[RobDMB]

I am looking closely at mp3 players and am trying to find the best compromise for my uses. I like the ipod, but the Pearl also looks interesting to me. I can wait a little bit if the player will be worth it, but I don't know too much about it. Does anyone know how the Pearl stacks up feature wise to the Ipod. Does it look to be worth waiting for and does anyone even know when it will show up in stores. The attractive thing about the Pearl to me is that it still uses USB so I wont have to buy a firewire card or pay for a cable. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Rob

 

[ProFingerSk8er]

im stuck between the same problem between the iriver and the ipod....my head's gonna blow up!

 

[Darth Minidisc]

Excellent question and speaking of which, does anyone know the release dates of any of the so called ipod killers? I'm talking about Bantam, Phillips, Iriver, Rio etc that were all supposed to come out and blow the doors off the Ipod. Sheesh, I hate Apple and even I want an Ipod at this rate.

 

[D-EJ915]

I hope they'll increase the sound quality, because...if it sounds like my old SP90 (sold it to a friend for 35 bucks), it sounds soo bad that even 1 dollar earbuds will sound worse!!, believe me, do not get it if it is like that, the SP90's sound quality was sooo bad it wasan't even funny...it got terrible battery life and the amp was weak as sin, much much less than 5mW as rated

 

[psxguy85]

I think between the two, you should get the iPod. Then, like me you'll have the problem of choosing a CD player to get.

 

[PeterDLai]

I personally am going to wait for most of them to come out before making a decision.

Most of them are trying to compete with the iPod, and I'm sure they'll try hard to make it more appealing.

The Rio Pearl (may be called the Rio Karma) is being developed in Cambridge, UK, in the Empeg offices there. I think the people who design the Empeg/Rio products (ask any Empeg Car owner) has great support and software. The unit looks pretty snazzy too with its tiny design. I'll be looking forward to this one greatly because of its intuitive interface/design, support, community, and features. It might not have recording or FM tuner, but that's not important to me.

Anyhow, I've been hearing about problems with the Philips HDD100, and its features aren't that impressive. But it's a slick looking black player too, like the opposite of the iPod's whiteness.

The most feature-rich one, the iRiver iHP-100 (and possibly iHP-200) shows promise, but as it stands right now, 10 GB is not enough for a lot of people. Hopefully there'll be an iHP-200 with 20 GB. People also have been saying that some of the features are not as they expected, I think somewhere in the category of recording like volume control or being able to record from the FM tuner. I'm purely a person who's looking for an MP3 player, and a good one at that. I do not care too much for all of the fancy features, though they might be fun to play with.

I am not considering the Creative Jukebox Zen Original/NX because it still uses the 2.5" HD, and besides being big and bulky (although the sound quality is great), the screen is small, and the NX does not look like much of an improvement over the original. If it went to a great price, then maybe I'd consider using it in my car, but I wouldn't really want to carry it around in my pocket too much.

I recently bought a 10 GB iPod, and though I'm satisfied, I already got kind of bored with it. I had to purchase a FireWire card, but that's okay since I have other things to use the FireWire card for. It does not come with the dock, but I do not care about that much either. It's cute, small, and lighter than most, but I don't know what happened, I just do not feel like it's that great anymore. Plus, I hate how the back gets stained from your fingerprints so easily. Everytime I see it I feel like I have to wipe it with my shirt. The battery life is not that impressive, though it's survivable. As long as you get the third party software, EphPod, instead of using the included MusicMatch Jukebox (if you are a Windows user), the iPod will be a fine choice, as long as you are okay with the somewhat short battery life.

There's even that new Toshiba one (in which the original GigaBeat sucked) to be wondering about. It's going to use the Toshiba (probably) 1.8" HDD, thus it should be somewhat small/light. Once again, they will probably aim to beat the iPod, which has established its name pretty strongly already by introducing it in such a small size already.

There's other ones like the Multi-Channel Labs Xclef HD-500 which is pretty feature rich and inexpensive, but somewhat heavy and bulky (using the 2.5" HDD). I am more of a portable user, so I would probably want something as portable as the iPod, or even more.

Another few models are by RCA. The MP3 jukebox one, the RD2840, I believe is available at stores now. It's cheap for the capacity that you get, but I'm not too sure how good RCA products are. It rates at 10 hours battery life I believe, but I think it's really big and fat, and possibly really heavy. Once again, I favor 1.8" HDD over 2.5" HDD.

