Be Excellent To Each Other

What I want:

MP3 player that is just a drive I can drag songs onto, no proprietary software, nuffink. I'd like it to be one that's pendrive sized so I can plug it straight into a USB port without needing a lead for copying and charging. I'd like it to be quite cheap.

What I need:

You good people to tell me what to buy.

iRiver T60.

Hmm. Nice looking device, but I'm not sure it fits my 'cheap' and 'recharge by plugging straight into USB' requirements.

Creative Zen-stone then. I got give one of these and it seems pretty good. The only drawback being that it seems to self-discharge if you haven't used it for a week or so.

What's cheap? You didn't say it had to recharge, only that it couldn't us a cable

That looks good, but it needs a cable.

Oh fucking hell.

These are some unreasonable requirements, is there anything else, does it need to come with a free Moon, fitted to a stick?

Like my spam cannon.

Back when 64Mb was a lot of space I bought a Creative MuVo.

About the size and shape of a lighter. Takes an AAA battery, slips apart to stick into a pc, drag and drop.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-70PF190409000-MuVo-V100-1GB/dp/B000HEZG0S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1217428827&sr=8-1
1Gb ones seem to be able to be got for £15 - £47.

I'm sure you could find better. But hey.

Oh wait, you want one that recharges. Ah fuck it- i'll still posting this now I typed it.

Really? Seems quite reasonable to me. It doesn't need to be huge - 512Mb to 1Gb is fine. I'd have thought a small form factor rechargeable MP3 player would be a common thing.

This doesn't fit some of the criteria but I'll recommend this anyway for those who want a cheap & cheerful player. Certainly nice and convenient to have the player built into the headphones.

I think I actually recommend popping into some shit whole like comet to get one of these. Because they have dozens of generic usb stick charging mp3 players. Over priced a bit, but you can find one you like the look of, then go buy it on the internet if it's too much.

See, that's what I'm after. I was hoping for opinions from people who'd had them, but obviously everyone's MP3 player tastes are too rich for me

Zen Stone Plus. Yes it needs a cable but it comes with one that's about 2cm long.

The Plus has radio and a screen and is lovely.

I'd rather get a Creative or something, those no-name ones often seem to just die pretty quickly. I know you didn't want a lead but the one I linked to does just use the increasingly commonplace mini USB type. This is also advantageous because it can be recharged away from a computer using the charger from any one of a range of devices like phones etc.

You need to think cheap Taiwanese tat. I bet your local supermarket has no-name players that meet all your requirements.

What about this? It does everything except the "plug straight in" bit. I'd suggest you just buy a couple of spare mini-USB cables and leave one on each PC you plug it into.

Here we go:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-Muvo-T ... 121&sr=1-6

This would appear to do the trick:

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/store ... ms=5137789

It might not be "proper" drag-and-drop out of the box but apparently you can put suitable firmware on it:

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/sh ... stcount=68

Samsung T10 recharges from USB and almost has a drag and drop interface, but you do need to use their software.

I have one, it's aceness.

Yup, I have a no-name USB stick player (2GB) that I got off ebay a couple of years ago. It runs off a single AA battery and has an LCD with the track display on it, and even a useless FM radio built in. The user interface is a bit pish, it doesn't run for very long on a NIMH battery (it's meant for alkaline) but it works and was only about 20 quid or something.

Yes but the most basic zen stone can be had for that and doesn't suck.

Now you mention it I have a Zen Stone as well (Around a 35 quid one IIRC). It's just as sucky, although it's smaller, looks nicer and charges off the USB lead (although as you say it's always flat when you want to use it). The menu on it is infuratingly slow though, so if you're planning to do anything other than stick whole albums on there and just listen to it, it rapidly gets frustrating.

Did I say it's always flat? I don't have that but then mine gets used 4-5 days a week.

Sorry, that was markg, said it self-discharges quickly.

Ebuyer and SVP usually have shit loads of cheap Chinese MP3 players that plug into a USB port and also double as a memory stick.

FFS! This thread is enough to make me tetchy!

Cheap cheerful mp3 player that plugs into a USB socket and has 1GB of memory. From our old friends Deal Extreme. There are FUCKING HUNDREDS of these things on their site:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3054

These units are often rebadged and sold in Comet etc for twice the price.

<JML Voiceover>

But wait! There's more!

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SVP also have such units:

http://svp.co.uk/product/aigo_a215_digital_mp3_wma_player_44247

Note that you'll need to check if the SVP one is direct connection. It looks like it might but nothing in the spec.

Cheap, simple, direct connection and will do a job. Not a Jesuspod granted but will do a job.

http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/cat.php?search=MP3%2FMP4+Players&nav=6

512Mb £1.49.
http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?nav=6&product=GRADEA085&title=Hardware+Mp3+Player+2+Gig+Aigo+A215+-+Silver
2Gb £9.99

That looks virtually identical to the one I have. The guts are probably the same.

There's a cheap MP3 player on hotukdeals today.. Don't know if it's any good or not but it's worth a look I guess. I haven't looked at the spec or anything though.. could be rubbish for all I know.

I bet it won't stop someone posting a comment saying they've bought ten for eBay though.

Well done Sir! Have 6 Chinny points.

The rest of you can just go to your rooms!

I bought ten for ebay.

Sorry, I mean, that is the one I posted above.

I'd still buy the stone plus.

Yeah, that's because you totally failed to read the first post

To be fair, the stone does recharge from USB as requested, whereas the recommended cheap pen-drive style ones don't (well, mine doesn't anyway).

This isn't such a big problem though because you can carry spare rechargeables.

But you can't plug it straight in without a lead. Several of the pendrive ones do - I shall be purchasing one today, thanks to the fine people in this thread.

Good

The lead is so short, the whole thing is still smaller than the Korean piles of crap that'll fail you in a month.

The one I'm getting is a Creative, so is likely to be just as reliable as the Stone.

Oh.

I've previously owned a MuVo and a generic player and they both died in approximately two minutes so it might be worth paying the extra for something not made out of damp cardboard and old shoe strings.

I can't recommend anything specifically though. Sandisk Sansa players are usually well regarded but their player in this range, the Sandisk Sansa Express seems to be bloody crappy and unreliable too which is all a bit sad really.

Oh dear

Told you to buy the stone

"Dudley found beaten to death with cheap USB player. More at 11"

11?

It'll stop working waaaay before 11.