Looking to buy a standalone MP3 player. Which one?

borderline · 11-12-05, 01:32 PM

I'm looking for some advice on what kind of standalone mp3 player to buy as a Christmas gift. Particularly looking for one with an internal hard drive, or large flash memory at least 5Gb. It should be durable (will be a gift for my kid) and easy to operate. It would be nice if it didn't require any external software in order to load music to the device. I've ripped my entire CD collection to an external hard drive, and it would be nice to be able to drag and drop these MP3's directly to the player.

It should also play plain, generic MP3 files. I mention this because a coworker gave me a very old (well, 4-5 years, anyway) RCA Lyra, that he had replaced with an Ipod. He had lost the software for it and couldn't remember how to get it to work anymore. Turns out this Lyra, despite being advertised as an MP3 player, only plays MPX (encrypted MP3) and WMA files. I've been looking at a 20Gb Lyra, and don't want to run into the same problem.

Looking to spend between $100-$150 (rules out Ipod). There's a site I'm looking at selling refurb 15Gb Dell Jukeboxes and refurb 20Gb RCA Lyras (see section above on Lyras), as well as new 20Gb Entempo Rubatos. Does anybody have any experience with these devices they can share?

BL

11-12-05, 02:53 PM

I would go with the pocket dj. It is 199 but im sure you can find a coupon somewhere. I have a gen 1 dell dj that is 2 years old and its a tank, and I am have been real happy with it.

AnnamariaNJ · 11-12-05, 06:35 PM

our family has 3 Dell DJ's....
love.......love.....love......
as soon as the youngest, 10, asks for one i will get the newest 30gb for me:approve: and he can inherit mine.... :love:
our 23 yr old has had his well over a year and in the Navy, and our 15 yr old has had hers for 2 years,...no problems, just a buncha music!
so,....that should give you some idea as to the happiness quotient of the DJ! There's also a forum, just like this one...

11-12-05, 06:57 PM

Oh man i would have told you to get a Rio Carbon (best mp3 player i've ever owned), but unfortunatly Rio is kaput.

Jukov · 11-12-05, 07:29 PM

I'd say Creative. the best sound, IMHO

borderline · 11-12-05, 10:37 PM

So that's two votes for the Dell, one vote for the now defunct Rio, and one vote for anything by Creative.

After browsing the reviews on the DellDJ site, I noticed every one mentions using MusicMatch to upload music to the player. Do I have to use MusicMatch or WMP in order to use the player? Maybe I'm asking for a lot, but I'd really like to be able to just drag and drop music to the player in Explorer, just like it was another hard drive. One of the reasons I don't use the Lyra I have is because it's so difficult to get music onto it, and it attaches DRM to everything I upload to it. It just doesn't make any sense to have to encrypt an MP3 I already have just to use it on a portable MP3 player.

BL

11-12-05, 11:00 PM

i have a dell dj 20gb gen2 and i use yahoo music engine, you can use music match, or wmp or one of the more popular but not free programs deuxbox explorer. you can just copy files to your player if you use the play for sure firmware.

Howard2k · 11-12-05, 11:17 PM

I had a Lyra, just the small 256MB one and had no problem dragging and dropping MP3 files onto it.

However - the interface was crap. There is no scalability in there. I could not even begin to comprehend trying to manage 20GB of music on it. Hopefully the one you had was better.

$199 will buy a brand new 5GB Dell DJ or a 5GB Creative Zen Micro. Seems like pretty good value to me. No colour screen, flash based storage etc. But for raw storage it's not a bad deal at all. I've used the Rio player and still have one kicking around somewhere. I thought the interface was weak to be honest, but in terms of usability it's hard to get better than the iPod anyway.

11-12-05, 11:27 PM

You can drag and drop files. I think all you have to do is install Dell DJ Explorer which is kinda like an explorer extention. After you install it you just plug in the DJ and then go to my computer and click on Dell DJ icon and start dragging and dropping. You might not even have to install that.

11-12-05, 11:47 PM

with the Play for Sure firmware all you have to have installed is wmp10 and then the dj shows up as an external hard drive.

11-13-05, 02:00 PM

My 5gb Creative Zen Micro shows up in explorer so i can just copy a folder or whatever and paste it in the Zen Micro folder.

11-13-05, 03:55 PM

I have heard creative has problems with their players. I would buy something in the way of like a Olympus wouldn't be bad, I thohgbt radioshack had a 5GB one for 99.99!!!! But, dell DJs are great! I have heard many great things about these devices, and from what I have heard, they are very very good. I would recommend the dell.

11-13-05, 05:31 PM

I recall that some of the first Zen Micros to be made had problems with the headphone jack, but the problem has long since been fixed. I've had my Zen Micro for almost four months, and I haven't had a problem with it yet.

borderline · 11-20-05, 01:08 PM

Well, picked up a couple of the Dell 15GB Dj's. Not too happy to be giving more money to Dell after the customer service fiascos I've had to deal with in the past, but I guess since I'm not buying from them direct, it should be okay.

BL

stevenator65 · 11-20-05, 06:41 PM

Or just get a used ipod. It's the king of mp3 players.