NotoriousREV

Why are most MP3 players over £100? They have no complicated moving parts, no need for fancy "anti-jog" technology, no fancy battery technology and no frigging laser gun so why are they more expensive than CD and MD players?

When someone launches a 512Mb player for £25 I'll get one, until then they can sod off.

milo

supply and demand

andrewdelvard

Because of the very points you made
Also don't forget size and sound quality. I love mine. Best £150 I spent ever.

dr_ming

Compared to a CD player? Size yes. Sound quality, no way, not unless you encode at > 256kbps.

ozzy

They prey on the "gadget" junkies. How Apple get away with charging £300-£400 for an MP3 player is beyond me

Stefan

Fatman

As said earlier - supply and demand. Flash memory isn't cheap, AFAIK.

Regarding sound quality - you really don't need high-quality playback on these devices. Most people listen to them, where? On the train, out running, in the gym etc. If you're in a position to appreciate very high-quality playback, then you're probably static enough to use decent hifi equipment.

dr_ming

Fatman - True, to a point. I find the quantising noise and compression artefacts of low bit-rate MP3s intolerable, even in such noisy ambient conditions. Personal peference of course

[Edited by dr_ming - 1/12/2004 2:17:44 PM]

Fatman

Agree - I can't abide low bitrate recordings. Even for my mobile player I use >= 192kpbs. And fully enclosed headphones. What better for sealing out the 'real' world on the train?

lightning

We are getting ripped off. They are solid state circuit boards made on a production line in the Far East. They are making huge profits.

I was very reluctant to purchase an MP3 player until I saw a Sony Ericsson player on sale at Expansys. It cost me £17 plus vat and came with a memory card reader, 32 MB MMC card and headphones. Plugs directly into my T68i. Then bought a 128MB MMC card for £27 from ValueMedia. Works and sounds great.

class_A

Ozzy,

The iPod isn't a Flash Memory based player. It therefore needs a bigger battery and a memory buffer, before you even compare feature-for-feature. Plus they hold 15Gb for £299. How much would you need to spend on CF for example to get anywhere near that? iPod serves a different market (very successfully too).

Alex

rik1471

Speaking of MP3 players, has anyone any comments on this one:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...category=48451

Want to buy one for my 15 y/o sister, my budget is about £70.

Any better options for the money?

Rik.

ozzy

I know it isn't a flash memory product (my Brother works for a very large Apple Dealer in Scotland). 15GB-based disk drives are dirt cheap and the size of Apple, can keep the costs very low.

Considering a competitors disk-based MP3 players tend to be £50 cheaper and have twice the capacity, I'd still argue that the iPod is overpriced. But, then again all Apple products are.

I have an in-car MP3 player and it costs me £150 (no hard disk) over 1.5yrs ago. The technology required for battery life and buffers isn't that expensive. Just look at the competition that offer longer battery life for less money.

The disk-based MP3's can be debated less that solid-state stuff. There's no reason why these can't be made cheaply.

Stefan

class_A

I know there's the Apple Tax to pay but remember that they aren't using standard 2.5" laptop drives. The iPod drives are based around a PCMCIA card, and the retail price of the bare drives themselves is usually the same price as one of those drives with the rest of the iPod wrapped around it!

what would scooby do

I got a 30GB creatve labs Zen jobbie for £200 - half price of IPOD's at the time

rik1471

iPods are cool

Brendan Hughes

My son's lusting after a Zen w/out looking at anything else, and going to pay the most money he's ever paid for anything (about £200). Is that sensible?

Frankly I think half of it is to make up for the fact that he doesn't have a mobile phone with a camera, and he has to show a gadget off to his peers...

AllanB

The ipod is so much more usable than many other devices and has a number of apps to allow you to do more with it than simply play music. Apple are also trying to recover a considerbale investment made in iTunes.

I'm yet to see another MP3 player of the same quality that is half as desirable.


AllanB

WillieF

I got an I-bead off these guys recently Advanced MP3 players.

The I-Bead is a good piece of kit although when you take all of the original post into consideration then yes they are expensive..

They also sell the Zen and a number of other MP3 players...

Just checked their site and was surprised to find quite a few solid state players under £100

[Edited by WillieF - 1/15/2004 1:10:12 AM]

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I love my player - worth every penny IMO (£200)

BTW it DOES have moving parts (well mine does)...a 20gig microdrive

I've no need to move CD's from home to car, fiddle about with the CD changer, Clean off the grubby finger prints, find somewhere to put them in the car.

Everything I listen to is now on the mp3 player (minimum 192Kbps). - certainly saves me from having carrying 500 odd CD's with me everywhere




[Edited by ALi-B - 1/15/2004 1:14:52 AM]

Hobo_Jojo

i had a 20gig player which i bought a while back was realy good until i broke it

i jus recieved a free 64mb muvo, i realy like it solight and small dont even feel it in my pocket and good sound qual, only get 17 songs on it tho