Anyone bought one recently? What's good at the moment?
Priorities are:
showing up as a drive on yer PC, doesn't require some special software just to drop tunes onto it
decent sound quality
reasonably nice user interface
doesn't have to be massive, doesn't need loads of bells and whistles.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Don't know where that wink came from.
Or rather, I know where it came from, but I don't know why...
i bought this 2 gig player last year:
http://www.sandisk.com/products/sansa-mu...mp3-player
sound quality is pretty shit but for the price and the fact that it's dependable and requires no software 
I've had this since March 2010:
http://www.cowonglobal.com/product_wide/...page_1.php
Check advancedmp3players.com for best prices and non-flowery presentation.
As a guide, I've moved through four Mp3 players in 7 years. Gradually I've gravitated to the best I can afford. First thing I got was a dreadful 128meg £50 jobby from dabs.com, that broke in three weeks. I then decided to buy a different model. Reliability wise, was the best thing I've had. They were called Slimbox, made in Korea. 512mb memory, radio record, but no folders, only a sequenced playlist. Until it froze. Shortly after in 2007 was the iriver X20, aptly 20 times the size in space, which made it a year before malfunctioning. Final other: Creative Zen 8gig, which all in all, was a bit shit.
Today, the Cowon is around £140 new. They're no longer developing it, so if it seems your thing, you'll have to act quick. Always eBay, but I haven't touched that site for a long time as I don't trust purchasing items exceeding £20 there. D2+'s got a DAB radio with record, decent quality mic, expansion slot. Fundamentally, superb sound quality. My on switch bailed this Winter, repaired quick by amp3. Pretty robust otherwise. You get 8, 16 or 32gb.
User-friendliness: touch screen operated. My first experience with that type. Pro-con equation = better than non-touch.
Detected as removable drive.
Battery life is pathetically insincere - 10 hours, not 52.
I'm planning at some point to utilise the on-board equaliser to treat and resample audio files, with modified presets - though this is a grey area as a) you need their line-in cable, b) this requires routing a line-out from the headphone socket. Might not be worth the hassle if every connector isn't gold-plated.
Slothrop Wrote:Don't know where that wink came from.
Or rather, I know where it came from, but I don't know why...
ello sailor 
^ Yeah I have given up using that as it pisses me off having to sync things all the time (otherwise it doesn't seem to let me fast forward and things are in the incorrect order).
So I went for one that allowed me to just plug in and copy over without any faffing around. It's an Archos Vision or something (I forget, as I only got it the other week  ).
It seems ok. Nothing fancy, does what I want it to with minimal twatting around. It came with software I think, but works perfectly fine without it (unlike Creative products..grrrr).
Unless I used the Creative product wrong all those years ?!?!?!?! Probably, knowing me 
Sony for sound quality. Fact. Are now drag & drop, nice interfaces, can always get a previous generation one cheaper on ebay new.
Cheap chinese ones as well that use the Wolfsen DACs have as good a quality as any of the big brands.
Thanks, dudes!
Sony and Cowon look solid, although I'm not sure how to pronounce 'cowon'.
Cowon all the way!! I love my D2 
How big do you need it?
I use my phone.
i have one of these http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electron...amsung}%2b
which I bought to replace my previous samsung one. it links up to my pc fine, drag and drop yer tunes very easily, without any extra software... although it does come with a disc. Sound quality is very good, shitloads of eq presets, custom eq, playlists.
Its got quite a few bits i don't really use, but one thing worth mentioning is the quality of the included earphones. They sound lovely, i tested the same tunes with various peoples earphones and none of them had anywhere near the bass, or depth. Definately not tinpot sounding! They do an 8gb version, but if like me you have lots of mixes that will soon be filled up.
That looks good, though press is rarely bona fide.
Amp3 have an offer on. Spend £30 and you receive a free FM Transmitter for Mp3/car stereo plugin:
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop...1bqpd5o9c3
I can't, since it's for Ipods. But perhaps someone here can make use of it.
haxhi Wrote:Cowon all the way!! I love my D2
Same, the battery life smashes it, I've got mine on for the best part of 8 hours a day and it doesn't even use a bar
Must be lithium ion differentials - mine maxed at 16 for two months then gradually decreased.
mmm those cowon ones look nice. the samsung one i posted is not in quite the same league battery life wise, but still its not bad at all... certainly not something i have ever had a gripe with.
Loved my Cowon D2 but stopped using it after I got an iphone, no need to carry an extra device.. I miss using the Cowon though because it just works so great, loads of good features and excellent sound quality (Cowon use great dacs).
Plus you can make an awesome hard case for the D2 out of an old Altoids mint tin if you have a dremell 
I have a Cowon and love it! Sound quality is really good (especially if you have a descent set of earphones) 
regarding your original criteria; plenty of stuff on ebuyer
Muttley Wrote:Today, the Cowon D2 is around £140 new. They're no longer developing it, so if it seems your thing, you'll have to act quick.
For anyone looking at a new Cowon in this regard: their replacement to the D2, the C2 is reduced by 10% at advancedmp3players.co.uk this week, in the 16GB bracket. The J3 is also 10% off.
Muttley Wrote:Muttley Wrote:Today, the Cowon D2 is around £140 new. They're no longer developing it, so if it seems your thing, you'll have to act quick.
For anyone looking at a new Cowon in this regard: their replacement to the D2, the C2 is reduced by 10% at advancedmp3players.co.uk this week, in the 16GB bracket. The J3 is also 10% off.
My D2+ had its' drive wiped and no longer connects properly to the PC. My J3 stopped working around this time too. But my Dad's C2 is still going strong.
Now I have this
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop....4653.html
A bit of a brick in weight. But I'm getting used to it. And at least I know it's in my pocket.
D2+ has been working for over a year now and is my most used Mp3 player. I think my other half has my previous one. The Creative Zen I still use but it's so pernickety to name every album in an ID tag and you can't always do that without mass editing. The X7 I use when I lay own at my parents' and occasionally on my Alesis monitors.
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