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MP3 Player - Recommendations

February 14th, 2005 | Posted by: Eric | Category: Misc

Today marks my 33rd birthday and I’m going to celebrate by getting myself a long coveted hard drive mp3 player. Conventional wisdom and market share suggests the Apple Ipod (40 GB model) is the way to go. I have my reservations, mostly with the battery life. Can anyone comment on their experiences with the 40 GB Ipod, especially the 4th generation? Has anyone purchased alternative products from IRiver or Creative Zen? Good luck or bad, let me know your experience with any of these products (via comments or email)

Also, can anyone point me in the direction of some new or unique blogger templates? I’ve grown weary of this one but nothing else on blogger or noipo.org strikes my fancy.

thanks!

– Eric

14 Comments so far

  1. Sebastian February 14th, 2005 11:27 pm

    Happy b-day to you kid!

  2. Nate February 14th, 2005 11:46 pm

    Happy birthday.

    The 4th generation iPods have much, much better battery life than the previous. The 3rd generation is pretty much a joke in that regard, but the 4th has better battery life than any other. I’ve owned one of each.

  3. stav February 15th, 2005 1:18 am

    I know there’s a contrarian tendency to go with something other than an iPod, but I would resist this if I were you. When you look at the whole system — not just the pod but the seamless integration with iTunes (which can, among other things, rip, burn and play songs in mp3, WIFF, WAV, AAC and Lossless, manage your library, generate “smart” playlists, and sync with the iPod) — the whole thing is a solidly engineered, well-thought-out and, by this time, thoroughly tested and tweaked package. Apple tech support is also good, maybe in part because the stuff usually works out of the box.

  4. ~/stav February 15th, 2005 1:23 am

    Umm… I mean AIFF of course.

  5. mbl February 15th, 2005 7:03 am

    Best CSS Design for Blogs :

    http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/

  6. keith February 15th, 2005 3:06 pm

    template design - http://www.erisfree.com/design/

    my ipod issues - http://sickoffood.com/index.php?p=1189

    cheers!

  7. mxv February 15th, 2005 5:08 pm

    I love my 40G IPOD (I have the 3rd gen). Just dont’ leave the backlight on all the time and the battery life is pretty good, I have no complaints.

  8. JBP February 15th, 2005 5:31 pm

    First, just wanted to mention that I found your site a couple months back, and really appreciate all the fine music you’ve put me up on.

    2nd, I’ll go against the grain of the comments here and say that I’m hugely fond of my Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 40GB. It lacks some of the iPod’s design sophistacation, but goes for $150 less. I’m also clumsy and have found that it’s durable enough to match said clumsiness. Hope this helps a bit.

  9. ScotchZombie February 15th, 2005 6:59 pm

    I got the 4G 40Gb iPod in December and I couldn’t be happier with the whole iPod/iTunes setup. There is room for improvement, sure, but with more than 12,000 songs to manage having great useability was critical. I have had zero problems with battery so far (and note that the battery meter is notoriously inaccurate).

  10. Simon February 15th, 2005 11:08 pm

    Happy Birthday Eric.

    I’ll chip in and say that I agree with the general oppinion above….
    I got my 20G iPod about a year ago now, battery life is pretty good still, good point about the backlight though.
    Although i guess the newer models are far better battery wise than mine.
    But the best thing about it for me (apart from it’s looks, the way it feels and the eare of use) is the iTunes integration…. completely unrivaled.

    If mine broke tomorrow (firstly I’d cry) I’d deffinately get another one…

    Many Happy Returns

    Simon
    x

  11. Jim H February 16th, 2005 3:24 am

    I just got a Shuffle - it kicks butt sound wise and is alot smaller (flash memory vs. disk) - you can load whatever you want and 1 Gb is enough for the trips I take. I generally prefer to load it with my newer stuff but you can also do a purely random load of all your collection.

    Although its more expensive per gigabyte, at $150 its cheaper than an iPod and for most uses you don’t listen to more than 1 GB at any given time. I still have a 20G that I’ll probably use more for long trips and its neat to have such a huge collection at your fingertips. Its a tough lesson and I dno’t think I would have gotten the Shuffle even if it had been out when I got the iPod but now that I have both, I know the Shuffle is essential and the iPod is more a luxury.

    It charges in any USB port and battery life is said to be 12 hours. I’m not sure if you have to worry about a long term battery like the iPod disk models. I don’t think so - but someone else may know better.

    One downside to

  12. Jim H February 16th, 2005 3:24 am

    Oh yeah, happy birthday!

  13. eric February 17th, 2005 9:53 pm

    Thanks for all of the input everyone. I’ve decided that the IPod is an irresistible force that I can no longer fight. I’m off to the local Apple Store to pick one up. If my posting is sporadic you’ll know why.

    Many thanks also for the birthday wishes and template pointers.

    Cheers,

    – Eric

  14. Ben Weller March 4th, 2005 9:57 pm

    I’ve got the 3rd gen iPod, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. With the extended battery life of the 4th gen, why go any other route?

    Rock on.

    –Ben

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