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I’m pretty happy with it.
]]>Comparing Hard Drive MP3 Players
I had set out to purchase a large capacity MP3 player at the beginning of the summer. The reasons for my purchase are numerous and I know for a fact that I would get a lot of use out of it. I was looking for a very specific product and wanted to spend a bit of time and allocated a considerable amount of money for the purchase. However, I was not going to spend the money only to hate it in the near future. Here is the culmination of my research.
There are quite a few large capacity MP3 players out there and peoples’ opinions about them range from in between rave for most iPod players to disdain for some of the other products. I will try to go through some of the benefits, failures and then the ratings for each of the products along with the price ranges for them.
- iPod – On top of the list of every MP3 player that is advertised or displayed on review pages is the iPod. Some of the benefits of iPods include:
- Rechargeable Battery with respectable battery life
- VERY smooth interface with a wonderful user experience
- Mostly very reliable, good hardware
- Relatively nice headphones
- Coolness factor
Some of the weaknesses include:
- No USB connection, an extra purchase
- HAVE to use software to upload/download, cannot be a simple hard drive
- No FM built in, another extra purchase
- Somewhat fragile, too many horror stories of dropped iPods
- Priciest of the lot, hands down
In spite of all of this, the iPod consistently receives 4-5 stars out of five stars on all reviews. A good product overall, but just lacking enough that I didnt intend to buy it.
- Creative Labs Jukebox Zen Xtra – This is a reliable and value product which provides a large amount of storage for a small price. Some of the benefits include:
- Very well priced, largest capacity for smallest price
- Good equalization and sound quality, lots of sound tricks
- Long battery life
- Mostly very reliable
- USB support
Some of the weaknesses include:
- No FM support
- Jog wheel is disliked by all, poor button features
- Battery cover is strange, case forces you to flip it open when changing songs etc
- Poor support
- Cannot be used as a hardrive without the included software installed
- Warranty is poor
This player gets a 3.5-4 out of a possible 5 in every review. A lot of users do not like the quirks in the software, the buttons and the size of the case but like the price and some of the features. I wouldnt buy this because it just lacks the two main features I am looking for. It lacks hard drive capabilities (plug and play) and no built in FM
- Archos GMini 120 – Simply a bad product, dont even think about it
- Archos GMini 220 – This one is a worthy contendor with some cool new features and a nice price to boot. Some of the positive features of this product include:
- Compact Flash Card support, useful for digital cameras
- Built in FM module, needs extra purchase remote
- View pictures in greyscale(this might be a negative attribute
- Relatively well priced
- Good playlist support
- Hard drive emulation, dont need software to transfer files
- Very small compared to the iPod
Some of the weaknesses include:
- Software still a bit buggy
- Need to purchase extras to get FM to work
- Greyscale screen is weak
- Headphones are crappy
- Limited availability
This was my first choice for the longest time, but things have changed since then. This product gets a consistent 4 out of 5 in reviews from various sites. It is a good contendor, wish it was available at Best Buy.
- Philips HDD120 – This is another product to stay away from. This will ONLY work with Philips Digital Media Manager software and there are known issues with DRM encoded MP3s as well. It is also expensive. Once I saw a 2-3 ratings in all the reviews, I stopped looking.
EDIT: Review from a reader:
I just bought a Philips HDD120 and just LOVE it, the remote is so tiny comparing to the iRiver, And the unit is so much prettier then the iRiver, It is so much FASTER with then the ones the dont convert the mp3’s (DDM). Also a BIG plus for me the Philips has a nicer screen and digital in, but I wish you luck with your iRiver (I’ll bet you wouldnt have it for 1 year)
- Create Zen Touch – This is a good product though it is very new. I would like to have purchased this, but I do not believe in Version 1.0 of ANY product. Some of the features include FM radio through optional remote control, hard drive emulation, nice playlist support, nice encoding support, good software and sound tools and everything that is good about the Zen Xtra. I was going to wait till this became available, but I have found something better.
- iRiver iHP-120 – This is what I am getting and here are the reasons why:
- Lots of positive reviews from all the sites, a lot of happy customers
- Hard drive emulation
- FM support built in with included remote, nothing to buy
- Voice recorder built in
- Encode from FM, on the fly
- Relatively well priced
- One word, Ogg
- Loud volume, small footprint
- GREAT battery life as experienced by customers
- Leather case included
Some of the weaknesses include:
- Awful software for the PC, need to create playlists externally
- Complicated interface
But none of these deter me much. I will miss the CF interface, but I can add that on at a later time. I LOVE the remote, the price is acceptable and it looks cool. The product seems to be “built to last” and people love it.
