Hey guys

For various reasons, I'm considering purchasing an MP3 player. I used to have a Creative Zen Micro, but that has broken.

I need at least 60 gigs of storage. Currently I have 60 gigs of music, and that collection is only growing.

I would like to keep the price around $200 USD or lower.

All these modern day MP3 players fill them with unnecessary crap (games, video, internet, etc.), lower the storage capacity, and jack up the price. I just want a standard MP3 player without spending a ton.

If possible, I'd like to avoid any Apple products. I simply loathe Apple. Though at last resort, I could buy an iPod and make it so I don't have to deal with iTunes or nothing.

Thoughts? What do you guys have/recommend?

The reason why they have gone to smaller capacities is because they've gone from hardrive to flash. Trust me, thats a big improvement. Unfortunately I doubt you could buy any flash based 60GB + device for under 200USD unless you go for a horrid hardrive based Mp3 player. Personally I have a Cowon s9 which is great even though it is aging a little. For a more mp3 dedicated device and if you care about sound quality or battery life I highly reccomend you check out other Cowon devices.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855501050

Not sure how easy they are to find these days, but you could get an older model Zune (not the Zune HD). You could also go with one of the Sansa models and buy a mini SDHC card to increase the capacity to however much you need.

They don't make a lot of high capacity PMPs these days, they use flash memory which is more expensive but sturdier.

- You really can't listen to 60 GBs of music in one day, unless it is all uncompressed PCM

- Get a PMP that supports use of SD cards (like the Sansa Fuze or http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Player-Wireless-Built-Speaker/dp/B001CB0RT0). Then you can just get Micro SD cards as you go along and have hot-swappable memory to carry your collection with you wherever you go

It's a shame Creative doesn't make large capacity mp3 players. My wife loves her Creative Zen Mosaic and it's very hardy (she's a field archaeologist). Unfortunately I think the largest HD size Creative supports is 32 gigs.

Well, I use my iPhone as an MP3 player. Handy not having to lug 2 devices (phone + music player) around but you can go for a Touch or Classic.

inb4 Haters hatin on iPods.

That's a great deal, but that product has gotten a lot of poor reviews. So I'm hesitant.

And I suppose I can go under 60 gigs. I don't have to always have my full music collection with me at all times.

Defron, that Zen X-Fi looks real nice. Reasonably priced too.

I'll check back again tomorrow evening. Off to bed.

I think Creative is STILL clinging to their awful SD card integration (ie they don't integrate it at all). Creative isn't a very good PMP company any more.

EDIT: I cannot stress this enough, the Zen X-Fi svcks. It's not a good thing.

I would recommend a Cowon (sp?) music player. The sound quality is top-notch. They may not make 60gb players though, certainly not under $200.

On a side note, can someone explain to me how it's possible to listen to 60 gigs of music? I have 2000 songs on my mp3 player which is under 10 gigs. And I haven't listened to most of the songs more than once.

If you want lots of storage space for under 200$, I suggest http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16855125067&cm_re=sansa_fuze-_-55-125-067-_-Product + http://astore.amazon.com/cheap.microsdhc.32gb.on.sale-20/detail/B003WGJYCY. The total price is 191$ for 40 GB on a really good player, but http://forums.sandisk.com/t5/Fuze/bd-p/fuze.

I still use my Creative Zen Vision:M 30GB a lot. Smaller sized MP3 players are disadvantageous. If you have a large music collection, there's no telling what you'll want to listen to throughout the day. Nothing disappoints more than looking forward to listening to an artist on the way home, only to discover it isn't on your player.

I hate Apple with a passion, but for a purely size/cost comparason you can't beat the ipod classic.

MP3 player? What's that? I listen to the radio.

Seriously, I barely ever use my MP3 player, it's 4 gigs and I've filled up a little over half. I see no reason to have that much space.

I had the same set of concerns as you when I bought my last mp3 player, but I couldn't find any secondhand or reconstructed ones which were any good, so I had to go with an iPod Classic. You don't have to use iTunes with it, btw. It's really easy to set it up with Winamp.


