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[Jude]

OK, so my creative Zen Vision M just stopped working after a year and a half. It served me well - sounded great, enough capacity for me, video (which I used for a couple Boondocks episodes and nothing else) and lasted me through my 4 month trip to the middle east. Before this I had a Zen Micro which crapped out after a year or so.

So this time around I'm after durability. I understand durability is fairly unpredictable - within any given model there are numerous anecdotes of people having the player stop working for no reason after a few months, have it work perfectly for five years and still running, and have it break after being dropped once.

Still, what models can you recommend for durability? I understand flash memory players are much less vulnerable to damage then hard drive ones, but I also would like a large capacity because I plan to be travelling overseas again sometime and would want to take most/all of my music collection with me. Still I could deal with smaller capacity if necessary

 Lower price is also a big plus - certainly less than 200 and the lower the better. I've found that amazon.com has the best deals in every model I've looked at so I'm using them as a reference for price.

I've heard nothing good about iPods and they seem overpriced so I'm staying away from those.

So here are some I've looked at

http://www.amazon.com/Zune-Video-MP3-Player-Black/dp/B001EWDFCI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230072620&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Portable-Media-Player-Black/dp/B000UVBDRS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1230072803&sr=1-3
I like the ability to stick an SD card in this - anyone know anything about that?

So what do you recommend

[Tahin]

I suggest a laptop, personally. They can be a bit on the expensive side, but, well, it's a laptop. They can do anything a desktop can, plus you can plug your headphones in, stick it in your backpack, and use it like an MP3 player.

I would definitely suggest steering clear of iPods, if at all possible. I had a friend who had a Zune. I haven't talked to him in about a year, so I don't know if it's still functioning or not, but he seemed to like it.

I guess I should back up my claims about iPods: I had one, it lasted about two years. That's a year longer than all of my friends' iPods. They're designed to break so you have to go buy a new one. Oh, and they force you to use iTunes. Don't buy an iPod.

[Jude]

Uh - a laptop is just a little bit out of my budget

Mp3 player's what I'm looking for...

[Tahin]

Well, as I said, my only experience with decent MP3 players is with Zunes, and I never owned one, so I don't really know.

[Jude]

Anybody else?

[Mephisto]

I've got a Creative Zen V - no Plus or anything. It survived a hard summer at a factory and it still plays and (mostly) looks like new. That was around two and a half years ago. I bought the lowest capacity just before the price dropped, so I'm not the most reliable source when it comes to the capacity/price ratio now.

I'd say eight hours of listening a day with some power left over for around three months is fairly durable.

[Ivefan]

Check out any of iAudio's models.
The u2(rather old model) served me for a long time untill it had an accident but im getting a new one.

[umiman]

I have a DS that functions as an MP3 player...

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I have a DS that functions as an MP3 player...

Me too.

[Reasonableman]

Me three, but none of this is helping the fellow who started the thread.

[Jude]

That fine fellow surely is deserving of your help, though.

[Reasonableman]

Indeed he is! But I haven't any advice to give. Well, except in the form of an addendum to the advice that one fellow gave about laptops: you can get a 'netbook' as I think they're calling them these days for about $400, which will play MP3's, videos, surf the web, and possibly play games 'n' things. Don't expect too much from them though.

[Jude]

If I do get a laptop, it's gonna be one that can run DF with an FPS of 30 or so at 100 population.

It's nice to dream, isn't it?

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Don't worry, use DFA, and perhaps you get 100 FPS at 100 pop!

When pathfinding has been fixed, of course...

[umiman]

I have a three year old laptop that can run DF with 100 pop at 30fps quite easily.

Sony VAIO FE28GP. They don't make it any more though. I like my laptop, even considering what people say about Sony. I got it cheap as they were trying to clear the stock for the new blu ray coms at the time.

My point is that it's not hard to find a laptop that can run DF well. Just avoid those Celerons and intergrated graphics.

It cost me RM2700 at the time ($800). I would imagine something along my lappy's specs would be much cheaper now.