MP3 player recs?

[tamaranth]

It seems quite likely that I shall be shopping for a new MP3 player in the January sales.

So: iPod nano? or not?

My criteria:
- reasonable storage capacity (I don't need to keep all my music on it all the time, but my little 512M player doesn't really hold enough for a long journey)
- good battery life (I'd actually be happier with something that took AAA batteries: no more reliance on the availability of electricity)
- I hate iTunes, and am quite happy using Explorer to copy files onto my MP3 player
- nice design
- ideally small and light

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Ipod nano is good. Three warnings though: firstly, the word about how easily they scratch is entirely true, so buy a case before you take the thing out of its box. Secondly, they're USB only -- Apple dropped firewire from their firmware -- so if your machines are older Macs with USB 1.1 only you may have problems (as in, putting music on it will be slow as pigshit). And thirdly, you'll need to use iTunes.

So, um, maybe it's not an iPod nano for you!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

1. happy to buy cover as well (the cover's preserved my current one against all manner of evils).
2. Not a problem: no Macs in this house! and USB on everything.
3. Boo, but can live with iTunes: it's just that it insists on indexing my music drives every time I plug them in (a fraught occasion, here, as the wiring is ancient and liable to throw a tantrum if stressed) and, with 2 120-G drives, this is not the work of seconds.

What's the battery life like?

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Battery life is allegedly 12+ hours. I haven't had mine long enough to ever get below half-full (which happened on a 3.5 hour Edinburgh-Leeds train journey ... but I suspect it got turned on by accident in its case.) It seems to be pretty solid, and these days we're beginning to see top-up chargers via the dock connector that take AAA cells and don't cost the earth.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

that sounds excellent -- especially the top-up chargers, as I'm not always in reach of a plug socket. (Boats! Second-class travel on trains! Plane journeys! Ditchling Common!)

Will wait and see who provides the biggest price cut ...

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I must admit we're very taken with our Nanos. Although I agree with all your comments re iTunes.

Battery life is actually not bad - it'll last me a long haul flight and still have legs.

The only thing to remember is to put it into sleep mode when you are finished with it otherwise it will stay active and suck the battery dry. Once I'd figured that I got much better battery life.

[msilverstar]

The nano finally seduced me... and I'm a very happpy camper. It's got 4 GB which is much better than your one. I wish I'd bought a non-black case cos I lose it very easily.

[tanais.livejournal.com]

The Nano is ok. Sonically its as good as any of the others (via Dock) never used the earbuds as I have Etymotics ER6is which are very good at shutting out noise so volume is rarely pumped. I've had one for a few months (Blogs Passim (http://www.livejournal.com/users/tanais/224214.html)) and after the initial *shiny* lovefest I concluded its too small for me... I keep forgetting where I last put it or forget to put it in my bag -- or leave it in one bag and go out with another. Also, its small enough for me to leave in a trouser pocket and wash which has very nearly happened! The new full-sized iPods are now all sufficiently slim enough to be used down at t'gym which about the only place I use it TBH.

Battery life seems... OK... ish... I don't think its near 12 hours more like 8 or so (as-in 5 visits to the gym in a 1h:45min session) as it has a small memory capacity you'll in all likelihood be doing a fair bit of music swapping between your library and the nano so as it only uses USB2 to xfer/charge I suspect it'll get "topped up" a fair bit. Also, I've maxed out the USB ports on my iMac but have a spare firewire

AAAs will bulk up any player so Charlie's suggestion to get a AAA power carrier IMV obviates the reason for buying a Nano in the first place.

I'll in all likelihood be putting my Nano/Case/Dock up on eBay to go towards a full sized iPod and armband this week... I think the newest full-sized ones are thin enough... Unsure how a Nano is to use without iTunes though...