A friend of mine is looking for a non-iPod MP3 player. Are there any trusted review sites for these products?

Also, should I point him toward anything else besides Creative and iRiver (which he already knew)? He needs 20-30 gig, more rich UI than iPod, but no need for photo and video. Thanks.

dapreview.net

I stumbled across that site a few days ago. I haven't formed a judgment for it myself so you'll have to makeup your own.

The Cowon iAudio players seem to be pretty well liked in general - if he's not bothered about photos then he can save himself some money by going for the mono screen version of the X5, the M5.

Never used one myself, but they support FLAC and seem to be fairly reliable & have nice metal cases. The UI looks fairly typical of far eastern players, though I've heard the Cowon products aren't quite as impenetrable as the iRiver stuff.

www.cowon.com redirects you to the right place...

Hugo

dapreview is a good site. It's basically engadget for DAPs and PMPs.

Archos makes decent players as well, although I'm holding out for the iStation V43, which should be reaching the states in a couple months. Does anyone here have connections in Korea that could get me one of these things?

Personally, I recommend the Archos Gmini400/402/402cc. I know you say they don't need video/photo, but you'll find that you can get devices in the iPod category that have these features anyway for the same amount of money, so why not have it? Apple's way behind in this area, and the GMini has had the iPod beaten in features for over a year now (it was Engadget's gadget and MP3 player of the year for 2004, well before the iPod had half-assed video).

Check out the GMini 40x line. Basically the 402 replaced a CF slot for USB host (which could still accept card readers), and smoothed out some other features. The 402cc adds a small camera to the back of the device for recording low-res photos and video.

I'd recommend the 400 to your friend. It's the least expensive, and I like the built-in CF slot.

Thanks, thanks, and thanks. If only he could wait for a SigmaTel powered player. I may even buy into that.

Thanks again!!

Okay, my turn. My mom suddenly wants an MP3 player. In terms of capacity, she has maybe 25 CDs she listens to regularly now, so I'm thinking something in the 2gb or 4gb range would be fine. An iPod Nano is the obvious choice, but at $179/$229 for 2gb/4gb (with .edu discount) might be a bit more than she wants to pay.

What I'm wondering is, are there any other players at a bit lower of a price point that still compete with the Nano in terms of user-friendliness, sound quality, etc. She doesn't care about cross-fading, but I think she'd appreciate gapless playback, which the iPods don't have

I know she can handle the iTunes interface, and could probably handle something slightly less intuitive from a competitor, provided there are really good reasons for making that concesion (a significant price difference, etc.)

So, what else is in the Nano's league that's worth looking into?

How would you feel about refurbished Rio players?

wow they have karmas

I had a bad experience with my Karma, so I don't know that I'd consider refurb'd Rio players unless there were ones that were very highly recommended, and they compared to the Nano for someone who's not all that tech savvy. Rio Music Manager is "okay" but I don't think it's as intuitive as iTunes for a novice like my mom. The Rio players in her price/capacity range also don't look all that great. I think she'd prefer something a little less, uh, flashy/flamboyant than some of those Rio models.

Anything else out there that'll play gapless in the Nano price/capacity range?

A friend of mine got the CE2100 (which is the half-capacity Carbon) a month or two ago and it seems to work great. It's a nice size, too.

My friend considered all the advice here, but ended up taking his own advice and got an iRiver 20gig. I got to play with it for a few minutes and my first impression is that the user interface has iPod beat hands down. But then I noticed quirks in the functionality: lag while changing tracks, switching from pause to play each time I changed a track, etc.

It's no empeg, but it should be giving iPod more of a run for its money.