MP3 Players

[Ken L]

I've just gone past a shop that was advertising an MP3 player that can store 150 CD's worth of music. Unfortunatly, I had no time to stop and check it out but with that kind of capacity, it sounds very appealing and ideally suited to taking travelling.

Does anyone know anything about these things ?

I have a sneeky suspicion that it would have to have a batery eating HDD to store that quantity of information but things have obviously moved on since I last took a serious look at the format.

What's the current state of play ? and should I ditch the personal CD player and 30 discs that I currently take travelling with me ?

[Jeff S]

I have been lookng at them too and one of my friends swears by them. The batteries should last much longer than a cd player.. There are no moving parts since all the music is stored digitally. Much smaller than a cd player as well. You should have a way to download them. With a pc shouldn't be a problem. Make sure if you are taking them from the web that you use virus protection and maybe spybot. I'm sure you'll get more replies and with that more ideas.

 

Cheers

[jeepster]

sounds like one with a hard drive in, but the battery life isnt a problem with decent rechargeables (see digital camera thread for info!) there are moving parts dvarcet, on the hard drive ones at least, and music on cds is also stored digitally, so dont get confused!

what brand was the one you saw? the new creative one is good, and cheaper than an ipod, also the archos ones are good (thats the one i have)

[Ken L]

No idea of the brand because like I say, I was passing the shop and I only caught a glipse of the display.

A quick look arround the net indicates that it probably was a HDD machine which look to be bulkier than my curent CD player and much more power hungry.

I take the point about rechargables but the charger is just more dead weight in a backpack and most little third world towns have a distinct lack of power points to plug a charger into.

Thanks for the responces guys but I'll stick to the CD player for the moment. I'm getting about 30 hours of playback off a pair of AA alkaline bateries with that - more if I turn off the antiskip.

The way things are going with the price of memory though, I think an MP3 player will be an option in a couple of years.

[bitsbobs]

Dvarcet:

You should have a way to download them. With a pc shouldn't be a problem. Make sure if you are taking them from the web that you use virus protection and maybe spybot.

Kazaa is quite good. Even managed to get seals and croft last night. Hope you've got broadband.

[jeepster]

kazaa is jam packed full of spyware, but if you dont mind that works well, but as dvarcet says, get a good virus checker!.as yet i havent been able to find kazaa lite, i think they keep moving the site

[Ken L]

The player that I'd seen was the Phillips HDD060 at £180.

Once I knew that, a quick look around the net revieled the existance of it's big brother the HDD100. It has 10 times the capacity of the 060 and will store 3700 songs on it's drive !

This piece of kit comes in at £223 from "Empire Direct" but I've not managed to find any details of batery life as yet or any indication of how robust a piece of kit it is.

The days of my CD player definatly look numbered.

[jeepster]

never used that one, but check out the archos ones, i've had one for years and its been great. cheaper than an ipod too (although i must admit, after christmas i may be treating myself to an ipod)