MP3 Players: Worth it or not?

[Mayu Po]

Okay, so I've been doing my own research on MP3 players for a couple months now, but it has only led me to more questions. Because not many people own MP3 players where I live, or don't know much about the different brands, I've decided to bring my questions here:

1.) Does iPod have a calnder for your schedule?
2.) Is it really worth it to buy an iPod, or should I wait for their prices to decrease?
4.) Do I need iTunes to download MP3's into an iPod?
3.) Are the other brands of MP3 players (i.e. iRiver, Rio, Zen, etc.) just as good as an ipod, and if not, why?
4.) If it's built by Mac or Microsoft, is it only compatible to Mac or Microsoft?
5.) Finally, what MP3 Player do you suggest for me based off of what I want.
- Operating system I have is Windows XP
- Something to hold at least 2G of songs
- Be able to separate playlists
- Additional features; like a shedule, a recharble battery and charger, or images; are not required but wanted.
- And a good price below $400 and preferibly around $200 to $250

And you don't have to answer this, but if you know, it'd be helpful too. Does a PSP have good music quality, and does it have any built in Storage for it, or do I need a memory stick?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer my questions.

[Mayu Po]

P.S. PM the answers if you can, since I don't know the next time I'll be on gaia.

[Mayu Po]

MP3 Players I was thinking of buying:

- Archos Gmini 120
- RCA RD2826 Lyra
- Creative Nomad Jukebox ZEN XTRA
- Archos Gmini XS 200
- Archos G Mini 220
- iRiver H320
- Apple iPod 20GB 4th Gen.
- iPod mini 4GB MP3 Player

A good site to see them and see prices
http://bigbruin.pricegrabber.com/

So, what do you reccomend?

[PhaseBurn]

I got myself a very nice MP3/CD player just 2 weeks ago...

It was at Best Buy (of all places) and is one of those CD player Discman style things, but it also plays MP3s burned directly to the CD... Benefet of these is that it has virtually unlimited storage since you can carry around as many CDs as you have the room for...

Granted, it's not ideal, but, it gets the job done... And it also plays regular CDs, too... takes batteries, or a 3 volt DC adaptor...

And best of all, it was only $35

So I picked up 2 of 'em (one for me, one for my little brother). Granted it's not an iPod, but it plays mp3s quite nicely, and has a nice OSD on it, and treats directories on the CD like playlists...

iPods IMO are overrated...

[Zio the Black Magician]

PhaseBurn is spot-on about MP3CD players. As much as I'd love to have an iPod for its physical size:data size ratio, my MP3CD players are keeping me satisfied for the time being. I mean, if you combine an MP3CD player, a ton of CD-Rs for dirt cheap (from someplace like allmediaoutlet.com), and a fast Internet connection with lots of P2P clients, there's little better value. I can see 3 major disadvantages to MP3CD players, and none of them are particularly glaring.

-They're larger than the iPod. They can never be the same size, simply due to the size of a CD.
-User interaction is required to change "playlists"-they obviously can't swap out CDs on their own.

This next one is a kinda nasty one to me, but not everyone will be affected.

-They're runner-unfriendly. They still need to spin a disc and load a file, and unless you can find one with a generous cache, you're going to run into skipping. I'm actually kinda disappointed that this problem hasn't been addressed yet. In a standard CDDA player, I can understand it. But MP3 files are compressed-even 24MB of cache memory should be able to take care of 95% of files. Store 2 files at a time-one that's playing, and another that's being read in in the meantime. Most songs are a few minutes in length, that should be enough time to get the complete file from CD.

Anyway...

As far as the topic title goes, yes, I think MP3 players are very much worth it. My Rio 600 has served me faithfully since the day I got it 4 years ago. Digital music is the wave of the future. The "MP3 revolution" has proved this. With MP3 players coming in all shapes, sizes, and most importantly, prices, there's little reason not to have one.

[Kiretsu]

Many of your questions have been answered.

[Mayu Po]

Thanks everyone, this was very helpful.