IPod? MP3?

Ahha, a subject I know all about. think about capacity and how often you will be able to plug it in to your PC, cheap flash based players come in at 2Gb or less, this is enough for a few hours of music, no more, but because they are flash based they have no moving parts and are much more robust/reliable. Anything above 2Gb is definitely using a hard drive with several hundred moving parts and orders of magnitude more likely to go wrong, Zen Micros and Ipod minis are all around the 4-6Gb mark, which I find plenty for a couple of weeks before getting bored, and still small enough to put in your jeans pocket. Bigger players (20Gb+) have enough room to store your entire collection if you are a normal person, or at least everything you are ever likely to need if you are an compolsive CD buying freak like me. The zen micro is pretty sweet to look at, but the ipod mini is nicer, and the ipod nano is a work of art. Apple have done some nasty tricks in the past like glueing the battery to the inside of the case making it impossible to replace except by an engineer. And these are mobile phone batteries and they die after a while. Creative are good about not doing that, and generally have slighlty better battery lives as well if you buy music off of the itunes store buy an ipod (itunes music can only be played on ipods, yes this is very illegal and apple are bad, no nobody cares) There are other nasties. I'm not sure about ipods but all zens (apart from the neon not available in this country) use a propiatry file system meaning you have to install drivers on any PC you want to use them on, if you want to use them on a linux box, give up. Personally I have 4Gb MuVo2, which I can plug into anything I like and it just works. If it went wrong. I'd buy another one exactly the same.

Gosh *simpers in stupid girly way* - you really know your stuff, don't you Dan?

Yes, you can just plug speakers into the headphone socket. I have a set of portable creative "travelsound" speakers which sound fantastic for what they are. I believe both creative and apple do speaker sets you can just plug driectly into the player.

*ignores hayley, talks directly to Karl about man things*

Well I feel obliged to throw in my 2 pennorth. I wouldn't touch an iPod with a bargepole. Why? Well firstly they aren't really very robust. I know several people who've had them fall apart (they don't like being sat on), but unless they've had a re-think, they don't actually play ordinary mp3's (waits for some better informed indignant to correct me). Thirdly they are limited in their use. So what do I have? Well I wasn't going to mention it, but since you've asked, I'll tell you. I have an Archos. What's that I hear you say? It's a multi-media player. About the same size as an original Sony Walkman, it has a 40GB HD which stores up to 10,000 mp3's (they make an 80GB version that obviously stores 20,000), it can also store 500,000 photographs (not as well as but instead of, though you can store both simultaneously as space allows). It's also capable of recording direct from a TV and will hold 60hrs of TV/Movies that you can play back through any TV that has an unused input. It's also usable as an external 40GB HD to transfer data between PC.s It connects to a PC via USB2 and DL's whatever you wish. (it also plays wma files as well as mp3) But all that's just for starters. You can buy add ons as well. I have a CF card reader for mine which allows me to D/L photos from my CF card when away from home which means I never run out of storage space on my camera. I have a radio tuner too and an external microphone which allows it to be used as a dictation machine. Incidentally, the Archos can record direct from the radio ie. what you're listening to, and automatically encodes it as mp3 on the fly. It has a colour screen for displaying the photos and can zoom in on them and scroll around them too. It's also possible to watch video/movies on the screen though my one has a small screen and that isn't very good for anything other than previewing. On top of all that, it's built like a brick shithouse (it even has rubber corners to prevent damage! iPods? Pah, overpriced designer toys!

ipods will definitely play MP3 (check the apple web site) but won't play WMA which almost anything else will play, they don't play OGG either which surprised me. Archos have for ages been producing funky technology about a year ahead of anyone else but (IMO) butt ugly. Why they don't put more money into marketing them I have no idea. For a lot of people these things are fashion accessories, and I doubt there are many teenage girls who would thank you for buying anything other than an ipod.

might be something off this page I's still recomend one of these which will work with anything and I know they sound good.

