mp3 players

[Filbert]

I'm thinking of buying an mp3 player and I am not sure which to buy as there seem to be so many.

The makes I have seen in my local shop are

Zipy lion, Creative Zen, MRM (I think).

Is 512 Mb enough? I really do have no ideas about these things.

Any recommendations?

[brass_monkey]

Depends on your budget and how many songs you want to carry around with you. a 512mb one will only store around 120 mp3s. It would be better to invest in a better solid state (doesn't have a platter hard drive), with more future-proofing, such as the 4GB or 6GB ones, like Apple's.
The market is led by Apple's iPod, now in its 4th-ish generation of 30GB and 60GB, but there are hardly any hard drive music players that don't suffer from problems. If you are caught for iPod, then I would recommend getting a 3 year warranty, as it normally breaks in some way, plus support for Windows is pretty bad. Apple are normally pretty happy to repair iPods in their warranty without hassle, but out of warranty it's more like �180.
Sony has the NWA3000, which is technologically superior, but the software is abysmal.
So the hard drive ones offer you to have all your CD collection on, but having a transportable hard disk poses problems, such as if you drop it, it may break it.
So for around �80-100 or so, 6GB is probably enough if you want a modest player. Think about this- you can get a 2GB memory card for a decent mobile phone with mp3 playback for �60, so that's another angle.

[Ethel]

The creative zen sleek has had excellent reports - I'm buying mine next week.

20gb hard drive, compliant with many music formats - not just mp3, and has an fm radio.
According the the Gadget Show and other reviews it is superior to the iPod.
Pricey - but should be worth it.

The Creative Zen M (which plays and stores videos as well as music) has a shockingly bad sound reproduction quality, however - so that's not worth the extra money.

[fo3nix]

I wouldn't touch Creative with a bargepole. As a company they are terrible; they copy the iPod's design, then try and sue Apple for copying them!

Sony is just as bad too. They use proprietary incompatible music formats like ATRAC (that never, ever succeed because they're proprietary). ATRAC is better than mp3, but it's not really much better than AAC (an open format that Apple's iPod happens to use by default). Oh, and they open your computer up to viruses and hackers, and spy on you. Nice work Sony.

I have an iPod (its over two years old now), and it still works perfectly. Never had a moment's trouble with it. It has the best interface for actually listening to your music of any portable music player, and the best software too on your computer. I'd also drag up brass_monkey's comment that Sony products are technically superiour. How is this?

I also hear that Samsung makes some nice players. Give them a look into if you don't want an iPod for whatever reason.