i am in the market for a mp3 player and am confused about what the differences is between..

a hard drive player
a microdrive player
a flash-based player.

 

Well you have the three main types of MP3 players. That is a start.

a hard drive player
This is you typical Ipod player. Usually they have a laptop style hard drive with 5 10 or 20GB of storage. A 20 gig drive will store over 4000 songs so be prepared to spend days loading it.
This would be my choice for carrying ALL of your music but if you want to run or do other physical activities and want a smaller MP3 player you should consider something at 5 gigs or lower.

a microdrive player
This style uses a hard drive but it is much smaller than a laptop drive. The microdrives I am familiar tend to be 4.5 gigs and smaller.
Again the player has to be a minimum size to carry the microdrive.

a flash-based player
The smallest of MP3 players while maintaining removable media is a flash-based player. They usually use flash media cards which can be interchanged at will. Other flash-based players are of a fixed size and don't allow for changing songs away from the computer. The advantage is size. These little buggers are so small they can get lost in a pocket. The disadvantage is that you have to contend with the music you loaded this morning before leaving for the day.

I purchased a 20 gig hard disk unit years ago. It is a RIO RIOT and is a little larger than the 20 gig Ipod. The RIO RIOT had it's share of operating problems that left it unpopular and was perceived unreliable. It was just cranky and works well if you understand the limitations.

If my RIO quit I wouldn't hesitate to look at the new units with picture and movie viewing capability. Size is not an issue and 20 gigs is easily enough storage to carry all my music and most of my pictures to boot.

Good luck with the shopping.

 

Umm get the new iPod Nano, thing is tight.

 

Flash based would be the best in terms of stability and quickness of transer, also great size (think nano).

HDD based have moving parts and there for are slower in transfer as well as playback (but only transfer will be noticable).

Microdrive is just a small HDD. Not quicker or slower really, just smaller.

Flash is expensive though, and you can't get huge 60gig sizes (or even 20gig).

The iPod line demonstrate the differences perfectly.
iPod = HDD (I think, but night be micro drive)
iPod Mini = Microdrive
iPod nano and Shuffle = Flash

Color screens and accesories are up to the user. Flash is good because it is not as easy to damage. You basically have to break the whole thing to break the memory. HDD based drives have disks and readers if you hit it very hard it will break internally, although externally it will look fine.

 

Basically, shoot for a flash player. The Nano has the most capacity of any flash player at 4 gigs, so if you need more, you're going to need a HD or MD player.

The only reason NOT to buy a flash player at this point is capacity. The 4-gig Nano is now the same price my HD-based 4-gig Mini was.

 

You sure on that junkie? Over here the 4g nano is the same price as the 6g mini.....

 

the nano is awesome looking but the battery life isnt very impressive. 14 hours rated, so in reality it would be like 10 hours of playback time at the most? The later after a couple hundered times of recharging it be more like 5 hours, wouldnt it?

 

if i was to get the nano, the lonly way to get music on it is if i used the itunes right?
i mean i cant transfer existing music i have on my computer right?
in other words i have to download and pay a buck for every song i want on my nano. And all the songs that i have collected so far are useless cause i cant transfer them on the nano?

 

No, not true.

You can use other apps to load and organize music with an iPod besides iTunes. Check out the forums at www.ilounge.com for great resources of info on players.

You can transfer any existing music onto an iPod. iTunes supports mp3, mp4, aac, protected aac, wav, aiff, and will convert unprotected wma to any of the above formats.

You'd only pay for music you buy off iTunes, not any songs you rip off CDs, get from P2P, already have, etc. iTunes is considered the best player/music store in the market. The iPods are considered the best players on the market.

The latest iPod holds 60GB, and is hard drive based. Its good for carrying around, but not so good for active stuff like running. The plus side is that the regular iPod has a bunch of attachments, so you can add speach recording, speaker, radio, remote accessories, etc.

I have a regular iPod for carting large volumes of music around (for use in places like my car), and a Shuffle for travel and to use a flash drive.

 

I read a review where they got more than 14 hours out of it. Not much more (like 14 hours 15 minutes) but that is more than Apple said it would do.

I don't have problems like this. I read cell phone reviews where the people are complaining that it only has 14 hours of talk time. 14 hours? Who talks that much between recharges? I think its bragging rights at that point.

With a cell phone I recharge every night, with the nano I recharge while downloading so thats 3 times a day right now.