Can anyone help me with my first MP3 player purchase ?

Murphy_The_Cat

I'm currently going through the motions as regards my first MP3 player purchase, and I'm wondering if anyone could offer me some advice ?

My prime purpose is going to be listening to CD's converted to MP3 and audiobooks converted to MP3, but if the capabilty to download TV programmes (but probably not films) was availble, I might have a dabble at that at some stage.
It would be used mainly in the car, so a cradle that I could use for mounting, charging and a FM transmitter is a must, but I'd also be using it in the gym, so something that was very small would be handy as well.
& with it being my first dabble into MP3 playerness, I don't want to spend a fortune !

From my research the Creative Zen 8gb MP3 player seems to do everything that I would like, but I'm struggling to find an incar harness that would mount/charge/transmit to FM --- would anyone fancy offering me some help ?

Is the player that I'm looking at a 'good'un' ?
Is there a suitable in car cradle/charger/transmitter available ?
Is there another product on the market that would do the job for me ?

any help would be gratefully rec'd



p.s. I don't really want an Apple product, unless someone can offer some overwhelming reason to

Marty_J

If you might be interested in purchasing TV shows or movies in future, and the availability of accessories is important to you, I'd say an iPod is your best best. It's the market leader, has the largest range of accessories of any mp3 player, and is the only one compatible with the iTunes store.

The iPod Nano is the model closest to the Zen one you're considering.

Barneysmom

I never bought a big one, I decided I'd have several smaller cheaper ones, as I've known 4 people buy the expensive (not Creative Zen) ones only for the hard drive to pack up in 6 months.
So I just got Play.com smaller mp3 player (2g) with the radio transmitter for about a tenner each. The MP3 player holds about 500 songs.
I'd rather if it was going to break, just lose a few titles, than spend hours filling up a larger capacity one and lose the lot.

FreheitOverture

I don't know many that have the in car harness things. There is one for the iPod that plugs into your ciggy lighter and then broadcasts over the radio frequency. I believe it is adjustable to fit any size of iPod

Murphy_The_Cat

Marty_J wrote: »

If you might be interested in purchasing TV shows or movies in future, and the availability of accessories is important to you, I'd say an iPod is your best best. It's the market leader, has the largest range of accessories of any mp3 player, and is the only one compatible with the iTunes store.

The iPod Nano is the model closest to the Zen one you're considering.

Hi Marty, the possible downloading of Tv programmes would be an incidental use of the player, as the idea of watching a film on a tiny screen doesn't fill me with any joy !
I'm slowly getting the feeling that I'm going to be forced down the Apple route (which I don't want to be), purely because the accessories that I'm looking for don't exist.

barneysmon wrote:

I never bought a big one, I decided I'd have several smaller cheaper ones, as I've known 4 people buy the expensive (not Creative Zen) ones only for the hard drive to pack up in 6 months.
So I just got Play.com smaller mp3 player (2g) with the radio transmitter for about a tenner each. The MP3 player holds about 500 songs.
I'd rather if it was going to break, just lose a few titles, than spend hours filling up a larger capacity one and lose the lot.

I hear what you're saying, I just don't fancy laying out a few quid now and then finding that I should have laid out a few quid more to get something a little bit more suitable a few months down the line - as regards the guarentees, all seem to come with a 12 month one IIRC.

FreHeitOverture wrote:

I don't know many that have the in car harness things. There is one for the iPod that plugs into your ciggy lighter and then broadcasts over the radio frequency. I believe it is adjustable to fit any size of iPod

I've seen that one, and that would be ideal, but I haven't seen anything similar for the Creative Zen product.

loaner wrote:

Saves carrying two bits of kit around

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_w980-2249.php

That would do the job, but it looks like its quite a hefty piece of kit, plus I can't find a price for it. I'm on PAYG, so I don't imagine it would be a cheapy :eek:

toasterman

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I'm slowly getting the feeling that I'm going to be forced down the Apple route (which I don't want to be), purely because the accessories that I'm looking for don't exist.

Any particular reason you don't want to go down the Apple route?
While iPods could be described as "fashionable", they are also a very good tried-and-tested product.
They are more expensive, purely in terms of GBs for the £.

A friend of mine has had three players from Creative. The first two were absolutely useless, and the third he has is the one you linked to. The third one *seems* to be a lot better so far.
If you were wondering, the first two's faults:
- The first one kept switching itself on all the time. You switch it off, it switches itself back on. Sometimes it would wait a couple of minutes first. I put it on the table, and sat and watched it. Because of this the battery was always flat.
- The second one had a weird clip in the way a cover went over the screen, which would let in dust. After a couple of weeks you couldn't really see the screen at all.