Of course you can't, but I don't want to have to choose what music I'm going to be listening to before I set off every morning - I choose as I go along, and for that I need enough storage for all of it.

Yeah but you have like 300gb of music or something, crazy guy!

It's hard to find anything that's over 60GB under $200. Also if you're a busy guy (OP), it's possible to lose those micro SD cards, though not likely. I'd have to agree with MP and go with an iPod Classic or a Zune Classic. Although iPod is probably better made. Otherwise just go with what someone posted earlier in this thread, 8GB Sansa and then a few 8-16 GB micro SDs or a couple 32 gig ones.

Actually I only have about 35-40 gigs so far. Less than the OP, anyway

This seems like the most reasonable option so far.

I might save myself $80 and get a 16 gig microSDHC http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDHC-Memory-SDSDQ-016G-Packaging/dp/B001L1H0SC/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1283350684&sr=1-1

I don't need to have all my music at once. 24 gigs will suffice. I don't need to connect the MicroSDHC card to my computer, right? Simply having it in the MP3 player will allow me to put the music on it?

Does anybody have recommendations for FM transmitters, so I can have my music in my car as well?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GCQ3KM/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001L1H0SC/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2WTVCOLVN15GP
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C48HTO/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A1QGIDACEIIO9M
http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-10008-SNSATA-iTrip-Transmitter-Charger/dp/B000IN004K/ref=sr_1_16?s=mp3&ie=UTF8&qid=1283351869&sr=1-16
For $113. Not too shabby.

Why not just use your cell phone? I believe someone else already has said it, they use their cell phone. I believe there are a few good cell phone that have good mp3 capabilities. This way you only carry one thing.

I have a cheap and basic phone.
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I don't need to connect the MicroSDHC card to my computer, right? Simply having it in the MP3 player will allow me to put the music on it?

I think it should work that way, but even if it doesn't you can get a cheap reader. I have a little Dynex SD card reader that works perfectly fine.

And there really is no good FM transmitter. They can't make them powerful enough to send out a strong signal to your car (least not in the US where we have policies for such things) and you'll find yourself constantly losing signal. The best way to get music in your car is to use an audio cable and plug it into your radio, but if you're like me and don't have one you're pretty much sol.

Well I'll be honest, there aren't many mp3 players out there these days with that kind of capacity. Everybody is trying to move to SSD instead of hard discs. Apple, of course, probably still sells their big video iPods with that capacity, and I know Zune has something comprable. As an owner of a Creative Zen Microphoto I can attest to their quality, and I'd wager any new player Creative has would work (but I don't think they get bigger than 32GB).

What I personally use right now is a Sansa Clip. It cost like $30, has 2GB of storage, and manages to get the job done perfectly. I just load it up with whatever music I feel like I might listen to that day and go about my business, since I rarely ever need access to all 100+ GB of my music collection at once. You might want to just get one as a backup to try out while deciding on the big expensive one you'll get later. That's what I originally wanted to do, but then I ended up sticking with the little clip.

A 60 gig MP3 player for under 200$? That'll be hard to find, I mean, for that amount of space you HAVE to pay for it. That's a lot of storage for an MP3 player.
I don't see why you wouldn't get an iPod though, you don't have to use iTunes if you don't want too. The quality is great, and they rarely ever stop working. I've had my same iPod for almost 5 years and it still works like new. It's only a 10 gig though.
"I don't like Apple" isn't really a reason not to buy a superior product, IMO, but that's just MO.

I refuse to buy an Apple product, unless it's my last and only other option. Even then I probably wouldn't buy it.

I'm pretty sure I've settled on
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GCQ3KM/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001L1H0SC/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A2WTVCOLVN15GP
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C48HTO/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=A1QGIDACEIIO9M
http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-10008-SNSATA-iTrip-Transmitter-Charger/dp/B000IN004K/ref=sr_1_16?s=mp3&ie=UTF8&qid=1283351869&sr=1-16
For $113. ($120 after shipping charges)

So you settled for 24 gigs, down from 60?