Seeking MP3 player advice

[Ringr]

Hey guys,

Before I go on a somewhat-long vacation I'd like to get an MP3 player. I can't believe I've still never owned one in my life, everyone I see of all ages has one wherever I go. My main problem is that there are so many different kinds of MP3 players out there, I simply don't know what kind to get. There's the mainstream ones like the iPod and the Zune, and then there's the semi-popular brands like Creative Labs and iRiver.

Without further delay, can you guys personally recommend any good quality MP3 players to me?

Here are some features that are important to me:

• 30GB storage minimum (preferably 60GB)
• Video, picture support
• Some type of wifi/online connectivity if possible
• Built in radio or FM tuner
• A/V out (ie. sending media from the MP3 player to a TV)
• Upgradeable firmware
• MSRP of $300 USD or less

I don't know if there an MP3 player that has ALL of those functions (except maybe the Zune) but as many of those features as possible would work if all of them weren't available.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Thank you,
Andrew

 

[vslevin]

I understand how you might think that the Creative Zen is "Winning" because of Creative Zen.

However, some other research shows that in fact, the Zune is in 2nd place, taking 10.2% of the marketshare, after Apple in the 30GB DAP area.

You can see here: http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12370/

and here: http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=54163&Nid=26731&p=291151

The Zune has taken an overall 2.8 marketshare of the DAP industry in U.S., and 10.2 marketshare in the 30GB region.

Hope all is ok, no hard feelings.

Did you not read the rest of that article?

MacDailyNews Take: Okay, Zune's at what NPD calls "10.2%" for December which just about accounts for early adopters, Microsoft employees, the mentally-challenged, and confused grandparents' Christmas shopping mistakes. So, what are the Zune's post-holiday return rates? We probably won't hear about that issue, so we can hardly wait to see what NPD finds for Zune's market share in January.

By the way, make that "10.2% of 30GB music players in the U.S," as Microsoft marketing director Jason Reindorp told The Washington Post, not "10.2% of the portable music player market" as incorrectly reported by Burg above.

Oh, one more little thing: NPD does not report sales from Apple Retail Stores, the Apple Store online, Wal-Mart, or Amazon, among others. Add those retail outlets' sales into the mix and one could reasonably assume that Apple's iPod share is actually quite a bit larger and the Zune's share quite a bit lower than NPD's figures. Due to limited reporting, the actual NPD market share numbers aren't nearly as important as the trends they show; Apple's iPod share as measured by NPD is up 36.4% year-over-year.

Microsoft's Zune has 10.2% of the market that NPD measures, not 10.2% of the actual portable music player market (which nobody accurately measures).

And now you know the rest of the story.

Its not 10.2% of the entire market, and that's just the first month it was on the market, which is always higher.

 

[lpxxfaintxx]

Check the article title. "NPD: Zune sees ‘10.2%’ share of music player market in Dec." The Zune was launched in November.

If you read this article: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/techgames/10324945.html, you'll see that during launch, the Zune had 9% of the marketshare... still 2nd place!

So November and December, Zune was still 2nd.

 

[Robert Allen]

If you are a tight budget, then get a mp4 player. I have one, they don't play mp4 format, but they have a converter to convert to .wmv. I have one, they are shipped from Hong Kong on ebay. they are very good. You can recharge them via USB, and they dont need batterys, they have built in rechargeables (which unfortunatly cant be replaced..).

They only go up to 4GB tho, they probably are no good for you.

Rob

 

[Eli koga +]

maybe just cause i'm a sony fan, or maybe just cause i really like my psp, but if psp's only had a bigger storage capacity then maybe... lol GO PSP MP4 player of the delayed future :P

 

[vslevin]

Check the article title. "NPD: Zune sees ‘10.2%’ share of music player market in Dec." The Zune was launched in November.

If you read this article: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/techgames/10324945.html, you'll see that during launch, the Zune had 9% of the marketshare... still 2nd place!

So November and December, Zune was still 2nd.

Quote from the article that you referenced:

The Zune has taken an overall 2.8 marketshare of the DAP industry in U.S., and 10.2 marketshare in the 30GB region.

10.2% amongst 30GB players, and only 2.8% overall. Another important point is that the Zune was a brand new product during that time. There was a select crowd that was real buzzed about it and rushed out and bought it right away. Now that all of those people have it, the early adapters, I would like to see how terribly is did in the month of January.

I like this:

Okay, Zune's at what NPD calls "10.2%" for December which just about accounts for early adopters, Microsoft employees, the mentally-challenged, and confused grandparents' Christmas shopping mistakes.

And this is important:

Oh, one more little thing: NPD does not report sales from Apple Retail Stores, the Apple Store online, Wal-Mart, or Amazon, among others. Add those retail outlets' sales into the mix and one could reasonably assume that Apple's iPod share is actually quite a bit larger and the Zune's share quite a bit lower than NPD's figures. Due to limited reporting, the actual NPD market share numbers aren't nearly as important as the trends they show; Apple's iPod share as measured by NPD is up 36.4% year-over-year.

So when you take account how poorly it is doing at Amazon, plus the fact that it doesn't even take into the account all of the iPods sold at Apple Stores and their own website.

With all of this taken into account, I wouldn't be surprised if the Zune's overall marketshare is closer to 1%.

