[eljay]

Just looking to get thoughts or opinions on these different types of players. As examples, I'm looking at the Creative Labs Zen Micro 5.0GB MP3 Player and the Samsung YP-T6Z 1.0GB MP3 Player.

Both have an FM tuner and a microphone and both hold lots of tunes. The Zen holds more tunes, but it also cost $70 more, has moving parts and uses a more expensive, rechargeable battery. The Samsung is smaller, less costly, has no moving parts, runs on one 'AAA' battery...but it has a smaller capacity (although 20 hours of music ain't exactly shabby).

For the money, the mini-drive players seem to be the better deal...but are they? Any comments?

 

[Jake]

I like the flash drives myself. They are not prone to skipping if you bump it. Also I found that with my older 6 GB Creative Nomad I spent more time browsing than listening. The lighter the better. Being able to hang it around your neck is a plus when you travel. Pockets or belt clips are frustating for me too. I am always sitting on or dropping my cell phone. At 100g I suppose the Creative unit is wearable. Like you said 20 hours is a lot of music. If I cherry picked songs from all of my 200 CD's I don't think I could find 20 hours worth. And if I did I could always store them on a CD or DVD and swap them out every week or so. These little players usually take 1 AAA battery and it lasts about 15-20 hours. I carry a few NiMH. Try that with a microdrive unit on 1 AAA. They usually take rechargable Lithium Ion batteries so plan on lugging a charger around.

 

[eljay]

Yeah, the battery issue was one thing that had me thinking flash player. The other is that, because it is re-usable, a capacity of 1Gb seems like enough. One could always argue that 5Gb is better than 1Gb for only $70 more, but then 20Gb is better than 5Gb for only $50 more...and so on.

 

[ken0042]

What type of battery does the Creative take?

One thing I've found; I often take my Discman MP3 player camping. It's nice to just have spare batteries around rather than having to re-charge it; even though you could re-charge in the car....... but what if when you want to recharge is also when you want tunes around the campfire..........

But I also found with the 700MB capacity of my Discman is enough; almost too much. I've created a few 250 MB CD's so I wouldn't be tempted to keep skipping through the songs.

I would say 1 GB should be plenty.

 

[Proteosome]

It depends on your usage.

If you don't mind sitting at your computer every few days or once a week (whatever) to change songs than the flash player is better.

If you are going on a trip or like to carry your entire library with you "just in case" than a microdrive unit is better.

Some flash players can actually except removable media. You may want to look into these. IIRC one of the RCA comes with 128mb internal but you can use a flash card for more memory. So... you could buy a 1 gb flash card or even better, buy the 512mb internal memory version and buy a 4 gb microdrive.

The best of both worlds! (except it may be difficult to scroll through 4gb of songs on a flash player).

 

[Audio]

I have the Nomad Jukebox 6gig and have 1200 of my favorite songs off of all 300+ of my CDs at home. It nice to have that much music on one player for long trips and city driving I just put it on random or I pick one of 7 groups that I have my mp3's sorted out into. I prefure having more space, then I never have to erace and make up new play lists all I do is add more tracks as I buy more CD's. Battery life on the nomad is better then 10 hrs on one charge using Energiser 2300mAH Ni-MH AA batteries and they charge in the unit when it is pluged in. Plus you get way more features on a hard drive unit then you do with a memory unit.