 Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 5,422
axiomite
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axiomite
Joined: Sep 2004
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Me being "the other poster" I found it funny too, but I knew what he was meaning to say...  We have her pretty much convinced that she isn't getting any MP3 player, so now she is starting to "plead" with us. So right now she says that it would be OK if it wasn't an IPod, and she likes the idea that others (Sansa) have an FM tuner and you can record off the radio (not sure if that will every REALLY get used)... I wonder though. Our shipment came from Best Buy, and my wife opened it up. On top was the little plastic case with the clear front and you can see the pink IPod Nano is all of its girlish "cuteness". My wife loved it. Me, I dug down to the box of for the Sansa. Much larger packaging, and the only thing that tells you what is inside is an "actual size" picture on the box. You don't get to actually see the device. IPod wins on packaging in my book, and I am thinking that what my daughter says now, and what she will actually pick when she sees the "blingy" IPod are 2 different things....
Farewell - June 4, 2020
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Jan 2006
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devotee
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I bet she'll choose the iPod! That kind of packaging always wins with girls (well at least it did with my sisters).
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 973
aficionado
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aficionado
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 973 |
Cam, i'm a little late to join the conversation, but considering the products you are mulling over, i should probably throw one more suggestion into the mix: ArchosI'm not sure how they compare to other players, but i selected the older model 402 last year because of one important function - the ability to upload pics to it directly from a mem card. At the time it was the only MP3 player i could find that had this functionality without being incredibly burdensome. The one thing i did notice on my trip as i was watching uploaded Arrested Development episodes or viewing freshly uploaded pics, was a number of people saying, "hey, my (insert MP3 player name) doesn't do that." So i assume it has a number of features that are hard to find. At any rate, it had the features that were important for me, and i've found that uploading and organizing pics & music has been very easy. One of the newer models might be worth your consideration, especially in light of the reasonable pricing. Good luck anywho!
"Chickens don't clap."
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,602
connoisseur
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connoisseur
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,602 |
Further to this whole MP3 player thing.
We got Lisa's sister a Sandisk Sansa M240 for Christmas. She opened it today, and then I went to show her how to use it.
Throw in the included mini-CD (8cm)... watch it fall out of the vertically mounted CD-ROM tray three times in a row. Have it install the software... which turns out to be a WMP upgrade. Wow, thanks for putting all that R&D into a useful app for ripping and loading your product. Ah, well... I'll just give her a copy of CDeX later.
Hit the Rip tab, get her to give me her The Open Door CD, rip the first two tracks to WMA as a test. As stated in the instruction manual, treat it like a USB drive, drop the files onto the MP3 player... disconnect, attach to headphones... shows both files are on the player, but refuses to play them saying that it needs to be synced.
Flip to the sync tab (which, by the way, defaults to trying to update the player with anything remotely resembling an audio file, plus any TXT files that could sound like dance music if given half a chance)... cancel all that silliness, change the parameters of what gets synced...
Repeat over and over until I get frustrated enough that I see myself as a British nanny shaking the life out of this little plastic piece of crap.
I call Lisa in, usually she's got a better handle on how the great unwashed do things without custom applications for every project. She smugly says she's figured it out after 15 minutes, and shows me how you create a new sync profile... I congratulate her and suggest she go through it one more time with her sister so she's got it. So she does... trying to add one more song from the album onto the player... which works... and it deletes the previous track she just loaded.
Honestly, Sandisk... I know DRM is a big thing these days, but I've etched and soldered a PCB for an audio digitizer for the C64 and wrote assembly code to play back the resulting audio file... if I can't figure out the hoops to jump through to load songs onto your player, you've failed... you should have just packaged a tiny leprechaun in the back of the package that would jump out, bite me in the gonads and defecate on the floor. I might have had a better out of box experience.
Bren R.
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,177
connoisseur
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connoisseur
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,177 |
Quote:
Further to this whole MP3 player thing.
We got Lisa's sister a Sandisk Sansa M240 for Christmas. She opened it today, and then I went to show her how to use it.
Throw in the included mini-CD (8cm)... watch it fall out of the vertically mounted CD-ROM tray three times in a row. Have it install the software... which turns out to be a WMP upgrade. Wow, thanks for putting all that R&D into a useful app for ripping and loading your product. Ah, well... I'll just give her a copy of CDeX later.
Hit the Rip tab, get her to give me her The Open Door CD, rip the first two tracks to WMA as a test. As stated in the instruction manual, treat it like a USB drive, drop the files onto the MP3 player... disconnect, attach to headphones... shows both files are on the player, but refuses to play them saying that it needs to be synced.