I will not even go into the mpio/e.Digital one since I still like smaller ones. Plus I'm rambling on right now so I'll put an end to this soon. Other ones by less known brands like Now Evolution's APED units look like toys, besides looking fat and ugly. But if you are in the market for a budget model, you may be looking at it since it has a dock, large capacity, and all.

Another one to watch is from Samsung, the YP-900GT. An interesting thing I'd like to test out is the FM transmitter onto your car radio. But other than that, it doesn't look that special at all. They've delayed it for some time already, and hopefully when they finally release it, it'll be revamped with new features and more capacity (>10 GB).

Well that's all for now. I was bored. I do not care if some of my info. is incorrect, I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. I just playing with new stuff.

 

[GSTom1]

Go to Austonia's website to see a comparison of the features for many of the digital audio players mentioned in this thread including the Rio Pearl, Philips HDD 100, iRiver iHp-100, Creative Nomad Zen and the Apple Ipod.

http://www.dapreview.com

I myself own a Nomad Zen 60 GB and while slightly bigger than the Ipod or Pearl, its sound output is awesome and it has an extensive list of features.

 

[iano]

Personally I love the new Ipods...in fact I recently sold my Nomad Zen's to pay (partially) for Ipods as replacements...

Maybe my hearing is deteriorating, or maybe its because I am using aac encoding (at a very high bit rate), but I found the sound quality of the Ipods extremely good. And since I am used to the Zen, which also has very good sound indeed, I think I was judging against a fairly high standard. In the end, the small display of the Zen's drove me mad, the Ipod display is very clear and easy to read (so maybe I switched becasue my eyesight is deteriorating as well!).

I also use the Ipod (as I used my Zen) with headphone amp (spermini), and good portable headphones (Sennhieser PX200), maybe they contribute to the overall good experience.

 

[grrr223]

I would highly recommend the iPod for several reasons:

1) Size and Weight, the new iPods are TINY, even making the 2nd gen ones look bulky in comparison, I just clip it to my shorts when I go biking, and I harly notice it's there.

2) Ease of use, it's a dream. People seem to miss the power of smart playlists. I am kind anal about my ID3 tags, even adding the Style info from allmusiguide.com in the comments field, but it lets you make some cool playlists. When you have 10,000 MP3s, it can be a real B$tch to keep everything in order.

3) Sound Quality. I have ER-6's and I usually listen to them at about 1/4 volume, and they're plenty loud, granted, 20db of sound isolation helps that out. Even the headphones it comes with don't sound tooo bad, unfortunately, they're huge and pretty uncomfortable.

4) Durability!!! (and 1 year warranty) I don't abuse my beloved iPod, but I dno't exactly treat it with kid gloves either. I take it mountain biking almost every day for 2-3 hours simply clipped to my belt in the case it comes with. I'd highly recommend gettnig at least the 15 gb model so you get the case, dock and remote. The case it comes with protects it from a lot, esp. scratches.

Honestly folks, quit whining about fingerprints, for christ's sake. the iPod is all but indestructable, I've read stories of people putting it through the wash and driving it over with their car and it still works afterwards. And no moving parts is huge. There's hardly anywhere for it to even get dirty. Like I said, i take it biking, and it's really dirty on a trail, but a quick wipe down on my t-shirt and it's nice and clean, nothing is messed up, Although keeping the plug in the dock connector might not be a bad idea.

5) Battery life. I guess quite a few of the other players have, some significantly, longer battery life, but here's my experience. I listen to it for probably 6 horus at work, and then 2-3 while biking afterwards, and it has never died on me yet. And the fact that you can charge it with the dock and firewire cable is HUGE not having to worry about batteries and $hit. I just plop it in the dock when i get home from work, it updates some of the random playlists I have, and I snag it in the morning, all ready to go.

6) And then there's always CAPACITY!!! I have the 30 gb which is a dream, and while I honestly which I could fit ALL my (60 gb or so) music on it, I think i'll live with 30, and the smart playlists make it a piece of cake to manage that much music. The fact that it keeps track of last played, playcount, rating, etc. lets you make sure you get to hear ALL your music when you want it.

