Help buying a new MP3 Player

[Garibaldi]

Well I had a Lexar Jumpgear Mp3 player that worked with my flash drive:


But now the headphone jack is bad and so no matter what pair of headphones I use, the audio won't always come out of the right side. How frustrating. Is there a fix for this?

I am thinking of getting a new MP3 player because of this. Obviously there are a lot of them out there to choose from. For instance I see Dell has one for $99 that is 512MB and has a FM tuner as well as a display. Also I could get a iPod nano but those are more money and also do they break easily? My requirements for this are as follows:
1. A MP3 player 512MB or bigger
2. Small and easy to use
3. Long battery life
4. Display screen
5. Can transport data as well as music

Also it would be nice if it had a FM tuner, although it is not required. What would you recommend both from your personal experience and what you've seen?

Thanks

[Faustus]

Hrm.. I was looking earlier. I think though its a bit more the Zen Micro 4gig is a great bargains.

[Garibaldi]

That looks like a nice player. Is it a flash or harddisk drive though?

Other recommendations?

[alsyed]

i have a cowon systems iaudio G3 mp3 player. 1GB model, with fm tuner, and i got 36 hours playback the last time with 1 nimh AA battery (2100MaH), its great and nice and small. its usb2 also. I wont' give you the price i paid cuz it was in nz dollars, and there is always a big premium for gadgets in New Zealand.

got a blue backlit (mono) screen, and transfer is done by the cable, and it can store other files on it. and the headphones that come with it are nice.

[Garibaldi]

That looks like a good system. I would prefer to get something with a bit more storage, say between 1 and 5 GB. Is this possible for $150 or less?

[alsyed]

i'm not sure, but i'm sure they make my model also in 2GB but there were some bugs with 2GB apparently.

[redwudz]

There's a SL (Expletive deleted) of MP3 players out there presently. You likely want a solid state memory player. I can't give you much advice except to search around the net. I have a microdrive USB drive. I am very careful not to drop it. For MP3 I would want something I could throw at a wall and survive.

I want one with a incorporated FM transmitter to send audio to my car stereo while I am driving different vehicles. There are a few that do that. You really need to pin down what you want, then search, evaluate, before you buy. I always try to find a review on a player. At least you have a second opinion. The MP3 player field is very hot right now, lots of options. Go for a reputable brand.

I presently have a MP3 player that uses Smartmedia cards. Maxed out at 128Mb apparently. Not much I can do about it).

I wish I knew that when I bought it. It pays to research

[Garibaldi]

I like the idea of an FM transmitter builtin!! Do you have a couple examples of one of those under $160?

I would prefer to go with flash but with bigger sizes that's not possible. I've been looking and found these, but I've read some bad things about the scroll wheels on the RIO and also that they are out of business:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=RIO+5GB+mp3+player&pid=1970634143708759452...ddr=&scoring=p
and that the RCA is buggy:
http://dealnews.com/deals/R...CA-Lyra-4-GB-MP3-Player-for-100/101029.html

Its hard to tell what to believe and how to choose

[redwudz]

I thought there was another one out there with a integrated FM transmitter, but I found this one:

http://www.lexar.com/mp3/LDP600.html.

It's funny, you would think the FM transmitter would be more common. I use a separate Belkin FM transmitter, but you have to plug it in and turn it on. The integrated one would be a lot simpler and more compact.

[Faustus]

Think thats hard? I defy you to find one that has AM on it.

[Garibaldi]

Yeah I've certainly never seen one with AM!!

I thought there was another one out there with a integrated FM transmitter, but I found this one:

http://www.lexar.com/mp3/LDP600.html.

It's funny, you would think the FM transmitter would be more common. I use a separate Belkin FM transmitter, but you have to plug it in and turn it on. The integrated one would be a lot simpler and more compact.

That looks like a nice one, but are there some between 2 - 6GB?

[redwudz]

I may be wrong, but 2-6 GB would probably be with a microdrive or a 2.5" laptop drive, something like a IPOD. Not as sturdy. Solid state drives over 2GB's are still fairly pricey. Maybe with a few spare CF cards you could come closer. The CF cards or similar are reasonably priced. I know I saw another unit with FM transmitter similar to the Lexar. I'll keep looking.

[Garibaldi]

So basically what you're saying is that the 2 -6 GB ones would most likely have mini-hds instead of flash, and that flash would be more reliable? That makes sense. I would probably want to go with flash in that case. I just made a quick playlist of the songs that I would like to have on my mp3 player once I get it, and it came to 663 songs at 22 hours. These are mp3s encoded at 196.

[Garibaldi]

Here's something like what I'm looking for:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00083XXTY/qid=1133639615/sr=8-5/ref=pd_bbs_5/002-226...photo&v=glance

Based on the customer reviews it seems like its a solid product, except for one flaw - it arranges playlists for you and ignores any custom folders. So you will only have selections of Artist, Title, Album, Year, or Recent. I could see this being a slight problem - is there an easy fix for this? Also I guess it puts cds in alphabetical order, not the actual track number. Is there another mp3 player like this (with expansion slot and maybe fm transmitter) that wouldn't have this little quirk?