Looking to get a gift for someone who just wants to play music – what is good and good value? Easy to load music. Thanks

You ask for “just play’ and “easy to load music” and “good’ and “value” so why do you stipulate non-Apple, just out of interest?

The Creative line of players, like the Stone and Zen have always had a good rep. Sony, obviously, but other than those, I don’t know of any other good, cheap-ish ones.

see the value bit 🙂 they seem to have died a death now phones do it all so well. Have a look down you local [whatever high street electrical store still trades] or Tescos

Got my boy a Sony Walkman 6GB MP3 a couple of months back off the bay (£12, nearly new I think). He loves it, cos it’s cool, purple and has a nice screen.

Worth a browse, I’d say.

Cowon iAudio. Although “value” might not be applicable there. Ace sound quality though, which is what matters.
Just drag drop what you want on to the device like any old USB stick, or tell the music management app of your choice to sync tunes over to it.
Does FLAC by default too, which is handy. No proprietary format nonsense. DRM might be supported but none of my tunes have that.

Does FLAC by default too, which is handy. No proprietary format nonsense. DRM might be supported but none of my tunes have that.

Counts out WMA, then.

In terms of sound quality and durability my Zen Stone is good*. It cost me £10 from Morrisons a few years ago, so it’s definitely worth keeping your eyes open in the supermarket. However, as someone who has never had an issue with iTunes, I much prefer using that to get content on my device than dragging and dropping folders around in Windows Explorer. If I was going to replace the Stone I’d get an iPod Shuffle for £40.

*I never actually use it though, because I have an iPhone

I bought a Sony one off eBay – sound quality was great, easy to load files on, volume more controllable than iPods.
One day it just died on me though. However it was v cheap.

I bought a sansa clip something for not very much and it does the job fine. Main thing is it isn’t Crapple.

Cowon always get ace reviews.

Also check out http://anythingbutipod.com/

sansa clip +1

It’s tiny and you can stick a micro SD card in it.

I have a Sony nw-e407 and it’s amazing, bought new when 1GB was a large size however you need to use Sony’s SonicStage program to load files on.
It compresses them to a smaller size than MP3 but maintains the quality.

The charge time and battery life are still incredible, even after all these years.

It’s currently on top of my PC case in bits drying out as I was using it this morning during the storms, I thought I’d killed it and started looking for a replacement, but when I rewired the battery a moment ago it lit up so I’ll rebuild it later.

HOWEVER, it’s a very old model and I bought Sony’s replacement type for my daughter about 3-4 years ago and it was shit, but maybe it was a one off?

For a replacement I was looking at the Sony NWZ-W273 water proof ear buds/neck band type thing or an ipod shuffle.

Hope some of this helps.

I bought a Sony one off eBay – sound quality was great, easy to load files on, volume more controllable than iPods.
One day it just died on me though. However it was v cheap.

Eh? How much more controllable than a + and – button on your headphones do you need?
Sorry, but that bit makes no sense.

Sansa clip 8GB here – weighs nothing, tiny and you can drag and drop tunes to it. Good battery life. Even the radio’s quite good. Get some better earphones and away you go.

Sandisk Sansa Clip+
Just make sure you put the country as International (or somewhere that isn’t Europe) when you first turn it on if you like music loud.

volume more controllable than iPods.

He could be referring to how annoying it is/was/(dunno LOL) turning the volume down on an ipod when you’re in the menu. But I don’t live in his brain, so…

He could be referring to how annoying it is/was/(dunno LOL) turning the volume down on an ipod when you’re in the menu. But I don’t live in his brain, so…

Oh, could be, I s’pose, never had that problem with my Classic, so hadn’t occured to me. So rarely in the menu when playing music it never saw the issue.

Oh sorry, I went away.
Here’s what was in my head – the scroll wheel on an iPod doesn’t have a finite volume control, whereas the up/down buttons on the side of the Sony did. Not major, but I used to listen when I couldn’t sleep and could have the Sony at exactly the right vol, whereas the iPod is either too quiet or too loud.
Got it?
Good.

Thanks all :-)- I got it down to Sony or Cowon and found what I think was a good value Sony player on Ebay that will fit the bill (not for me, I use my phone now). Not Apple because I don’t think they are good value for the amount of memory and plenty of other players that do the same cheaper and easier.

Think the Cowon does do WMA (not sure – I don’t have anything in that format).

By proprietary, i was meaning more along the lines of (older?) Sony ones where you need to use their app to transcode everything from MP3/WMA/etc. in to Sony’s own format to transfer to the device.

Cowon also does OGG by default too. Almost all of my stuff is FLAC or OGG with a bit of MP3. And it builds it’s database internally from the filenames and ID3 tags – no need for any specific apps, itunes, etc.

sansa clip here too. light and a good bit of kit generally. easy to use.

