5punk

My trusty Archos XS200 is still going strong, but some things are getting annoying...
It's battery has never quite recovered since i realised i was using the wrong charger for a few months. I only get a couple of days use out of it.
The HDD is 20gb. This is quite big i suppose, but my favorite music is just a little more than that. Im bored of having to rotate the collection & decide what to take with me, i'd rather just sync it up and have it contain everything I like.

So, the hunt is on.

Requirements:
Good user interface, fast response to input.
30gb or more storage.
Good battery life.
Acts as USB hard drive (no software required).
Easy to "lock" controls.
Slim & small design.

Things that don't matter
If it plays anything other than MP3 files.
If it has a flashy colour screen.
Could be Flash or HDD, although flash makes sense for battery life.


The leader i have at the moment is the Creative zen 32gb:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/141705
But i dont know how good this is. Anyone got one? Does it need software?

Deej has the 8 gig version of that player, as I will I soon. So he'll be able to tell you about software issues.

The Zen doesn't need software. It's a PlaysForSure device, so you can use it with Winamp and Windows Media Player just fine. Video support is a bit trickier as it only supports WMA, MJPEG, DivX, XviD, and MPEG4. Even those generally have to be transcoded to 320x240 before they'll play.

The only beefs I have right now are that there's no dedicated volume control (you have to be at the now playing screen to change the volume), and most of the songs I loaded on it yesterday using Winamp have the wrong cover art and I can't change it at all. Not all of them are wrong, and they all had proper art embedded in the tags on my computer so I'm not sure what the hell happened.

Otherwise, it's pretty damn slick. It's just slightly bigger than a credit card, the screen is nice, video playback is smooth, the menus are fairly intuitive, and the sound is good.

The buttons are just okay, not shit, but not all that great either. If it's at the right price I think I'd recommend it. Right now I am using an SD card to load videos on, so I have the 8GB of internal and the 2GB card. Apparently you can load an SD card with pictures on it and copy them over for viewing. I'm not sure if it removes them from the card or not, but if you're taking a lot of pictures on SD cards, it can be a handy device for offloading pics from the memory card, as you can empty the card on the camera usually.

I'd also look at a Zune, the interface looks a bit slicker than the Zen from what I've seen, but they are a bit more expensive.

Does the zen appear as a hdd in windows? or do you have to use media player to manage it.

Same goes for the zune, although i expect that it is even more likely to use the mediaplayer crap.
Anyway, zune looks interesting, will have a looksee.

They all look rather complex over my archos. Its simplistic "I just play MP3s and dont get distracted" ethos is still appealing.

It doesn't appear as a hard drive per se, but you can use Windows Explorer to put songs on it. I prefer using Winamp to manage my music anyways though. I can't think of any MSD (what your Archos is) style MP3 player being made in the past few years.

ProfHawking wrote:Its simplistic "I just play MP3s and dont get distracted" ethos is still appealing.

I do miss this. I've not seen it since the old 256mb Tesco Value jobby Mrs Pants bought me years ago though.

luddites!

ProfHawking wrote:Does the zen appear as a hdd in windows? or do you have to use media player to manage it.

Same goes for the zune, although i expect that it is even more likely to use the mediaplayer crap.
Anyway, zune looks interesting, will have a looksee.

They all look rather complex over my archos. Its simplistic "I just play MP3s and dont get distracted" ethos is still appealing.

This player should have a HDD setting like my Creative Zen Vision M, which is extremely similar to this device.

Basically, you can assign the free space of the player to native HDD mode, this can be done through the mp3 player and doesn't require formatting of the entire player. You can also remove the native HDD space if you wish to use it for mp3 space without formatting the rest of the drive.

Very handy as it doesn't require any drivers what so ever in this mode as it acts as a removable storage device.

TezzRexx wrote:
This player should have a HDD setting like my Creative Zen Vision M, which is extremely similar to this device.

Basically, you can assign the free space of the player to native HDD mode, this can be done through the mp3 player and doesn't require formatting of the entire player. You can also remove the native HDD space if you wish to use it for mp3 space without formatting the rest of the drive.

Very handy as it doesn't require any drivers what so ever in this mode as it acts as a removable storage device.

Nein! The Zen does not have such a mode. Believe me, I have it sitting here in front of me. It does use the SD card as such, but whatever is on the card is not part of the players library, you have to browse by file on the SD card.

TezzRexx wrote:
This player should have a HDD setting like my Creative Zen Vision M, which is extremely similar to this device.

Basically, you can assign the free space of the player to native HDD mode, this can be done through the mp3 player and doesn't require formatting of the entire player. You can also remove the native HDD space if you wish to use it for mp3 space without formatting the rest of the drive.

Very handy as it doesn't require any drivers what so ever in this mode as it acts as a removable storage device.

That would be good if it does work, however from the sounds of this, it is not your MP3 space?
If i put my music in there will it not be able to play it?
I dont want it to be just a flash drive, i want to be able to use my file sync tools to keep my mp3 player up to date by copying my music to it like a backup hard drive.

Also, the Zen Vision M isn't much like the Zen, as the Zen is flash memory based instead of using a hard drive. The interface has changed a lot between the two as well.

Like I said before, you're going to have a hard time finding a new MP3 player that you can just copy files to like you want. They stopped doing that because more people wanted a program to manage their mp3 players.

Another alternative might be the Cowon iAUDIO X5, which has the added benefit of being compatible with Rockbox.

http://www.cowonglobal.com/product_wide ... eature.php

For a better idea of what you want, look at this list, specifically at the MSC column.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... d_transfer

ooo nice, yes the x5 looks good. Shame its only 20g - the same as i have already.

This is going to be difficult as you say

ProfHawking wrote:ooo nice, yes the x5 looks good. Shame its only 20g - the same as i have already.

This is going to be difficult as you say

There's supposed to be a 30GB version, look around for it.

ahah indeed there is!

/Trundles off to get reviews etc

hmmmm

Well im not 100% sure, but i have ordered a Zen 32gb from amazon.

Will see how it goes!

Well, ive had the zen for a few weeks now, and i have to say, its great

Settings are perfect & customisable, and although it doesnt come up as a mass-storage-device, the fact you can browse it in my computer & drag-drop is fine.
Menus are fast, battery is good.
Only thing i notice is that the volume output is quite low, but its fine for earbuds.

Cheers for the input guys.

ProfHawking wrote:Well, ive had the zen for a few weeks now, and i have to say, its great

Settings are perfect & customisable, and although it doesnt come up as a mass-storage-device, the fact you can browse it in my computer & drag-drop is fine.
Menus are fast, battery is good.
Only thing i notice is that the volume output is quite low, but its fine for earbuds.

Cheers for the input guys.

good to hear. I like mine as well. Just a word of advice, don't bother with the acrylic case they sell for it. it just gets all scratched up, way more than the player itself. I think the leather case is probably better.