfectly acceptable as long as you use a decent set of headphones .... but I'd say that about any player .... including the iPod. I also know people who have bought iPods and had trouble with them. Just because it's an iPod is not a cast iron guarantee that you're getting the best player for you and it'll be indestructible.

[Skyblue81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coopermanyorksh

Hi

128mb ram is pants for storing music because each mp3 file is approx 3 to 4 meg big so you ll get around 30 ish songs stored onto its memory.
Basically you use the usb lead to transfer music from your puter to your mp3 player.

Why not spend a few £s and go for an Ipod ?

For decent quality, it roughly works out at at least 1Mb per minute of music, which is the easiest way to work out what to buy.
In my opinion definately worth slashing out on a high-capacity unit. I started with a 128Mb doodah but wasn't long until I needed to upgrade.

[NoEntry2k]

I'll throw in the one thing that bugs me about ALL iPods and most MP3 players...........the fact they don't have a FM Radio tuners.

I know its a small extra feature but the number that actually have an FM tuner is very small, i paid nearly double for mine just because it had a FM tuner, which to me was essential.

That £20 Alba MP3 in Argos sounds alright.......but again no FM radio!

[soulandy]

try here http://www.itsdigital.net/proddetail...mp3_ca-c90_512

[soulandy]

or here http://cmt21.co.kr/cmt21/eng/product/product_15.html
this is the one I got from the computor fair in manchester last year and its the bizz.

[monkeysoup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHES DIGI MAN

Something nobody has yet mentioned is many Mp3 players cannot play tracks seamlessly.
Imagine two songs segued together or say a live album you've put in your player. You go to listen to it and you find there is a two second silent gap between each track!

I believe the Rio Mp3 jukeboxes can play seamlessly but I thought it only wise to mention this subject.
I have a similar problem when I transfer Cd's to Mp3 burned to Cd Rom when I play them on a Mp3 compatible player.

Apparently, everyone who buys one of these things also subscribes to the apple mantra that "you can random play so you must". And yes, Rio players (well, Karmas anyway) do the gapless thing (a major purchasing decision for me, as I still listen to whole albums) so it's not like it can't be done (assuming your ripper doesn't screw things up) - it's probably just laziness that they think an mp3 jukebox is fine and an mp3 "music player" would be overkill. But then I guess you could always stick with a portable CD player or join a whole album into a single track. Isn't new technology great?

[a04188]

Quote:

Originally Posted by coopermanyorksh

If you buy one of these from ebay dont be surprised if :-

1) It never arrives
2) It arrives and you get hit with an additional customs charges
3) It doesnt work if it arrives
4) there is no instructions included or they are in chinese only
5) it arrives with no headphones


I spend a lot of time on Q&A boards on ebay and see daily people who have problems just like i mentioned.

this is typical of the problem , see here

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa...082816&start=0

256m is still pants , and have you seen the delivery charges on the ebay .

Sure its cheap @£20 including delivery if you want to gamble , the ipod i mentioned as a memory of 4gb so its got many times the capacity and it is a proven product and is style icon.

very true but if you know about ebay and are smart enough then i would highly recommend buying one! As my 256mb mp3 player i bought almost a year ago was only £28 and is still fantastic