OK, so Apple HAVE had a re-think, but like Sony (who insist on sticking to their own encoding format) I'm reasonably sure they originally were not mp3 friendly. That apart, they still only play music, not video or to my knowledge photos, as i believe they don't have a colour multi-media screen. Karl, my Archos was quite expensive, though I DID go for one of the more upmarket versions. The cheaper ones are comparable to most other makes. The iPod does have a stereo speaker add-on, but then it isn't cheap, (no iPod accesories are cheap as Apple have aimed their product at the youngster market, hence their cool colours etc), and there are several other makes of speaker system that work with any mp3 player by way of the headphone jack. Having checked the Archos site, I see that my model (AV140) is no longer manufactured (just shows that 5mins in the modern world is the kiss of death to technotoys), but the newer models are better specified and also have the cool looks that the fashion conscious (and maddan) crave! If you want a player to scream 'look at what I have, it's the latest 'must have' toy' then an iPod is probably for you. If you want a serious piece of kit that does much more than skip heart-beats there are several other makes (including the Archos) that leave an iPod standing. http://www.tesco.com/electrical/product.aspx?R=8250943&bci=297|Audio*4294966458|Archos http://www.newmp3technology.com/index.php

I have no idea why the first link isn't clickable but it DOES work if you copy & paste it!

If you don't mind a slightly older model the AV700 (40GB with 7" colour screen) looks good value at less than £300. http://www.mydv.co.uk/xcart/home.php?cat=223

video ipod sony finally move to MP3 (in May 2004) if you want bleeding edge tech, then Archos are definitely the way to go. Personally I have a small compact unobtrusive MP3 player with a one line B&W screen that is hopefully a bit less attractive to thieves than an shiny white ipod

Personally I'm fond of my Sony MZ-NH700 Silver Hi-MiniDisc Walkman which costs less £100. According to the blurb it: • Transfer up to 45 CDs onto a 1GB Hi-MD disc with ATRAC3plus compression • Supports all popular digital audio compression formats: ATRAC /MP3 / WMA / WAV • Stick type remote control • Record from multiple sources: USB-in / Mic-in / Analogue-in / Digital-in • Extreme fast music transfer from and to PC:1 CD in less than 40 seconds • Store audio, video and data files on your Hi-MD player. In my experience you should take much of that with a pinch of salt if you want a decent sound, but... In practice, you end up with lots of music stored in two formats on your computer - because sony's proprietry Atrac compression allows you to cram more on to each Mini disc. It runs happily on a single, standard, rechargable AA. easily fits into most pockets and seems to play OK even when I'm jogging. It takes less than a minute to swap discs - so it's great if you have pre-recorded a library and of course it works with standard mini discs which are less than £1 each. My only real complaint - which applies to almost any personal stereo - is that the ear-phones are annoying and always succumb to the inevitable stress on their wires... a wireless model would be magic.

Ah well, there you have it. I'm so out of touch with what's going on I should keep my big mouth shut. To be honest, if i just wanted to listen to mp3's I wouldn't buy either an iPod or an Archos, I'd buy one of those cheap 50quid players that just play music and nowt else. Noting Dan's comment about attracting thieves, they are very unobtrusive and if stolen, it isn't the end of the world. If I WERE to have an iPod I certainly wouldn't be using those white ear buds they supply. Whether you conceal the iPod or not, they are a positive advertisement of one on your person. A bit like walking about with a note on your chest announcing that you actually have a Rolex up your sleeve. One thing so far undiscussed is the MP3 playing CD walkman (they also play regular CD's). I have one (a Sony, less than £50) that I use in my car that I can play back through my car radio system. It also gets used indoors sometimes connected to my Hi-Fi system. I've managed to get as many as 250 songs on one CD, which is enough to last about 11hrs non-stop, great for programming a party start to finish. I've also recently started archiving songs on DVD (though my DVD player will play them through the Hi-Fi as well). I have one DVD with 1384 tracks on it!

Your posts were interesting and informative, George, which is surely the point of the thread. Anyone come across the new PSP movies yet? WH Smiths had lots on show above their DVD's and it appears they are re-formatted films like 'Batman Begins' etc for about £17 but stored in less than 2GB. So it seems to me that you end up paying more for less - as usual. A PSP would make a good portable if it came with a decent amount of memory - those memory sticks are NOT cheap.

no idea

Karl...with regard to best make of mini dvd for back of car, may I suggest one that repels vomit as my niece completely buggered my sister's boyfriends (smunt!) one on the way to Alton Towers.

You're on your own there karl, one persons cheap is another persons expensive. The nano is 'the' one to get at the moment, I was in the apple store the other day (a wave of self satisfaction nearly knocks you off your feet as you walk in the door) and it is even thinner in real life than in the pictures. try typing ipod into froogle, that should give you a good idea what's available and for how much. http://froogle.google.co.uk/froogle?q=ipod&btnG=Search+Froogle