So I'm writing a letter to Santa Claus, asking for (among other things) a portable Mp3 player, but I don't know which one to ask for (I'd rather be a little specific about what I want, rather than leaving ol' Santa to flounder around, not really knowing what to get). So I want something that sounds good (but I don't need absolute top of the line sound quality), has enough space to handle a decent amount of songs (though I'm not going to be trying to listen to whole 3 hour operas on it) and isn't all that expensive. Ideas, anyone?
my brother has something from rio that can play MP3 format CDs as well as a traditional music CD. the only downside to his, is that the MP3 songs on a CD are alphabetized by file name. not that that's a bad thing, but the way some of these file names are written (read f'ed up) on the P2P networks, if you're picky about that, you can spend a lot of time renaming files. I personally don't like it when a user writes a file: Nelly_Hot_In_Here_New_Stuff_date_Nelly.mp3. Some are far worse.. you know what i'm talking about. I spend time (and don't like doing this) rewriting stuff to read: Artist - Song do you want something like that (mp3 only), or something where you download music to it, that can't play music cd's. With the cd player that can read mp3 cds, the ID3 tags come in great use
I have a Nomad 10GB, and it's not bad and certainly affordable (I've seen one for $175 at Best Buy) but could be better. It has this nasty habit of freezing when hooked up the computer if you try to multitask. A lot of people also complain that it's heavy. But, it also has about 2000 songs on it (8.5 of the 10 GBs used) now, so it's like my entire life is on it and I can't give up on it just yet. Most people with iPods swear by them but they're a lot more expensive - the 5GB version costs $300 with almost no discounts anywhere. Avoid the Archos; everything I have read about them says that they suck. The new Rio Riots might be a good middle range between Nomad price and iPod reliability, and it comes with an AM/FM tuner.