MP3 Player - opinions/advice please

YorkshireBoy

My 14 year-old son has asked for an MP3 player for Xmas. Although I'm OK with computers/technology in general, I know very little about MP3 players and their features.

I'm thinking of getting him the Logik 1GB at £49.99 from Dixons/Currys/PC World etc and have had a brief "general" chat with a Dixons assistant. I think I've now got my head around how they work, but I just have a few questions I'd like to put to the experts on this board...

1. Is the Logik 1GB a good MP3 player?

2. With a maximum budget of £60, are there any others I should at?

3. I think the Logik 1GB has a USB2 interface. Whilst I think I should have one of these on my 2 year-old company laptop (which he could use under supervision), I'm not sure if our 2 home PC's (4 & 7 years old and running Win98) will have USB2 - more likely USB1. Will it still work with USB1?

I'd be very grateful for any help given.

jjames_3

The Logik will be of equivalent quality to any Chinese imported MP3 player. In my experience these units are generally pretty good, and as they're all built around a small number of reference designs there isn't much between them.

USB2 is fully backwards-compatible with USB1 so no issues there.

£50 is the going rate for such a player. I doubt you'd be able to get anything for more than a few quid less. I'd say go for it really. You'd get a better player if you spend more but that's irrelevant really. Aria are selling one for £41 at the moment but you'd be adding £5 post to that so hardly any difference. Ebay are all around £50 as well, you might be able to get one imported directly from HK for £35-40 but it wouldn't be here for Christmas.

jjames_3

One thing I would definitely suggest though, is to buy a set of Sennheiser MX500 earphones with the player. The phones they include with cheaper (and some more expensive) MP3 players are, how should I put this, crap. They let down what are reasonably good electronics. The Sennheisers are excellent phones, and cost around £10-15.

They'll revolutionise how the thing sounds, wherever you buy the player from.

Nikiya

Since you seem knowledgeable in that field, JJames, I would like some advice too... I have been wanting to give my children an Ipod for some time and always found them tooo expensive... now I was going to buy an MP3 player since I believe it is more or less the same, only perhaps with less capacity...
I had found the Creative Zen Nano plus, at 512 Mb and 1 Gb (£64 and 79 respectively at Amazon.co.uk) and had thought that was a good price...
Is the one mentioned above of similar quality? And is it worth going for 1Gb?
I would be very grateful for your input!!

jjames_3

I'm not sure about the Zen, but the previous Muvo MP3 player was actually based on a Chinese device and badged with the Creative name.

I think with Creative you're paying for the better design and build quality -- the sound quality going by experience of a couple of past models I've owned is similar to what I'd guess the above unit would be like. (I've never seen the Logik but as I say there isn't much between the 300 different repackages of about 4 or 5 designs coming out of China right now).

You can probably get a cheap hard-drive based MP3 player for not much more than £80 (Argos were doing one for £100 with £5 voucher back not so long ago), and I'd be aiming for one of those if I had £80 to spend.

Nikiya

Thanks jjames... What is a "hard-drive based MP3 player"?... so far the only differences I have spotted are makes and capacity (512 mb. 1Gb, 20GB)....
I do not want to spend £80, but I had not found anything cheaper...
It is very difficult to judge those devices and this one had very good customer reviews....
And how do you know they are made in China? That info is not usually available unless you have it in your hand and look for it...


I wish there were more sites with real customer reviews of devices, goods, etc... How could we start one here?

wonderfullife_2

Hi
Take a look here http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8278 it might be a bit dear, depending on what you want. And for a chepaer one look here http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8895&GroupID=378 But microdirect have loads of mp3 players from 128mb to 20gib





:xmassign:

krisskross

Does street cred matter to your son?
If it does then consider the ipod shuffle.
As a sad older person to whom value and quality count I have a creative zen, my grandson insisted on the ipod shuffle, he also is 14.

intel

ceciliag wrote:

I wish there were more sites with real customer reviews of devices, goods, etc... How could we start one here?

http://trial.which.co.uk/audio_visual_equipment.php?p_id=242&bbcam=adwds&bbkid=mp3-player-reviews&x&whichaa=2

http://www.reviewcentre.com/products18.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/Music/2001-6450_7-0.html

http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/hard13.htm

http://www.mp3players.co.uk/site/uk/user_reviews.html

http://www.intomusic.co.uk/scripts/mp3-player-reviews.asp

HTH :beer:

firedog_2

krisskross wrote:

Does street cred matter to your son?
If it does then consider the ipod shuffle.
As a sad older person to whom value and quality count I have a creative zen, my grandson insisted on the ipod shuffle, he also is 14.

The Shuffle has excellent sound reproduction actually - every bit as good as its more expensive siblings. And the good news is that you can pick up to 512Mb version for £69 on the
Apple Store (And if your child is in secondary school or higher, you may be able to get it cheaper via Apple's Education store - follow link on the page). But you'll need to order it by 2pm Monday to guarantee delivery by Christmas Eve. (I ordered an iPod last Tuesday pm and it was with me via free courier by Thursday)

(One caveat: I think the Shuffles will be superseded in a couple of weeks' time. But isn't that always the case? )

Nikiya

Thanks so much everybody.... my son is 18, and no, street credibility does not matter a bit to us. I just want to give him something to listen to music which is good quality. We are on a trial membership with Which? Extra and I had found a report covering MP3s that now seems to have disappeared. As usual, only a few models were covered...then I discovered this Creative Zen...
I am not really into tech stuff and had no idea about the shuffle... what is the difference with the Ipod, other than it has a smaller capacity? And what with the hard disk someone mentioned???
I tried the links kindly provided and will keep researching them, but the W? one requests membership (Which and W? Extra are different)....