FM transmitters for your car are available for ALL mp3 players, regardless of make. See: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=753049 from when I had the same problem a few months ago.
Eventually replaced my car stereo with a new one (with a socket in the front to plug any mp3 player in), because it was about the same price as getting a decent transmitter (after I sold my old stereo).
I figured if I was going to spend £50 and end up with a half-decent FM transmitter, or £60 (after selling old stereo) and have a proper cable input, I might as well go the cable route.

Murphy_The_Cat

toasterman wrote: »

Any particular reason you don't want to go down the Apple route?
While iPods could be described as "fashionable", they are also a very good tried-and-tested product.
They are more expensive, purely in terms of GBs for the £.

A friend of mine has had three players from Creative. The first two were absolutely useless, and the third he has is the one you linked to. The third one *seems* to be a lot better so far.
If you were wondering, the first two's faults:
- The first one kept switching itself on all the time. You switch it off, it switches itself back on. Sometimes it would wait a couple of minutes first. I put it on the table, and sat and watched it. Because of this the battery was always flat.
- The second one had a weird clip in the way a cover went over the screen, which would let in dust. After a couple of weeks you couldn't really see the screen at all.

FM transmitters for your car are available for ALL mp3 players, regardless of make. See: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=753049 from when I had the same problem a few months ago.
Eventually replaced my car stereo with a new one (with a socket in the front to plug any mp3 player in), because it was about the same price as getting a decent transmitter (after I sold my old stereo).
I figured if I was going to spend £50 and end up with a half-decent FM transmitter, or £60 (after selling old stereo) and have a proper cable input, I might as well go the cable route.

thanks for you help/advice toasterman.

I don't fancy the Apple product, because I don't want to be one of the sheeple that has to have the 'main brand' plus, its quite a lot more money than the (seemingly) similar/suprerior Creative product.

At looooooonnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg last, I think that I've got it :j:j

I'm going to marry this fm transmitter/in car charger with the Creative Zen 8gb MP3 player and then get some skins as well.

isofa

toasterman wrote: »

Any particular reason you don't want to go down the Apple route?
While iPods could be described as "fashionable", they are also a very good tried-and-tested product.
They are more expensive, purely in terms of GBs for the £.

Completely agree, had various brands in my time, but now have 3 iPods in the family and all are fantastic.

So fashionable to bash Apple (as it seems to be any company going well), for me and in my experience (I've been using Apple products since the Mac Plus came to town) they make great products, beautifully designed, with superb interfaces, that last and last. I can't think of another company's products that have such attention to detail.

We use the Kensington Universal transmitter for one car, luckily mine has a direct iPod connection

geordie458

Murphy

The sound quality from these transmitters isn't always great so don't expect too much. I would go for one that was on QVC a whiel ago. Its an FM transmitter that accepts usb memory sticks an SD cards, it was about 30 quid a si recall.

Murphy_The_Cat

[quote=isofa;12111817]Completely agree, had various brands in my time, but now have 3 iPods in the family and all are fantastic.

So fashionable to bash Apple (as it seems to be any company going well), for me and in my experience (I've been using Apple products since the Mac Plus came to town) they make great products, beautifully designed, with superb interfaces, that last and last. I can't think of another company's products that have such attention to detail.

We use the Kensington Universal transmitter for one car, luckily mine has a direct iPod connection [/quote]

Maybe its a personailty defect of mine ! I just prefer NOT to use the brand leader (in all things) and use suitable alternatives if/when available. Unless others who do knock the Apple product, I've said nowt bad against it

geordie458 wrote:

The sound quality from these transmitters isn't always great so don't expect too much. I would go for one that was on QVC a whiel ago. Its an FM transmitter that accepts usb memory sticks an SD cards, it was about 30 quid a si recall.

Thanks for the eyes up. A lot of the FM transmitters seem to transmit bang in the middle of the Radio2 range, hopefully, I'll (or more likely Mrs Cat) will be able to find a frequency that works well for her. One of the nice things about living in darkest Cumbria is the lack of a plethora of local radio stations :j

Backbiter

I've owned a few Creative MP3s for several years and have NEVER had a problem. I keep buying new models just because I keep thinking 'That's cheap for a1gb/ 2gb player' and give the others to my wife and 3 kids.

Have you seen this offer?
http://uk.europe.creative.com/shop/product_bundles.asp?category=111&subcategory=125&product=1853&page=