£145 to spent on a 'mp3' player...

[streetster]

As Title People of Hexus recommend me something nice... Something light for the gym would be good, but storage space would be good too.. so a compromise perhaps?

[Atomic]

Zen Micro!!!! +some spare cash

[streetster]

that thread has kinda got me a little worried about them

[Atomic]

I have one, mum has and two housemates. They've all been fine...

[5lab]

zen micro and a set of sony fontopia in-ear headphones (the 71s), to go with it, to make it sound uber. get them in white to get mugged

[mnet674]

I've used my zen continuously since christmas and no trouble with it yet, and now I've flashed the firmware I can actually connect it to my computer without it locking up

[streetster]

I've already got a set of sony fontopia headphones they're lush.. What formats does the zen play and what is the battery life like (i could go look it up but you're real people who use them, rather than a manufacturer trying to sell me one )

[Atomic]

Formats, wav, mp3, wma are all I've had one it.

battery life, um. I use it ~45mins a day and it lasts 5days... charges through USB aswell as mains so I can charge it at work if it dies.

[streetster]

~45mins a day and it lasts 5days

so thats just under four hours? pretty shoddy considering it claims 12 hours life... Are there any other players in the pipeline which are going to drive the price of the zen + others down? I picked up one of the £60 Aiwa 1.5gb jobbies a couple of weeks ago but it was nicked at the weekend

[Atomic]

Prob would do ~12 hrs constant playing through a straight sequential playlist.

I have it on random shuffle over 3GB of mp3s, skip through tracks and use the EQ. Also being powered up and down 4times+ a day.

[muddyfox470]

Rio Karma, 20Gb £130 inc Delivery from comet

Great Playback and Compatibility, nothing rivals its features and price!

Check out the reviews yourself!

Ian

[5lab]

hdd based players suffer a lot battery-wise if you put them on shuffle..

[robertirwin]

Get a 1 gig muvo TX - my 512 meg one is fantastic. USB2, proper folder support, very light and good battery life = all the good stuff most sports ones don't have.

[streetster]

I'm quite tempted by the Karma - hexus did a nice review of it aswell.. It also seems to support FLAC and OGG formats which is quite funky, and is 20Gb... Anyone got a reason not to get one and then spend the spare £15 on beer?

[muddyfox470]

I love my Karma, and you get everything you ever need including a docking station to hook it up to your hifi.

I love mine to bits, the battery life is good, i will get about 10 hours while listening to WMA files, which to me is damn good, they are very well designed, they fall to hand very nicely indeed (if you are right handed). The OS is nothing short of greatness, and the speed and easiness is just very nice to have when your friedns try to use it! It can be customised via menu short cuts etc.

They can get pretty well scratched (as with all MP3 players) and as the screen is so big i always have the back light off, i can see it still in low light situations!

It supports pratically any format of music, and the Rio Software is very good as well. The new Rio Karmas ship with the latest firmware and everything so you can play it straight out of the box.

For the audiophile the Karma would win, although if you are looking for something smaller and a bit more portable (i.e. shirt top pocket size) get a Sony HDx (nasty software) or any other tiny mp3 player.

For the pricerange the Karma is the best you will find!

Ian

[johnnr892]

I seriously would also consider the karma for reasons already posted, mine is great and i love it, i even rate it more highly than my old zen micro(which had the jack prob), the UI is much better and it plays ogg vorbis.