Which is NOT an iPod please. I'm looking for one that has good sound quality and supports FLAC format ideally. Looking online seems a minefield, the Cowon ones look reasonable but there are so many with so many conflicting reviews I thought I'd ask here if anybody has any experience with them. About 8gb flash memory with an SD slot would be perfect, but I'm open to recommendations.
Thanks!
I've looked at the Cowon one's a lot but never actually bought one. As far as I understand from reviews they are better in terms of sound quality but are less user friendly than the iPod. Past experience with non iPod MP3 players suggests to me that some slight awkwardness for the device itself is compensated for by not having to use iTunes and being able to just copy your music over using Explorer or an Explorer type interface. Sorry I couldn't be of more help, last non iPod I had was a Creative one but that was years ago,
I'm sure you'll be able to find the Zune HD for a real cheap price now. It's stopped production, and many other MP3 players have since the ipods. Other than that; google it yourself, just type in "Top 10 MP3 players of 2011-2012" hope that helps.
Your random phone? :P I believe that format support is quite dependent these days on what apps you can install (Although that's what it's looked like for my phone).
I think most smart phones cna do the trick. if not go simple get a small little nano :D
I quite like my Sansa Clip+, 8GB with a microSD expansion slot (I stuck 32GB in mine) and supports FLAC too. Only problem I have with it is the teeny tiny screen which makes navigation an issue.
I have a Sansa Clip too, the size was actually a selling point for me. It has a very simple interface which I don't have any problems with, its ideal for a cheap player without fancy extras putting the price up, I got mine for £40 including a 16GB SD card.
It doesn't sound quite as good as the Creative Zen X-Fi I had before (and stupidly broke), but that cost me twice as much and had a fiddly interface. On the whole I prefer the Sansa.
I have some small Creative Zen around, it's a little square thing. It's alright. Interface is ok, sound is fine (I'm not an audiophile though). However I would've gotten the Sansa Clip if I knew about it before my purchase.
From my understanding of the Clip the SD card doesn't have to be read constantly and you can play off that or the flash memory easily. For my Zen, which also has a microSD slot in it, the microSD is kept on it's own and every time you access it, it does a full read, which sucks on bigger cards.
I had the Zen X-Fi Style (there's approximately a million different versions), roughly ipod sized with a big screen. It did photo and probably video but I never used that stuff, kind of overkill when I just wanted a music player. It did sound better than any other player I've had, though.
SD card on the Clip is treated the same as the internal memory, all your music is displayed in the same menu. It only takes a long time to load after you access it on your PC or take the card out.
I absolutely loved my Zune 8(the MS answer to the ipod nano), but sadly it was stolen along with my laptop when someone broke into my car and snatched my backpack a couple years ago. I replaced it with a 6th generation ipod classic, and have been thoroughly disappointed with it in comparison. Considering that they were both produced in the same time period I figure that I can make a fair comparison in that regard, as each should have been feature-similar.
The biggest things I miss about my Zune are the on-the-fly playlist creation that can be done using the device itself, and the ability to sync over wifi. I absolutely hate that I can't add a bunch of single songs from various albums and artists to a "now playing" list on my ipod and instead have to either create a playlist ahead of time on my PC, play my entire library, or constantly pick songs one after the other. Maybe that has changed with the ipod touches and whatever, but the lack of that on the ipod classic is a really major turn-off for me. Especially when it should be a fairly obvious feature to have for a device where I can put 120gb worth of songs onto the thing. That's not to say that the Zune didn't have its own drawbacks, because it had a couple itself. Namely the lack of diverse audio format support(basically just mp3 and wma). The touchpad it had for controls could also be a bit frustrating at times, going from over-sensitive to downright unresponsive every so often.
In the end, I come away thinking that the Zune was a great piece of hardware that a lot of people hated simply because it was made by Microsoft, while the ipod is a mediocre piece of hardware that a lot of people love simply because it's made by Apple. And I really wish more people had bought Zunes, because I'd love to find a new one at a decent price rather than having to try and track down a used one and hope that the previous owner didn't treat it like total crap. And even then, a lot of the used ones seem to be priced pretty high as well.
The ones by Sony are pretty user friendly, easy to use and transfer data and have good sound quality. You'd have to look up the FLAC thing though.
Thanks for the input. I still can't decide. :/
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Originally Posted by mt.Ivan
