4gb flash players....anyone use?

binary visions · Dec 18, 2005

Unless you're dying for a color display, why would you spend more money for an MP3 player that has a worse battery? Especially $70 more (please consider, that's a 40% increase in price over the Sandisk), when that's the only feature it offers over the Sandisk, and the Sandisk does offer an FM tuner and voice recorder, if you like that sort of thing.

The battery life vs. price issue seals it for me...

-dustin · Dec 18, 2005

also, if most of your stuff is .wma, might as well go with the SanDisk. it runs on a AAA, so you wouldn't have any problems with not being able to 'charge' it.

skinny mike · Dec 18, 2005

the sandisk looks like it will be considerably larger than the nano. im biased because i like ipods but go with the nano.

binary visions · Dec 18, 2005

gnurider1080 said:
the sandisk looks like it will be considerably larger than the nano. im biased because i like ipods but go with the nano.

12345

morethanjake543 · Dec 18, 2005

After handling other sandisk players, I'm pretty sure the sandisk will be much thicker than the ipod.

But as much as I wuggle my friend's nanos, I just wouldn't trust them to hold up to active use. I've seen websites testing the nano by running it over and noting how it still works, but it just feels so delicate. It's more a piece of jazz than it is an active item. Go with the sandisk simply because if you scratch it, you wont cry.

-dustin · Dec 18, 2005

binary visions said:
12345

forgot the catpion

The SanDisk Sansa m240 (1GB) next to the Apple iPod Nano (4GB): The Nano is much thinner.

kinghami3 · Dec 18, 2005

binary visions said:
12345

iPod is WAY thinner.

I am a biased Apple user, who will hopefully have a Shuffle after this upcoming holiday that so many people like to call Christmas. My roommate has the nano, and it is a piece of art. Feather weight and you can fit it into your change pocket. The controls are fast and responsive, easy to navigate, and the color screen is a great benefit. The SanDisk looks clunky (I've seen them in person too), and the controls look difficult to navigate with no method of scrolling. Just navigating through 4 Gb of music on that small screen looks like an irritating experience to say the least.

On the other hand, the nano seems as though it would break much easier than the SanDisk (hence my preference for the Shuffle), and it scratches easily (only because the SanDisk doesn't glisten in the first place).

Just go to Best Buy if you want to check both of them out.

dfinn · Dec 18, 2005

I have the previous version of the SanDisk player, the 1G one. It's held up very well to the abuse I've given it, no problems with it at all. It's for sale though, I got a nano.

binary visions · Dec 18, 2005

Yes, the iPod is thinner - whether or not that's a good thing is personal preference, I guess. Frankly, I'd rather have a stockier player than something tall and thin, given that I'd be keeping the thing in my pocket all the time and a thinner player is liable to break before a thicker one.

Wasn't posting the image to be misleading, I was just posting a size reference since there are no dimensions listed on the Circuit City page...

As I said earlier, though, you're paying $70 extra for something with fewer features, less battery life, and is arguably more fragile. I don't get it. Apple sure does make things look pretty, though... I used a Nano for a little while in Best Buy and it was a fine player from what I could tell. It's just too simple a device for me to get all worked up over a color screen or a slight ergonomic difference in the controls one way or another. It plays music. If one will do it for longer than another, and is going to be sturdier to boot, well, that's all I need to know. It's not a fashion statement for me.

kinghami3 · Dec 18, 2005

binary visions said:
As I said earlier, though, you're paying $70 extra for something with fewer features, less battery life, and is arguably more fragile. I don't get it. Apple sure does make things look pretty, though... I used a Nano for a little while in Best Buy and it was a fine player from what I could tell. It's just too simple a device for me to get all worked up over a color screen or a slight ergonomic difference in the controls one way or another. It plays music. If one will do it for longer than another, and is going to be sturdier to boot, well, that's all I need to know. It's not a fashion statement for me.

Usability is the kicker though, and that's what Apple's good at.

binary visions · Dec 18, 2005

kinghami3 said:
Usability is the kicker though, and that's what Apple's good at.

Well, if the device is really unusable, then the designers did a poor job. However, I don't find Apple devices to be particularly intuitive, just well-designed. If you have to learn one layout, then you can just as easily learn another layout - and until I've got reason to believe the Sandisk is simply an abhorrent design (which the reviews don't seem to indicate), then you're not really gaining anything by going with one layout over another.

dfinn · Dec 18, 2005

another thing to consider is batteries. not battery life but having to replace AAA batteries all the time. it's wasteful and it's expensive. You could buy rechargables but if you factor that into the cost then the price difference is much less. if you don't plan on buying rechargables then something like the SanDisk player will be much more expensive in the long run. How often are you going to listen to 17 hours worth of music straight?

it's so easy to recharge the nano, you just plug the usb cable in.

binary visions · Dec 18, 2005

dfinn said:
it's so easy to recharge the nano, you just plug the usb cable in.

This is very true, obviously a very valid reason to buy a device like the Nano.

The flip side, of course, being that if you don't have access to a place to charge it, you can easily grab/obtain as many AAA batteries as you want.

.:Jeenyus:. · Dec 18, 2005

If you have iTunes, the nano is what you want. The inegration of the two is seamless, and VERY easy to use. Plus all the points eveyone else mentioned.

ZoRo · Dec 18, 2005

kinghami3 said:
Usability is the kicker though, and that's what Apple's good at.

