Need advice choosing a new music player

[adam_d]

Hi guys, I need some help choosing a new music player. I've had a generic cheapo chinese player for 3 years, which has served me well, but it's getting worn out now and it's time for an upgrade. I've narrowed it down to 4 possible choices:

Archos 2: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Archos-8GB-MP3- ... 206&sr=8-1

Creative Zen MX: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Zen-MX ... 228&sr=8-3

SanDisk Sansa Fuze: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sansa-Fuze-8gb- ... 268&sr=8-1

SanDisk Sansa Clip+: http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-SDMX18R ... 286&sr=8-4

The only requirements I have are decent sound quality, at least 8gb of internal memory and some sort of memory expansion. I would like video playback, and anything else such as extra format support is a bonus. The fuze is at the top of my budget, being the most I would want to spend. It also needs to be fairly small.

If anyone has any suggestions to players I might've missed, go ahead and suggest them

Also, I know the Clip+ seems like the odd one out there, but I've only heard good things about it, and I wasn't sure if it would be worth buying that and using the left over money to get some better headphones, at the minute I'm using a pair of Sony MDR-KE30 earbuds, which are alright, and have a nifty cord reel. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-MDRKE30LWW ... 624&sr=8-1
Only difference is mine are black.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions

[hackmodford]

iPod Touch... the best media player I've ever used/owned in my life...

[palmertech]

The Sansa Clip is actually one of the best sounding players out there. I would get that, and the Clip+ has a MicroSD slot, so you can fit a lot of music for pretty cheap. What are you looking for in headphones, do they need to be earbuds?

And the iPod Touch is one of the best handheld computers I have ever used, but not the best actual media player.

[adam_d]

Earbuds would be best, I'm gonig to be carrying it about in my pocket a lot. I've looked at some of the lower end Sennheisers, but I'm not sure if they'd give me much of an improvement over the Sonys.

And I like the ipod touch too, but it's well over my budget.

[marshallh]

I have a 4GB Fuze I got on ebay for $20. Works great, the sound quality is awesome and goes incredibly loud (hearing be damned)
It has a microSD slot, FM radio (which is very good), microphone, the works. It does play video fine (and pretty good quality), but you have to convert it first. Sandisk's own tool is a pile of crap. I use something called video4fuze which works great.

[hackmodford]

And the iPod Touch is one of the best handheld computers I have ever used, but not the best actual media player.

True... True...

[adam_d]

Found another possible option to put into the mix here:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/8GB-Sandisk-Sansa ... 45f0093275

Seem, very, very cheap, and the seller has good feedback. And I quite like the look of these SanDisk players.

[gamemasterAS]

Earbuds would be best, I'm gonig to be carrying it about in my pocket a lot. I've looked at some of the lower end Sennheisers

Good man. I have a pair of these and they're amazing

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-CX300- ... B000E6G9RI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[eagle5953]

I just got a Touch recently, but you said that isn't an option.

Before I got it, I was exclusively a Creative man. I have always been impressed with their products - even had one of their mp3 players go through the wash with no ill effects!

[_The Watcher_]

stay away from the sansa fuze. I had one for about two weeks and it started making the old dial up sound during music play, the converter takes forever for video and its just plain dumb.

memorex makes a decent cheap ($20) mp3 player but thats all it is.

ipod ive determined is a good product if you have a mac, for some reason my pc screws it up and puts them into a restore mode loop.

so far the best mp3 player i have ever owned was an old RCA, it took SD cards and it kicked ass.

does the US even make this stuff anymore at all?

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

iPod mini; I've had mine for ~4.5 years, and it's quite excellent, and probably fairly cheap on eBay and the like. I just had to replace my battery in mine a few months back; cost me a whopping $5.

New iPods are for losers.

[adam_d]

iPod mini; I've had mine for ~4.5 years, and it's quite excellent, and probably fairly cheap on eBay and the like. I just had to replace my battery in mine a few months back; cost me a whopping $5.

New iPods are for losers.

Ironically, I have got an old ipod mini I got for free, which needs a new drive and a new battery. I was going to do the compact flash mod on it, but I was never convinced it sounded that got, and it would cost me nearly as much as it would to get a new player.