Oh, and I almost forgot

7) All that extra stuff: Games, address book, calendar, news, weather, movies, directions, lyrics... I'd appreciate it if someone would let me know if the other players allow you to use this kinda stuff, but they're really handy. I have ALL my address book info and calendars on my iPod synced through iSync, but you can do it through Outlook or anythign else that supports vCards. And with Pod2Go I get movie times, news, stock quotes, and the most useful has been driving directions. and iLyric lets you download all the lyrics to your music library onto your iPod, which is tons of fun. Not to mention the fact that people are all like "wow, you have the movie times on your iPod?" They just sync every night, and they've come in handy more than once.

Anyway...that's my $.02 Good luck with your decision.

AND, you can get the iPod today

! and you'll not regret it.

 

[MadDog]

Quote:

Originally posted by grrr223 I would highly recommend the iPod for several reasons: 5) Battery life. I guess quite a few of the other players have, some significantly, longer battery life, but here's my experience. I listen to it for probably 6 horus at work, and then 2-3 while biking afterwards, and it has never died on me yet. And the fact that you can charge it with the dock and firewire cable is HUGE not having to worry about batteries and $hit. I just plop it in the dock when i get home from work, it updates some of the random playlists I have, and I snag it in the morning, all ready to go.

Some great logic you got there. Other players allow longer battery life while iPod offers less and that's one of reasons you would recommend iPod.

 

[grrr223]

I still stick with my original statement, but maybe "Battery Life" should just be "Battery". While there are obvious advantages to having replacable batteries, they're not necessary in all situations. And since the battery life is more than adequate "in my experience," as previously stated, the simplicity associated with charging the batteries I think gives it a possible advantage. For example, in a review of one of the iPod's big competitors the Nomad Zen, found here, they say:

Quote:

The Zen's battery lasted for around six hours in our tests, playing continuously. It is capable of recharging via USB, but the procedure for doing so is more fiddly than that of the iPod. It's not capable of charging while synchronising, and plugging it in while switched off will switch it on. You thus need to disable the system's ability to detect the Zen, then switch the Zen off before plugging it in to take advantage of the charging capability; a chore compared to the iPod where you just plug it in and let it do the grungy work.

The iPod's dock, and ability to charge while syncing without thinking twice about it I would have to say gives it an advantage despite the fact that it doesn't have 22 hours of battery life. So my logic isn't exactly flawed, but thanks for allowing me to clarify my statement. And since you're being so helpful by adding relevant information and answering the original poster's question, be my guest.

 

[GSTom1]

I can get about 12-14 hours playback from my Nomad Zen. Try getting close to that with a 3rd generation Ipod.

 

[austonia]

GSTOm, although consider, the 3rd generation iPod has an accessory that lets it outdo the Zen by far. Belkin has a small strap on battery pack that uses 4 AA's and adds 20 hours to the iPod. Plus, you can easily swap in new AA's if you are away from AC power. If you take Zen for a camping trip, after 12-14 hours of play you are dead in the water. With the belkin pack, just pop in new AA's.

 

[grrr223]

What do you have to do to charge the zen? I'm just asking out of curiosity, I honestly don't konw other than what I've read. The dock is a great feature of the iPod both for convenience of syncing and charging, but even just as a convenient way to sit it on your desk, and it includes the line out, so you can keep the dock plugged into an external set of speakers and just listen from that, piece of cake. And if you plug the dock into the wall, it'll obviously charge too, so I'm thinking of getting a second dock when I move to my new apt. in the fall so I can listen to my iPod with my stereo too.

 

[ls20]

Quote:

Originally posted by RobDMB I am looking closely at mp3 players and am trying to find the best compromise for my uses. I like the ipod, but the Pearl also looks interesting to me. I can wait a little bit if the player will be worth it, but I don't know too much about it. Does anyone know how the Pearl stacks up feature wise to the Ipod. Does it look to be worth waiting for and does anyone even know when it will show up in stores. The attractive thing about the Pearl to me is that it still uses USB so I wont have to buy a firewire card or pay for a cable. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Rob

My ipod killer is the Zen NX. It's USB 2.0 and 1.1. The ipod is indeed very sleek, but its also easily susceptible to scratches and a cover/case purchase is a MUST. Firstly it'll make the ipod larger and secondly defeats its good look...which I think will lose its novelty anyways. An mp3 ipod is for playing music, not something to look at and admire, so why not get the one that sounds better. I've also liked the handsome chiseled look of the Zen, but its size turned me off. Well the newer one is thinner and lighter so it'd have no problem sitting in my pocket. 250$ for a traveling case, 20gb, and longer battery life is a STEAL. Heck, I couldn't find a preowned 10gb ipod for that....(believe me, i tried)