Good MP3 Player (1 GB)?
 

I'm really sorry if this is the 1-millionth thread on the topic, but if it's still legitimate, I need some advice. I'm looking for a good MP3 player, and although I've done some research on the internet, I don't exactly know a whole lot about the subejct. Three amazon reviews on one product saying "this sucks"/"I love this" don't really help.

My only experience was with a Trekstore 230-something MB one, and it wasn't exactly a good one. Cheap, yes, but it broke really quickly, and had a few bugs before that as well. So I'm not too keen on the whole Trekstore product range.

What narrows is down are basically the following points:
- 1 GB (don't need more, don't want less)
- should cost less than 50 Euros due to limited budget
- a rechargeable battery (don't want to buy a new one every couple of days)
- want a display, no matter how small (which rules out the Zen)

That basically only left me with one product, the Sandisk, but there weren't really a whole lot of reviews about it. Does anyone own it and knows if it's any good? I can't find its equivalent on an English speaking version of amazon, so this won't tell you much: Amazon.de: Sandisk Sansa Clip Tragbarer MP3-Player 1 GB schwarz: Elektronik: SanDisk

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

If you didn't require a screen, I would obviously recommend a Shuffle. Otherwise, there are always the USB stick MP3 players, which should be good enough.

Some of the ones at the top of this search look pretty good:
Amazon.com: 1gb mp3 player

Thanks for the tips. :) Unfortunately, I can't really use American amazon, as I live in Germany/Scotland. And a shuffle costs more than 50 Euros....

Yeah thank you for the tips, I'll use American Amazon right now.

Umm... I have a Slide3, but I got it on sale, so im not sure how much it REALLY is.

i am going to buy a DAP soon too (budget 100-130EUR incl. shipping costs for a 4GB mp3-player).
A great place for a quick overview of all well-sold products is .:: mp3-player.de :: Your Personal MP3-Store :: Größte Auswahl an MP3 Playern
A great place for reviews and test results is MP3 flash, which is a serious FREE quaterly mag on news|reviews|tests|ads on MP3-players.

*FYI* The DAP technology leaders are the Korean brands (Cowon iAudio; iRiver; Samsung) - the first company to produce commercial mp3-players was Mp3man (MPMAN, Inventor of the mp3 player), also a Korean company. Trekstor and SanDisk products are cheap in price with, generally speaking, a cheap plastics touchNfeel (and dont seem to be satisfactory in the long run according to amazon user reviews). The ipod shuffle (and all other ipod variants) has a nice, expensive touchNfeel, but no screen/display.

Good luck! And let us know your final choice!!

You should try checking out BestBuy. They've got a good assortment of MP3 players. I think a wave of new products just came out last month.

The Zen Stone MP3 Players from Creative Labs have a display and are at or under 50 euros, so you might consider them. They have a Europe-based site as well.

EDIT: ...Or not, if the cheapest ones with a display still have a 2gb capacity. Drat, never mind. :annoyed:

I'm not sure about the price over there in Euros, but the RCA Lyra players have never really done me wrong. There's a bunch of different models [depending on if you want a screen, rechargeable battery, and a bunch of other things], so you'll probably find something you like.

...Actually, looking at the RCA website, they don't seem to have the Lyras listed anymore. Maybe they've stopped making them. :/ In any case, I've heard good things about the Opal player as well, and they're apparently pretty cheap. Check them out here:

RCA Audio/Video - mp3 Players

how expensive was it?

Hopefully I am not overstepping my bounds here.

Lebo, my friend, while I commend you for taking the time to use the search feature, I will say that threads that are about oh, say, two months old (that is being generous though as some sub forums have so many posts per day that it may be more appropriate to consider a thread gone after two weeks of inactivity), shouldn't be revived. You can reference this old post with a link if you would like and then ask your question.

Alternatively but even better, if this post was a question to Sousuke, I'd advise PMing him with a specific question regarding the price of the MP3 player. That would be even better as the thread wouldn't be for group discussion but rather a simple question/answer between another member on the forums.

Sandisk e2xx line (I have the e250) + rockboxed + 2gb MicroSD card = winner

Amazing player even without rockbox. Cost me $25 (for refurb) with the microSD card I had lying around (should be only a few bucks) for a total of 4gb -- best thing is that it has every function of an iPod and so much more.

Save on the player and invest in some nice headphones. I suggest Etymotic Research's ER6i.

-----

Using a Sandisk Sansa Fuze (8GB version, firmware v1 type) since some weeks.

Did cost me around 70EUR and supports MP3, Vorbis, FLAC and WMA. Data can be uploaded either in MTP mode or with standard MSC (device appears as USB mass storage device on your system). Metadata is indexed when files change on the device and you can browse using the metadata. Metadata extraction when using MSC mode is still a bit flawed, but it works OK for MTP mode. However you can also use directory based browsing for files that were uploaded through MSC.

Still no official Rockbox support for the device, but I'm tracking the development and as far as I can see only small issues remain before the port becomes officially supported.

Coming back to the metadata issue: The most problematic thing is ID3v2 (the newer type of tagging for MP3) since there are a bunch of different format types like v2.3, v2.4 plus the different encoding types (UTF8, UTF16, latin1, etc.)
No problem with Vorbis files, since the tagging structure is pretty easy. Upload Vorbis through MSC and it works like a charm. Do the same with MP3 and if you're lucky you get your tags recognized, if not... well, you'll have a hard time finding your files.

I'm currently using Gnomad2 (originally for the Creative Labs player series) to upload files via MTP. Beware that Gnomad2 is a linux tool, but I'm pretty sure that there is something similar on Windows.

Anyway, I'm really happy with the player. The sound quality is very good (provided that you don't use the original earbuds) and the metadata issues are minor stuff for me.

EDIT: Oh yes, almost forgot a important bit: The newer firmware versions support replaygain, which is really great when you have a lot of different files (meaning from different albums) on your player.

YouSeph, I appreciate you helping on this thread but please focus on those that are more recent (within the past few weeks). This one is over six months old (although interestingly I second both the recent Mp3 player suggestions). Thanks.

if i was you, i'd save up and buy a nice mp3 lol u probably got an mp3 by now anyways...how is it?

4 years after the first post, do you still have an mp3 player are you using your phone to play music? I know some people who still use a stand alone mp3 player or ipods to play and bring their music around. My 1st gen shuffle is still alive, but I gave it to my mom.

I'm still using the Sansa Fuze from my previous post, but now it is rockboxed and upgraded with a 8GB microSD card.