MP3 Player?

I currently have a 10 GB third generation iPod, and its beginning to wear out (it is also not nearly large enough anymore) so I'm looking to get a new MP3 player. I've been looking at the new iPods, but I've also heard that I should look at some of the other players out now. What are your recommendations?

I really only listen to music (and maybe the occasional podcast) but if I got something that could view videos I might see myself ripping some of my DVDs and watching them on my player, but that function is entirely secondary to audio.

 

The big question is, do you have a considerable investment in tracks downloaded from the iTunes Music Store? If so, they won't work with anything except another iPod... you gotta love vendor lock in.

If not, then the Creative Zen Vision M (30Gb or 60Gb) is worth a look... excellent sound quality and it beats the iPod hands down for video support.

 

Really, I can't play those songs on other players? Yeah, so I guess I'm stuck with the iPod. At least its a quality product I'm stuck with and not something I constantly have problems with.

 

well you can copy them to cds and then re-rip them as mp3s from itunes...cant you? but yeah, i would suggest the Zen Vision M....I have one and i love it..plus its taken a beating and still working.

 

Sure, you could but the quality would suffer... transcoding a lossy format like AAC is to be avoided if at all possible.

There are options to remove the DRM from your iTunes tracks which I obviously won't link to for fear of violating forum policy. I'm sure you could find something on google though...

 

I guess you could look at the creative line of mp3 players. They have big HDDs and not all are flash based.

A third alternative would be Archos. But these players are video first and bigger than mp3 players.

 

The Toshiba Gigabeat series is a good line of MP3 players. I prefer them to IPods.

 

I personally prefer Cowon over all the above mentioned players, step down from Cowon would be Archos or Zen. I personally have a Cowon iAUDIO U2, but it sounds like you want something that has a bigger capacity such as the Cowon A2.

 

WHAT?!?!?

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