I’ve got a Sansa Clip also – damned good for the money.

I’ve also put some custom firmware on it which takes the usability etc to a new level (and it even has Doom on it!).

I’ll dig out the link…

Cheers

Danny B

The higher end Sony’s are excellent.

Sansa clip is the cheap choice for many audiophiles as it has a decent DAC, can take SD cards and can play FLAC files.

By proprietary, i was meaning more along the lines of (older?) Sony ones where you need to use their app to transcode everything from MP3/WMA/etc. in to Sony’s own format to transfer to the device.

Ok, gotcha. I’d forgotten Sony’s proprietory file format, ATRAC, despite having just resurrected my Minidisc player, which uses it. (I guess their MP3 players used the same format, though, knowing Sony, it would be just like them to use a different proprietory format for their MP3 players).
I remember people who used the Sony ‘ware to rip music to their players being very rude about it, and how unusable it was.

Not major, but I used to listen when I couldn’t sleep and could have the Sony at exactly the right vol, whereas the iPod is either too quiet or too loud.

Sorry, DNC, does not compute; I’ve never had any problem getting the volume exactly right, but never mind.

CountZero in goal for Apple…

I’m using a Tesco Teknica 4G player at the mo, found in a puddle on the way to work, which had two Fleetwood Mac albums on. Sound is excellent, battery is good, nice and light too which means it slips into the ‘radio’ pocket on my bib shorts without issue.

Drag and drop, natch, so no bastard iTunes stuff. iTunes put me off anything to do with Apple many years ago and does to this day.

I concur with dezB about the the volume thing when trying to get to sleep on the iPod. The lowest volume it’s a bit too loud. Turn it down one and it goes silent.

Stumpy – what earphones do you use? I turn my classic down till the volume bar shows no volume and i can hear it perfectly in bed, and morre importantly mrsOath doesn’t hear :lol:. Also check the volume safety feature.

Fwiw i use skull candy ink’d earbuds.

crikey – Member
CountZero in goal for Apple…

I’ll point you back to the first post I made:

CountZero – Member
The Creative line of players, like the Stone and Zen have always had a good rep. Sony, obviously, but other than those, I don’t know of any other good, cheap-ish ones.

🙄

Sands clip plus, mine died, they sent me a new one, over a year out of the warranty period too. That’s good enough for me

I use my Galaxy s3 with an eBay headphone amp and some Goldring (sp?) inner ear phones with Poweramp. Works for me.

Also have a 4gb Sansa Fuze with a 16gb micro SD in which was cheap and actually sounds really good with the same phones/amp combo but just easier to carry my phone.

iTunes put me off anything to do with Apple many years ago and does to this day.

Is this is bit like the debate over tubeless tyres? For every person who gets along fine with it there seems to be another who hates it. I’ve never truly understood why

Is this is bit like the debate over tubeless tyres? For every person who gets along fine with it there seems to be another who hates it. I’ve never truly understood why

Can’t please all the people all the time, two sides to every story and all that sort of malarkey.

Back-on-track – I personally rate Phillips Go-gear mp3 players.

^true, Jimster, but I’ve never suffered with iTunes (like I have with tubeless!) so don’t understand what it is, specifically, that people hate about it. I don’t expect everyone to like it, but I’m surprised by how many people proclaim to hate it.

yet another sansa clip user here, the colour one whichever that is. great little thing.

^true, Jimster, but I’ve never suffered with iTunes (like I have with tubeless!) so don’t understand what it is, specifically, that people hate about it. I don’t expect everyone to like it, but I’m surprised by how many people proclaim to hate it.

Perhaps it’s just the Apple marketing model – we provide the players, you can buy the music from us on-line. Try and use a different player with i-tunes can prove problematic…

FWIW I tend to use the Spotify app on my phone, great little tool.

iTunes used to be the worst bloatware ever which was then very difficult to fully remove from your computer. I’ve not used the later versions though so it’s probably not as bad.

And I certainly don’t understand why anyone purchases anything through it. It appears to provide Poor quality music at CD prices. I think Apple insist on it being installed so people don’t look around else where and realise they’re being ripped off.

iTunes is a player and media library, iTunes Store is where you buy the media. Granted they are tightly integrated but other stores are available. As a Spotify user I rarely buy music, but if I do I tend to get it from Amazon. It then appears in iTunes for me. Moreover, it’s MP3 so if I move away from Apple I can still play my music.

I tend to use iTunes these days for managing my “owned” media which works really well with Apple TV and Airplay, but I use Spotify for new music. Anyway, all of this is way off topic 🙂

The reason people like to use iTunes and the Store and everything else Apple is because – like it or not – it all works so well together.

Sansa clip fan here too 🙂