Indeed, and that's what all the other players are lacking; not performance or storage or even size, user friendliness. It's always been Apple's forte.

narlus · Dec 19, 2005

ZoRo said:
Indeed, and that's what all the other players are lacking; not performance or storage or even size, user friendliness. It's always been Apple's forte.

what other players are you comparing the Apple too?

i've found that i much prefer the system setup of the Rio Karma over my wife's iPod. there are a lot of neat things about it which the Apple doesn't do.

the 'user friendliness' of the Apples are always touted...give someone an iPod (who has never used one before) and tell them to turn it off. wanna bet how long that will take?

dfinn · Dec 20, 2005

narlus said:
what other players are you comparing the Apple too?

i've found that i much prefer the system setup of the Rio Karma over my wife's iPod. there are a lot of neat things about it which the Apple doesn't do.

the 'user friendliness' of the Apples are always touted...give someone an iPod (who has never used one before) and tell them to turn it off. wanna bet how long that will take?

Took me less than 5 seconds. You hold the play button, just like on my SanDisk.

TreeSaw · Dec 20, 2005

I would lean more toward the SanDisk myself too because of the ease of charging (AAA batteries). I've been looking into MP3 players as well and the SanDisk and the Creative ones are both high up on my list. Enjoy and let us know what you end up getting!

Total Heckler · Dec 20, 2005

My brother works for Apple. The nano is nice.

jimmydean · Dec 20, 2005

There was an article that stress tested the Nano and I was blown away ad how buff it was. They tossed it 40 feet in the air onto the sidewalk and the tunes were still playing. The screen busted when they ran over it with the car, but it still played.

I am getting the Sandisk because the screen on all ipods gets trashed easy. I have seen them scratched beyond view in a matter of minutes if you put it in your pocket with even things like paper.

Plus the iTunes thing for Linux sucks. The Sandisk works the same as a thumb drive for files and whatnot.

TreeSaw · Dec 20, 2005

Total Heckler said:
My brother works for Apple. The nano is nice.

Nice! He could send me a Nano for x-mas and I would be happy to test it out for him

dfinn · Dec 20, 2005

Plus the iTunes thing for Linux sucks. The Sandisk works the same as a thumb drive for files and whatnot.

There's several options for linux. I haven't gotten around to playing with them yet since I just got my nano but gtkpod looks like it does a fine job of transfering files to an ipod. You won't find anything as full featured as iTunes but if you are just looking to move songs onto the device there are definitely programs out there to handle that.

narlus · Dec 20, 2005

dfinn said:
Took me less than 5 seconds. You hold the play button, just like on my SanDisk.

and that's intuitive?

Mountain_Dewd · Dec 20, 2005

Id pay more for the apple because its better looking, thinner and tuckes away easier, has the color screen that is nice and the biggest thing, the awesome ipod interface that makes it so easy to navigate your music.

dfinn · Dec 20, 2005

good luck figuring out how to turn it off

profro · Jan 11, 2006

Update?

Oly, now that you have some time with it, any pluses and minuses?

McGRP01 · Jan 11, 2006

Can't speak for the 4gb, but I have a 2gb Nano and love it! :thumb:

dfinn · Jan 11, 2006

One other thing I noticed that I wanted to add to this was that the random song playing absolutely sucked on my SanDisk player. It would repeat some songs more than others, some songs would never get played. My nano so far has been much better.

SkaredShtles · Jan 11, 2006

dfinn said:
another thing to consider is batteries. not battery life but having to replace AAA batteries all the time. it's wasteful and it's expensive. You could buy rechargables but if you factor that into the cost then the price difference is much less. <snip>

Rechargable AAA batteries aren't very expensive...... :think:

SkaredShtles · Jan 11, 2006

So do some of these players come with a slot in which you can use existing memory cards? Or is the memory built into the player? Seems like it'd be much more useful to have a player that simply accepted a standard compact flash card........

binary visions · Jan 11, 2006

SkaredShtles said:
So do some of these players come with a slot in which you can use existing memory cards? Or is the memory built into the player? Seems like it'd be much more useful to have a player that simply accepted a standard compact flash card........

Compact flash is too big for these devices.

A lot of 'em are accepting SD cards, though. Not these ones we've been discussing in this thread, but some of 'em do.

narlus · Jan 11, 2006

SS, some do, which is one of the reasons i went w/ a Rio Forge. they take Secure Digital, not CF (which would be too large), and prices continue to fall for memory. i bought the smallest internal memory (128MB) and bought a 512MB card.

narlus · Jan 11, 2006

doh, BV beat me to it.

DamienC · Jan 11, 2006

narlus said:
and that's intuitive?

About as intuitive as clicking the "Start" button to shut down Windows.

I'm totally digging my Nano for running. I hardly know it's there when carried along in the arm band and no worries about jarring a hard drive.

dfinn · Jan 11, 2006

SkaredShtles said:
Rechargable AAA batteries aren't very expensive......

ok smarty pants, how much are they? Probably about $20 for the very cheapest batteries and recharger out there? I haven't bought any since I was a kid with a R/C car.

Ciaran · Jan 11, 2006

dfinn said:
ok smarty pants, how much are they? Probably about $20 for the very cheapest batteries and recharger out there? I haven't bought any since I was a kid with a R/C car.

Not sure about the charger but I bought two AA rechargables for my wireless mouse last night for 6 bucks.

4gb flash players....anyone use?

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