OT - It died

[GuerillaGirl]

My mp3 player, that is. After only having it for six months, too!

I'm in despair. Thousands of songs, jams, stories...right now, I have no way to access them in a mobile way. Hmm...My Walkman was pretty good; should I return to that? LOL

No, it wasn't an iPod. Yes, it was a Zune. But I'd had excellent experiences with the Zune prior to last night; also, I don't like the way either iTunes or the iPod interface work so I'm not going to switch to an Apple product.

Does anyone have suggestions for a good mp3 player or other device that WON'T break? I'm lost without my music.

[moonstone]

Hello GG and welcome.

Sorry to hear that your MP3 player has popped it's clogs. I hate it when that happens!

I love my i-pod shuffle and they seem to be quite indestructible. I dropped mine in the sea on Christmas day and it survived but much more impressively my friend recently put her sons i-pod shuffle through a full washing machine cycle in the pocket of his jeans and it still works.

Ah walkmans! I loved mine too but I didn't love buying all those bloody batteries!

Don't know much about mp3 's I'm afraid. I've only had two and both were 'borrowed' by my daughter within days of me getting them.

[conroy]

I highly recommend the Sansa Fuse's. You don't need 3rd party software to manage your music like most overrated mp3 players. You just drag and drop. There's a lot of other reasons to like them including the fact that you can increase the capacity by adding microSDHC flash memory (can't do that with an iPod or Zune), it is just as intuitive to use as the iPods and you can install the wickedly awesome Rockbox on them. In fact, they're on sale at a good price for a few more hours here: http://www.1saleaday.com/

If you miss this sale, they're on sale at Woot.com pretty frequently. My only complaint is that the battery is non-replaceable like most mp3 players these days

[ltwoman]

I've got the Sansa Clip (2GB). I have another one (1GB) that was 3 years old in July and is still going strong; I added a 1GB card to that, and could take the card out and put it directly into my computer to copy/edit. We did the research beforehand and the Sansa was more versatle that the IPod (my apologies IPod devotees!). Go with a Sansa! Good luck! (It's like religion, diets, and Sting/Stewart. Very controversial. Passionate about one, not so about the other.)

[conroy]

Buy.com has the refurbished 4 gb Fuze for $30 bucks: http://www.fatwallet.mobi/redirect/boun ... 43953.html

Throw in this 16 gb microSDHC card for $25: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch_v3 ... ia=BA27141 and you have a decent mp3 player with 20gb of memory for $55.

[GuerillaGirl]

Thanks, all, for your suggestions.

I've been narrowing my search and have decided that I want a device with at least 32 GB of storage and uses flash-based memory. Right now, I'm researching the Cowon S9 Curve.

[ltwoman]

Earlier this week Sony announced they would no longer manufacture the Walkman. 220 million units later. Surely most of us remember that: you know, the one with the cassette tape player? Let's raise a glass to another music icon !

[GuerillaGirl]

Oh, man. I had several Walkmans (of the disc variety) back in high school. Most everyone else in my grade was super-religious and listened to music that wasn't very good, but I was the one who always had 'weird' rock bands in my CD player. Sometimes I would bring in binders full of discs and 'shock' my classmates by having them listen to things they thought looked interesting.

I can't believe they're discontinuing it!

In any case, I did decide on a device. I ordered a Cowon S9 Curve. I can't wait for it to come in the mail!

[moonstone]

[quote="ltwoman"]Earlier this week Sony announced they would no longer manufacture the Walkman. 220 million units later. Surely most of us remember that: you know, the one with the cassette tape player? Let's raise a glass to another music icon ![/quote]

I saw this in the paper today. It's quite sad really.

My walkman was of the cassette tape variety. It saw me through my training days and through at least two very rough boat crossings to Ireland.

Hope you enjoy your Cowan S9 Curve GG, though I confess I have no idea what that is.

[Divemistress of the Dark]

You know, I may buy one of those Sansa players as a backup. Trouble with the IPod is, you need to put something on it or take it off - you have to have the computer you sync it with on you. It must be THAT COMPUTER. Which is a problem for me, since I have a couple of Hackintoshes and a 12" IBook in addition to my MBP.

If you think to, drop me a line the next time you see one on sale, Con...

[ltwoman]

Dive, QVC has the 4 GB Sansa on sale this weekend for $59. I can't tell you how good of a deal it is, because it includes 1000 songs. Didn't notice the s&h either, sorry.