HDD or Flash Based Music Player?

[Nitro89]

Basically, I am aspiring musician, I've got an ever growing collection of music, all my music on my PC is AAC-LA. I want a player with a large compacity, great quality sound and the ability to play a few videos every now and then, however I can't decide between the Cowon J3 and D3, I am leaning slightly towards the D3 as it has 160gb, but I read HDD players are less durable then flash and I can't tell how long it will last with me, I am constantly on the go, and the player will be dropped or knocked a few times but I always take great care with my stuff.

Someone who as either player, can you give me some feedback about either of them?

[yoda313]

I didn't think they were still making hdd based mp3 players. Are these new or are you looking to buy used?

I have an older zune 30gb harddrive model. It is still kicking strong. It is a harddrive model and is about three years old now. When I'm working regularly I can use it almost 8 hours a day - radio and mp3/wma.

The only issue with it is the battery is losing its oomph. I've been trying to get a replacement but haven't found anything adequate.

I think the vast vast majority of new players are flash based. I don't have any experience with flash so I can't offer advice on those.

[Nitro89]

yeah its brand new and pretty recent, the battery is 100hours of audio on the Cowon D3

[yoda313]

If its new I wouldn't worry about it if you're looking at the hdd model. As I mentioned my hdd based mp3 player is still going strong 3 years later of nearly daily use.

[Nitro89]

have you ever had any HDD problems on yours?

[Nitro89]

and sorry I mean the Cowon X7 and J3

[yoda313]

have you ever had any HDD problems on yours?

If you mean loading issues or conking out nope. Just an aging battery.

Though I did have that Christmas clock issue that hit all 30gb zunes but that was software not guts.

[Nitro89]

basically, the X7 is a 160gb player with 100 hours of battery however the vid quality is pretty shit, the J3 is a 32gb model but with expandable memory of up to 32gb using SD cards, however the J3 has better vid quality. I definitely want all my music in FLAC but I also want to watch gigs and music vids on there too. Is the expandable memory a better then a HDD one?

[yoda313]

I like the option of expandable memory. Only downside of course is storing the memory cards. Swapping them out can be a bit of a pain and you don't have an easy way to label them unless you get some kind of plastic carrying case for them.

That would be one vote for the larger player is no memory sticks/cards.

Also you have to add the expense of more memory cards if you don't already have them on hand. And it depends on how important the video quality is to you.