 

[lpxxfaintxx]

If you've read my first post in this thread, you could see that I wrote

Breakdown of 30GB DAP's

#1 selling = iPods
#2 selling = Zune
#3 selling = Sansa
#4 selling = Creative & others

When did I ever say the music industry? The point of this was that the Zune was selling better than Creative Zen Vision:M, not against Apple.

Apple has a lot of models, colors, respect, and lead so of course they have a (much) bigger marketshare. Read carefully.

With all due respect,
LPX

 

[vslevin]

If you've read my first post in this thread, you could see that I wrote



When did I ever say the music industry? The point of this was that the Zune was selling better than Creative Zen Vision:M, not against Apple.

Apple has a lot of models, colors, respect, and lead so of course they have a (much) bigger marketshare. Read carefully.

With all due respect,
LPX

What you posted cannot possibly be true, since there isn't even a 30GB Sansa.

Where did you find that?

And I've checked at Amazon, and the Zen is doing much better than the Zune. That's the most up to date and most accurate.

 

[lpxxfaintxx]

Well, I guess Sansa is not 3rd place then. That's not the point, the point is that the zune is still selling better than the Creative Zen M.

I think I'll believe NPD's conclusion instead of Amazon's. The Zune is sold throughout ten thousands of retail stores in the U.S... The Zune might not be selling well on Amazon, but it sure is selling better than the Creative M overall.

 

[vslevin]

Well, I guess Sansa is not 3rd place then. That's not the point, the point is that the zune is still selling better than the Creative Zen M.

I think I'll believe NPD's conclusion instead of Amazon's. The Zune is sold throughout ten thousands of retail stores in the U.S... The Zune might not be selling well on Amazon, but it sure is selling better than the Creative M overall.

Where did you even get those rankings from? If the Sansa was even on them for 30GB players, that that source is definitely not refutable.

In regards to NPD, the figures you have were for the week ending on Nov. 18. That was when the Zune was just released, so there was obviously a surge of sales. That's three months old, Amazon is from right now. The Zen is also sold at tens of thousands of retail stores in the U.S., as well as on Amazon, so I'd say that its a pretty accurate indicator, especially when considering the enormous margin.

In its first week, Zune secured the No. 2 spot among portable media players, well behind iPod, but edging out previous second-place holder SanDisk, according to data released by the NPD Group today. Zune won 9 percent of the U.S. market, measured by unit sales, and 13 percent of dollar volume for the week ended Nov. 18, NPD reported. Microsoft released the device Nov. 14.

And after those few days:

However, there have been signs that Zune's market share may have slipped since those initial days. One widely cited indication: The player debuted in the top 10 among Amazon.com's best-selling MP3 players but has since fallen lower in the rankings. As of Wednesday morning, the top-selling Zune model was at No. 17.

It was real high in the one week of stats that you have, and was high at Amazon during that same time, but a week after it was released, it just shot down the list.
And for the week after the only stats that you have:

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.'s Zune device dropped to fifth place from second in the U.S. market for digital media players in its second week in stores, market researcher NPD Group Inc. said.

Zune captured 2.1 percent of the market in the week ended Nov. 25, said Stephen Baker, an analyst at Port Washington, New York-based NPD, in an interview today. Baker said Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod remained the leader, with 39.4 percent that week, based on units sold.

Zune's market share declined as SanDisk Corp. boosted sales with a 50 percent price cut on its media players, taking a 39.3 percent share and knocking Microsoft from the No. 2 spot it occupied in its first week in the market. Redmond, Washington- based Microsoft sold about the same number of units as the previous week, failing to keep pace with rising holiday sales.

``Zune did OK in the first week and OK in the second week, but they haven't had any major impact on Apple,'' Baker said. Apple held 75 percent of the U.S. media player market for the nine months through September, according to NPD.

Baker said SanDisk typically cuts prices the week of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, taking more of the market from Apple than usual.

Grabbing Share

Zune took 9 percent share of units sold in its first week on the market, beating out SanDisk for second place after iPod in the week ended Nov. 18. Apple had a 63 percent share that week.

``Second place for Zune is by no means a done deal,'' said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at New York-based JupiterResearch.

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Zune to dent Apple's dominance in the market.

Shares of Microsoft rose 21 cents to $29.33 at 4:30 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Shares of Milpitas, California-based SanDisk rose 41 cents to $44.91 and Cupertino, California-based Apple slipped 20 cents to $91.12.

Creative Technology Ltd. was third, while Memorex International Inc. was fourth. Walt Disney Co. tied for fifth place with Microsoft.:hehe:

Overall unit sales rose 26 percent from the same week of last year, Baker said. NPD doesn't disclose the number of units each company sold.

Amazon's current top selling MP3 player list tells all: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172630/ref=pd_ts_e_nav/104-7138428-7452764
The Zen is #8, behind a bunch of iPods and a couple of Sansas, and the Zune is down at #20, behind such players as the USB 2.0 Digital MP3 WMA Player Voice Recorder FM Radio Flash Drive, which looks like its from 1999, all colors of the Shuffle, even the one that has been discontinued for a long time, and even another Creative product. the Zen Nano Plus, which has been out for 2 years.

The manager of the Zune division at Microsoft just stepped down:

Ok, so who here owns a Zune? Not many of us - and apparently, Microsoft doesn't really like that fact. Therefore, a little shake-up has taken place under the Zune project, and its current Business Manager is stepping down. Brian Lee, the original controller of the project, will now hand over his reins to none other than J Allard.