Flip to the sync tab (which, by the way, defaults to trying to update the player with anything remotely resembling an audio file, plus any TXT files that could sound like dance music if given half a chance)... cancel all that silliness, change the parameters of what gets synced...
Repeat over and over until I get frustrated enough that I see myself as a British nanny shaking the life out of this little plastic piece of crap.
I call Lisa in, usually she's got a better handle on how the great unwashed do things without custom applications for every project. She smugly says she's figured it out after 15 minutes, and shows me how you create a new sync profile... I congratulate her and suggest she go through it one more time with her sister so she's got it. So she does... trying to add one more song from the album onto the player... which works... and it deletes the previous track she just loaded.
Honestly, Sandisk... I know DRM is a big thing these days, but I've etched and soldered a PCB for an audio digitizer for the C64 and wrote assembly code to play back the resulting audio file... if I can't figure out the hoops to jump through to load songs onto your player, you've failed... you should have just packaged a tiny leprechaun in the back of the package that would jump out, bite me in the gonads and defecate on the floor. I might have had a better out of box experience.
Bren R.
O.K. Maybe my complaints about iTunes were a little off........ 
Shawn
Epic 80/600 + M3's + M3 Algonquins + M2 Computer + EP125
I think I'm developing an addiction.
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 537
aficionado
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aficionado
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 537 |
Hi Bren:
I was looking at a different Sandisk MP3 player on Futureshop and one of the comments in the reviews says to change the mode from autodetect to MSC and then you should be able to drag and drop files from Windows explorer to the player. Hopefully this helps.
2xM80 VP180 2xQS8 2xM3 HSU STF3 LG 60PS11 Denon 3808 ATI 1506 LCR 2xATI 1502 Oppo BDP-83
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,602
connoisseur
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connoisseur
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 3,602 |
Quote:
I was looking at a different Sandisk MP3 player on Futureshop and one of the comments in the reviews says to change the mode from autodetect to MSC and then you should be able to drag and drop files from Windows explorer to the player. Hopefully this helps.
The help is appreciated, think she's coming over this week while she's off school, we'll try that.
She has managed to hobble it into working... keeping a specific folder full of songs that "should" be on the player on her hard drive and syncing from that. Still a bit less than optimal, but sort of working for now.
She's young... and used to GUIs programmed by drunken monkeys... I grew up with software written by guys like Jim Butterfield and Steve Gibson... those guys could do more with keyboard commands than most programmers can do now with their nested menus and alpha blending and their cha-cha-cha and do-re-mi. This frustrates me more than her... I'm guessing the same way things like having to remove inner fender wells to replace car batteries used to frustrate my auto instructor.
Bren R.
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 537
aficionado
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aficionado
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 537 |
I had sort of the same problem with my Samsung MP3 player. Out of the box the only way to use it is to sync it with Windows media player after looking around on the net I found a site that was helpful. There'a also a forum on this "Anything but IPOD site" for the Sansa. Sansa M200 series
2xM80 VP180 2xQS8 2xM3 HSU STF3 LG 60PS11 Denon 3808 ATI 1506 LCR 2xATI 1502 Oppo BDP-83
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 5,422
axiomite
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axiomite
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 5,422 |
Our oldest daughter had her choice of a shiny pink iPod Nano or a Sansa e260.... Despite what people were guessing here, she picked the Sansa e260. More features and functions. Wow! She actually has some logic behind her thoughts, who knew.
Anyway, it has been a breeze to use and to get music on it, etc. She is very happy with it. After all of my searching, it seems like the best "non-iPod" out there. Again, it actually has more features for less money so to me it is actually better. (oh, no... Here come the iPod fans....)
Farewell - June 4, 2020
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Re: Need some advice about MP3 players
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Joined: Jan 2006
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devotee
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OP
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Well that's good that she chose function over looks! For my part I got the Gigabeat S60 and I'm very pleased with the performance. It does have the shortcomings that most people complain about: shorter battery life than iPod and using WMP11 to manage the music. For my part I think it works well for what I wanted. I was able to fit all my music on it and still have plenty of room (took me a whole week to rip my cds). Battery life is good enough for me and I do enjoy being able to listen to the radio (reception is pretty good). The only thing I would add to it is a customizable equalizer (the presets are not really good, but it sounds good flat anyway). All in all it's a great little player and I don't regret getting it instead of the iPod. 
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