Is it me or is it taking a long time for 32gb players to come down in price?

With the Cowon J3 all models are the same except for the storage, 8GB vs 32GB is about £60 difference in the UK, but they support Micro SD memory cards upto 32GB, which can be had for less than the price difference between the 2 models.

 

For example i've seen a Class 4 32GB for £17.99 in the UK - http://www.mindsoft.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=89

 

So you could effectively have a 40GB J3 for £42 less than their 32GB version.

 

Instead of waiting for the price to come down, look for players that support extra storage and buy the lower capacity cheaper model, a considerable saving to be had.

I picked up a Zune HD a couple of weeks ago for 179.  Perhaps that's because they are no longer produced.  But it seemed like a pretty good deal.  I agree with the SD card stuff though.  When I have bought any player that has a card slot in it, I have gone for the lowest GB model.  Seemed like the better deal to me. 

That's been bothering me, too. I've been expecting storage to increase and prices to drop for 3-4 years. I was sure we'd have fairly priced 64GB or 128GB players by now. My 30GB iPod is getting older and I want to replace it with something bigger that doesn't have a hard drive. A Touch with 128GB for $300-$400 would be perfect.

The drawback to this approach is your total storage is limited....which wouldn't matter once sdxc cards are commonplace, but right now it still does, at least for those who load their players with lossless files. I can see the logic of both sides of the debate, though.

Would an increased capacity be a distinguishing factor? IE. would it make a sufficient number of buyer choose the model with the larger capacity?

My guess is that it would not, most people don't need large capacities, 32 GB is plenty for a lot of people, hence why larger model are unavailable.
Also, the price is determined by what the majority or people are willing to pay for an MP3 player, considering a fixed selling price, reducing the cost of components to make more profit is just logical, and remember that more options also means a bigger logistic chain

If someones estimates that there's a large enough market for a non-audiophile flash player with a large capacity, they'd better back their opinion solidly, I'm sure the people at Sony, Apple, Samsung... also did the same studies.
Edited by khaos974 - 9/1/11 at 8:41pm

I'm also waiting for a reasonably priced 64gb+ (non-apple) player. I have a 40gb iriver h340 which is desperately in need of replacement (it's huge!) but there's really nothing out there that I like that could replace it.

 

Samsung just released a new player today and it's 8gb and 16gb!? 

 

I wonder if this would have anything to do with increased demand, without a corresponding increase in manufacturing capacity to date, for memory for tablet and ssd based devices? Are they the same chips?

Edited by WobblyGoblin - 9/1/11 at 8:53pm

Archos has or had a few PMPs with up to 500 GB storage.

That's very true.  It's too bad that Archos has continually failing on the software end of these players.  They are one of the most creative companies out there.

 

 

I just checked, they currently have a 250 GB Android based tablet.
I believe Cowon also has a 160 GB PMP.
Both are HDD (not flash) based though.
And of course, there's still the iPod Classic.

To hold you off, grab an 8gb Clip+ off the bay, put a 32 gb sd in and rockbox that thing. I haven't touched my ipod for....weeks 

It's not difficult at all....at least for me with 8GB plus 16GB card, and high-bitrate LAME MP3 files. If you're using the tag database, then you can cut down on the amount of scrolling by searching by artist, then album.....and if you're a folder browser, simply holding down the button accelerates the scrolling speed.

 

The UI is great, and though the screen is small it is rather easy to scroll through. And there are none, just capacity. I think eveyone on head-fi should own one of these, at some point at least. Rockbox only makes them better. I mean that completely honestly when I say I havent touched my iPod for weeks, hell, sometimes I listen to my clip while on my laptop!

 

Im also surprised how slow the PMP market moves. We should have top players that can handle 500 GB 24/96, great battery etc.... everything out now seems to be stuck in 2007.