solitaire710 wrote:I would go with the Creative Zen Micro.
Also if you need more storage than the standard 5gb [on the zen] you can buy a standard notebook harddrive and with a screwdriver a computer and an hour or two you can have a whopping however big you want zen micro (note you need a computer for the zen to hook up to in safe mode after you plug in the new harddrive so it [the player] can reformat)
I'm confused by that post.
The Zen Micro uses a microdrive, which is not a standard notebook hard drive. The Zen Xtra uses a 2.5" drive, however.
Once you've swapped out the drive you just go into rescue mode (reset the player whilst holding the play/pause button) format the drive and reload the OS from a PC.
"Is that a bit like WMP's Auto Playlists? I'm boring with my player - I've set up Notmad to just make sure that the music library is the same on my PC and on my Xtra"
I haven't used wmp in a while, so I don't know how these work. Autofill basically just randomly chooses a set of songs. so you can set up a playlist of your 20-30 gbs of music, then it'll randomly pick 1gb at a time and put it on the shuffle.
I also use my full size ipod a lot, and love carrying all of my music around with me.
I will agree with you though...ipods are pretty expensive, and trendy, and I usually don't go for the popular item...that is, unless the popular item rocks. my ipod just works, and I love how smart the software is.
and spengo, you don't have to buy a whole new ipod. if you're an idiot, that would be the way to go, but if you're smart, you buy a new battery for 40$ and put it in yourself. And why does everyone gasp and freak out about the battery dying. HELLO...it's a battery. it happens.
ok i deceided(spelling? ) to go with bens' sugestion which was the Micro N200. it is sooo good for a small package.
it has a screen for 1 and fm radio a mic and you can record the fm and also using the line out to anouther sound source. I almost got the shuffle and also i didnt get the 5g ones. b/c i have a ipod 20g so i just needed somthing small.
For best results, get an mp3 cd player.. that plays mp3 files and audio cds. You can't be that! Range of $30 to $80, depending on which one you get and what brand. I got mine for $50. Now, I can burn cds with music on them and pop them in my cd player.. up to 320 songs can be on a cd at once (it has a 320 list limit, but that's fine ). Cheap and oh so versatile!
anitshock-system suck ass... mp3 players don't have moving parts, and therfor not problems with shocking... further more, you don't have to burn cd's to listen to your mp3's...
Spengo wrote:No ipod. Ipods have the most retarded thing- when the battery dies, there is no way to replace the battery. You have to buy a whole new Ipod.
No, you just need ti send it back to apple which sucks.
"Not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, 'Those are the nazgul. Once they were human, now they are IBM's lawyers.'"
kv83 wrote:anitshock-system suck ass... mp3 players don't have moving parts, and therfor not problems with shocking... further more, you don't have to burn cd's to listen to your mp3's...
I think Apple have confusing documentation that refer to the cache chip on the hard drive of their player as an anti-shock system with a time of "x" - but hang on, what about bitrate differences?
And who would SHAKE UP a hard-disk based player?
That said, the Zen Xtras are really tough players. If people drop them too many times, the hard drive heads can stick. Creative's recommended course of action is to whack the side of the player hard. There are also cases of people unscrewing the player, unscrewing the sealed drive, unsticking the heads by wiggling them and screwing the drives back up - and they STILL WORK!
benryves wrote:
I think Apple have confusing documentation that refer to the cache chip on the hard drive of their player as an anti-shock system with a time of "x" - but hang on, what about bitrate differences?
Like all of their claims (10,000 songs, etc), they use a standard, average song length and bitrate. Of course there will be slight differences, but they have to make that assumption before they can make a claim.
benryves wrote:
I think Apple have confusing documentation that refer to the cache chip on the hard drive of their player as an anti-shock system with a time of "x" - but hang on, what about bitrate differences?
Like all of their claims (10,000 songs, etc), they use a standard, average song length and bitrate. Of course there will be slight differences, but they have to make that assumption before they can make a claim.
The main point was that they *don't* have an antishock system. They're just referring to the cache of the hard drive. CD players can get away with being shaken around without breaking - hard drives can't.
...?
Why wouldn't that be an antishock system? If something jolts the player (not a good idea by any means of course, but it happens) there is a read-ahead that keeps your music playing and allows the hdd to catch up. Sounds exactly like an antishock system to me.
sounds, but isn't... with that 'philosphy' every harddisk would have an anti-shock-system... I don't remember having it listed with the feature's of my notebook
it's just as you would sell a tv with a feature that would enable a 'light source' if not watching tv... well guess what? every tv can be used as 'light source' if not watching tv...
blueskies wrote:...?
Why wouldn't that be an antishock system? If something jolts the player (not a good idea by any means of course, but it happens) there is a read-ahead that keeps your music playing and allows the hdd to catch up. Sounds exactly like an antishock system to me.
This is Apple's advertising scheme. It's like the shuffle - read the blurb and it sounds like it's the only player to ever have a "random" button on it. However, the way Apple push it it appears to say that you can shake up your player - it doesn't matter, it's got antishock - whereas the Creative documentation says "Do not run or jog with the player, do not jolt or drop it - it will damage the hard drive."
I just wonder how many people have had to shell out for a new player trying out the "antishock" feature
) to go with bens' sugestion which was the Micro N200. it is sooo good for a small package.
). Cheap and oh so versatile!
