Whats a good ~5GB mp3 player?

**ClickHere2Surf.com** · August 26th, 2005, 07:37 PM

My uncle wants an mp3 player, I think he'd prefer one with built in radio and voice recorder. I've heard the 20/40GB iPods from my friends and they themselves as well as me agree the sound quality from the iPod isn't very good (I had a watch MP3 player that sounded miles better, and most other mp3 players sound much better).

I asked if sound quality was important and he said yes so I assume unless the new iPods fix the low quality sound then they're out of the question (I know it's not horrible quality, but it's not what I'd expect from an mp3 player costing $500 at the time, I certainly would have returned it since I'm used to the much higher sound quality from my pocket pc).

I read online that the sound from the Creative Zen is much better, are there other ~5GB mp3 players with better sound than the iPod? Do the new iPod minis have better sound quality than the original iPods? What would you recommend for him?

Thanks

**kato2274** · August 26th, 2005, 08:05 PM

I love my zen.

I have the 60GB version. every album I own is on it. sounds fantastic and the controls are great. Apple gets all the press over their mp3 players, but honestly, I don't think creative has ever made a bad one. They may not have always made the best one out, but each nomad, way back to the jukebox 1 have been solid players.

I'm sure they have smaller versions. I know there is a 20GB zen out there now that boasts 24hours of battery life

I do OK with the 7+ hours my zen offers me

rio stuff is also pretty solid....though I've never had one.

**ClickHere2Surf.com** · August 26th, 2005, 08:08 PM

I saw a 5GB Zen, that's the one we prefered, so are they the best or are there other better ones?

**kato2274** · August 26th, 2005, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by ClickHere2Surf.com

I saw a 5GB Zen, that's the one we prefered, so are they the best or are there other better ones?

I can only say from personal experience that I love creative stuff. I've had a nomad jukebox 1 and my ZEN. I love them both.

**TechZ** · August 27th, 2005, 04:15 AM

My brother went for the Zen Extra, he was hoping for the Zen Touch (24hr battery life they claim)! but since it wasnt available he took the Zen Extra, I've used it a few times and I have to say Creative make excellent mp3 players.

**Guts3d** · August 27th, 2005, 05:31 AM

I have three of the Creative Labs Zen Xtra's, they are top notch. I bought 2 of them with bad hard drives on E-bay for less than $100 each and put in a new laptop 80 gig hdd. You can buy extra batteries and take spares. I get 8 - 11 hours out of a full charge, and you can use it as a USB file storage drive as well.

**ClickHere2Surf.com** · August 27th, 2005, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by Guts3d

I have three of the Creative Labs Zen Xtra's, they are top notch. I bought 2 of them with bad hard drives on E-bay for less than $100 each and put in a new laptop 80 gig hdd. You can buy extra batteries and take spares. I get 8 - 11 hours out of a full charge, and you can use it as a USB file storage drive as well.

Don't they use compact flash or PCMCIA sized hard drives? Or is that a bigger model?

**TechZ** · August 28th, 2005, 03:40 AM

the Zen Xtra's use 2.5" laptop-size Hard Disks for storage.

**confus-ed** · August 28th, 2005, 06:13 AM

Originally Posted by TechZ

the Zen Xtra's use 2.5" laptop-size Hard Disks for storage.

Aye they make a feature of that fact, for selling purposes

..

Originally Posted by creative's sales blurb

..The NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra doubles up as an external hard drive for storing all your photos, documents and other data files..

.
(btw 'd.a.p' over here{uk &Europe} some places & not 'nomad' )

& so being confus-ed as promised earlier .. what about a mobile phone for this job ?

So huh ? I here you mutter .. "uncle wants an mp3 player, I think he'd prefer one with built in radio and voice recorder" - new phones do that ! & they also double as media players, as you can see video on 'em too (& you'll probably get a camera 'chucked in' also).. My sister loved her ipod, until her firm gave her a mobile that takes up to 4gb cf cards & now she uses that, & says the sound is miles better too..

(You can get 'free phones' here that might do all this

, especially on 3g tariff's, phones I know though lag behind in the states a bit model wise, is stuff like this 'generally' available though, to make this an option ? .. )