So there you go. Those are the reasons for my purchase. I am going to get this from BestBuy and will purchase the extra warranty/protection with it. All in all it should put me back about $350 but I think I will like it.
What do YOU own?
11 Comments »
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I’ll have to look at the iRiver. I had been leaning toward the Zen for the price, but the iRiver seems to be reasonably priced too. Can you for sure use it as an external drive without using some software?
Comment by Josh Baltzell 7/5/2004 @ 3:28 pmIm using it as an extername hard drive right now!
Comment by Mark 7/5/2004 @ 6:50 pmI just bought a Philips HDD120 and just LOVE it, the remote is so tiny comparing to the iRiver, And the unit is so much prettier then the iRiver, It is so much FASTER with then the ones the dont convert the mp3’s (DDM). Also a BIG plus for me the Philips has a nicer screen and digital in, but I wish you luck with your iRiver (I’ll bet you wouldnt have it for 1 year)
Comment by Sam 7/13/2004 @ 7:23 pmFor awhile I was doing research on MP3 players and at that time I concluded the iRiver was the best deal. However I still haven’t purchased an MP3 player for the simple reason that I think all of them are way overpriced. Basically, the price of a MP3 player shouldn’t be tons more than a hard drive of comparable size—especially considering that harddrives these days cost about $1 per gig (or even less). I simply can’t accept that adding the ability to play the files on the harddrive should make it so much more expensive. The iPod’s recent change in price, by $100, didn’t change my mind on this point either. It just convinced me that there was plenty of space for the price to come down already.
Comment by danithew 7/24/2004 @ 3:15 pmI own the Treo 600, at $400 (after rebates) it not only plays MP3s (from exchangable SD cards, $50-100 each) it takes pictures, syncs my calendar with Outlook, runs Palm OS apps, checks my e-mail, browses the web (not just WAP). Oh and by the way, it’s a phone, too.
I’m pretty happy with it.
Comment by Ruby Sinreich 7/24/2004 @ 8:50 pmI own iPod 3rd gen (20 GB), Zen Touch (20 GB) and Philips HDD120 (20 GB). The MP3 file that I used for benchmark is 320 kbps. They all have their pro and cons. iPod is definetely the best in term of user interface, it is dead easy to operate with very intuitive menu. Soundwise, it is the weakest among them. The iPod sound give me sense of light (too much treble) and lack of “deep” tone. Zen touch is nice, sound better than iPod BUT fiddly to operate. The vertical touch pad is quite a challenge to operate, far below iPod touch pad. It is also a bit bulky compare to iPod. Philips HDD120 looks better than Zen Touch, while soundwise is slightly better than Zen Touch. The tone is “deep” without leaning toward “boomy” type of sound. Operating wise, it is not as easy as iPod. Original software from Philips is a CRAB one, you have to set your windows to assign this Philips DMM to one CPU only (if you have hyperthreading CPU). However, you can replace this DMM software with Sveta Portable Jukebox from dbPowerAmp. I review all these gadgets using three different headphones, Etymotic ER-4P, Shure E2C and Sennheiser PCX 100. After all, you can’t go wrong with those three, they are all good for casual (like me) and audiophile ear.
Comment by Vincent 10/24/2004 @ 5:44 pmThis Website is dour! You have too much time on your hands, you cock! You are a cock!
Comment by John 12/29/2004 @ 7:21 amwhat about the dell???
Comment by jack 2/14/2005 @ 1:15 ami own a creative zen nomad jukebox zen extra 30gb. it is really good and it works well. software was a bit dodgy at the beggining but it worked in the end. it bought it for £120 in a sale at must have it in the trafford centre, manchester.
Comment by Chris Y 4/13/2005 @ 11:30 amI have an old Archos Jukebox Recorder20. It has rockbox on it. This is very useful since I’m blind and rockbox has talking menus and all that. I bought it back in late 2002, and it still works like I just bought it. I did replace the batteries and put an 80gb Toshiba Hd in it so I could fit my whole cd collection on it.
Comment by Blake 6/5/2005 @ 11:28 pmI am not a technology genius and I saw a lot of comments about the ipods having the best interface. However, I do not want an ipod I want a mp3 player without a hard drive since I will be working out when I use my mp3 player. Any suggestions?
Comment by charu 7/23/2005 @ 12:17 am