MP3 player question

So, I may have forgotten about my zune yesterday while I was working and left it in a truck. Allegedly.

I guess it was hot enough that the zune got kinda pissy, because it was shutting on and off for a while when I turned it on this morning and went into device recovery mode(which involves deleting every damn thing off of it) or something.

On the off chance that I might have needed to buy another one, I was perusing Amazon and I noticed something. Why is it, if you want an mp3 player with capacity over 120 gbs of data, that you're pretty much stuck with berkeleying apple products? The only other option was some touch screen pile from some random company I've never heard of. I honestly don't know why there aren't more 120 gig mp3 players, considering I don't know anyone who actually uses an mp3 player who hasn't filled the small ones immediately.

Now, I filled my 120 gig pretty quick, and I reckon I would fill a 160 just as fast, but weren't there 320 gig mp3 players being marketed a while back? Or is that something my E36 M3head brain thought up to annoy me?

almost none of them are hard drive based except ipod classics.

So they're, what, flash drives or something?

Still seems odd that not many companies bother to make anything over 16 or so. If Sony made a 120 or bigger I'd buy it in a second, the old 16 gig I had was fantastic but just too small to be of much use.

Decent flash memory is expensive at this sort of size, spinning rust is still much cheaper even after the Thai floods. Also, it seems that the majority of the people can fit their music collection into 32GB or less (and no, I can't either).

Thankfully, my zune seems to be working still, now I have to wait for almost 14 thousand songs to get back onto it.

Still tempted to buy another, Amazon has a couple of used/refurbed listings for 120s at 165 bucks. Kinda hard to beat that when the new prices are over 400.

I just got another one for my daughter. I know I am not alone in the disappointment over the ending of the Zune player. I REALLY don't want to listen to music on my phone!

Such a huge miss!

Creative isn't making big MP3 players anymore?

According to their site they only go up to 64 gigs.

Archos 5 is available in 250GB - but it's BIG

The dimensions don't look much bigger than my zune, so it wouldn't be too much different. It's also lighter than it, but I can't do touch screen given how much time it would spend in my pocket.

And it's expensive.

E: disregard expensive and dimension comment, I was looking at a 500 gb internet tablet. oops.

Still, I don't really need a huge screen and hd for something I'll only use for music.

how in the hell do you need to carry around 120+ gigs of music? i've got hundreds and hundreds of hours of music on an ancient (4 year old) 2GB thumb drive in my car, and that thing's only about 2/3 full.

whats the problem with ipods? I've loved all of mine. I just got a 120gb classic that looked brand new at a pawn shop for 90 bucks. pretty hard to beat.

In reply to novaderrik:

Somehow I doubt you have hundreds and hundreds of hours on a mostly full 2 gig. I had 2500 songs on a 16 gig and still got pissed at the repetition. Unless you like hearing the same stuff constantly.

Snark aside , I listen to music pretty much all the time, and having massive amounts of space enables me to have the wide variety of E36 M3 I listen to available at all times. I'm not actually sure how long it would take to run through all the music on my current player, but I normally get to a couple thousand before I want to hear a certain song and start the cycle all over again.

Besides, I like having all of my music with me and a big hd is the most efficient way of doing it.

In reply to corytate:

No real problems, I just destroy electronics at an astonishing rate and I don't know anyone who hasn't broken at least two ipods. Add the Apple tax and I could never find one that I didn't deem too expensive.

14,000x3 minutes is 42,000 minutes. Divide by 60 minutes, thats 700 hours, or 29 days, to listen to each song once...

I'm not that easily bored, I'm afraid.

Fuzzy math I'm afraid.

13,855 songs and there were at least a dozen floating on either side of 20 minutes, with one EP that was one 45 minute song. Tons of stuff nearer to 6 minutes instead of three, with the average being 4:30 or so.

It wasn't boredom that kept me from doing it. I have a short attention span and suck at math.

What about Pandora or SirriusXM?

I use my phone for the app "tunein radio" so I can listen to NPR anywhere

i know i'll get tarred and feathered for being old fashioned like this- but why not just listen to the radio? commercials are easily ignored and you never know what you will hear next..

My phone is stupid, I'm unemployed aside from occasional under the table stuff, and I consider subscription based music a waste of money anyway.

I use pandora on the computer, used to use spotify till my mom pointed out you only get 10 hours a month free. I've hit pandoras 40 hour limit halfway through a month before, so I only really use it when I'm at the computer for any amount of time.

Besides, I've already got 140 gb of music and I constantly add more, so there would really be no reason for me to bother with the fancy radio setups beyond finding more crap I like.

E: Nova, I used to listen to the radio a good bit, but I'm largely a metalhead and the local rock stations suck IMO. Happened right about the time 98rock replaced its noon classic rock block with something called the hairball. If it involves power ballads I'm not interested.

The radio is a horrible thing when 9 out of 10 Tampa Bay stations are owned by Clear Channel. It's the same 30 minutes of music played on a loop some times... Even the XM/Sirius can be very repetitive when you listen to it 45 hours a week.

+1 for giant ipods... I only have a 30 gig, with roughly 5800 songs, and it's always on shuffle. Whenever I finish a complete rotation, I sync it back up, and look at skips and plays. Whatever got skipped or didn't get played comes off for something fresh from the 150+ gigs off the laptop.

Don't mess with my shuffle...

later, matt

In reply to xFactor:

i've noticed when traveling for work that the XM stations on sirius (when i get a ford rental) can be really repetitive, not at all the same variety i get on the "same" station on XM. not sure if they've changed that but that was what i remembered the last time i had a rental with sirius in it.

Grizz, which Zune are you trying to replace?

I have an original 30 gig zune. It still works, and I use it every week, but occasionally runs into a corrupted file, and no longer wants to communicate with my PC (so I cant load anything new on it). Im thinking about upgrading to a newer zune with more capacity than this since I cant load all my music on it, and that collection is always growing.

Ive played with my wife's iPod touch. Doesnt do anything for me and id rather have buttons than a touchscreen. Im thinking a Zune 80 or 120 gig (or do they make a larger one?), but jesus christ are they expensive.

I might have to switch to the dark side (ipod classic 160gb)

In reply to failboat: 120 gig. Bought a refurbished one off Amazon for 170 bucks, it's worked pretty well for the last three years. Occasionally tells me a file is missing or can't be played, and I just skip back after it moves to the next one and poof, it plays the song.

There are a couple used ones going for 165 on amazon right now that I was considering buying if this one had crapped out, but I just put all of my music back on it last night and it seems to be working so I guess I'm alright for now.

you can fit many more songs on an mp3 player if you lower the sound quality to 128 or 96 Kbps. I promise you won't notice a difference if you are only using cheap headphones, if you are listening on any sort of larger stereo (home, car, or any headphones over $50) stick with 128 or higher.

If you have internet access where you listen then I suggest you check out shoutcast which is basically internet radio. They have an app for iOS and android as well as a browser based player for less than mobile devices. Few if any commercials and there are hundreds of stations, I bet you can find something you like. I prefer the eagle by the 181.FM

I listen to a bunch of audiobooks, they are 64 kbps mono which is about 4000 minutes/GB or about 2.7 days/GB. my measly ipod touch 8GB will therefore hold about 20 days worth of entertainment (audiobook)