MP3 Player

I'm after a decent MP3 player, but not an iPod.
I'm after something with a quite a bit of storage and where I can just drag and drop songs onto it using windows.

Cheers

why not an ipod?
i have a classic and although you have to use iTunes (without modding it) to sync music instead of drag and drop like my old usb memory stick one it can still be used as a 160gb hard drive

mind you i chose that as at the time i couldnt find hard drive based mp3 players that WERENT ipod via retail and the larger gb memory stick/players were not that much cheaper

if you were using Linux i could understand as there is no official iTunes program for it and there is all that kerfuffle about the 3rd party program

if it was down to the memory type players then yes id avoid apple and sony and a few other big brands as you pay more for the logo than you do the gb

I've got an iPod Shuffle, Nano and 2 iPhones.
I hate the iTunes software, and find it a huge pain in the arse.
Just wondered if there were anything better.

well ive just been looking at argos (a uk catalog shop) and if you list price high to low you get a lot of 8gb mp3 players for £100 - £150, then later on you can get 16gb 'lesser' models for £100

aside from the classic iPod argos they dont sell hard drive based mp3 players

but having said that thats just one shops stock, i only chose to gander at argos cos im looking for a docking station alarm clock type thing

what is your price bracket
gb min
mp3, mpg, mp4
etc

I'm after something 80+gb, plays mp3's (mp4/divx would be a bonus)
Drag and drop onto it from multiple computers.
Price, not that much of an issue.

Cheers

Get an OGG player instead, I think iPod can play also OGG, which gives you about 100 times better quality and better compression than MP3.
Actually you could just get an iPhone, I saw one on a friend today, and it was so much more than a phone. Only Sony/Ericsson phone come close to an iPhone, while Nokia and Motorola are 10 years behind of technology. I have a Nokia and Samsung phone, so I can tell that the iPhone is way better.

What about the Google G1 (on the subject of phones..)

I've had a Sandisk (Sansa) player for years. Drag and drop in Windows, great sound... really, a solid player. The only issue I had was it wanted to scan the extra card I put in it (2 gig) every time it powered on, but considering it was one of their first models, it was worth overlooking. I'd go Sansa again in a heartbeat.

Try here- the Sansa View seems to be what you're after.
http://www.sansa.com/players

I have an iPhone (2 actually) but I really don't like the itunes software

I have an iPod with Floola and I can drag and drop mp3 files, videos etc. no iTunes needed and it works like a charm, without the nasty iTunes. I would recommend it A LOT. http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/
Once I discovered Floola, nothing beats my iPod! :D Additionally, Floola is cross platform and portable, I have the EXE in my iPod, so I can get music from any computer in the world without the need of any iTunes or driver or anithing. It just works. I would highly recommend this option.

I have Creative and Sandisk players and love them. An iPod would never be an option I would consider.

@Ziggy
I'll give that a try, thanks.

what is so evil about iTunes though?
i only use it when syncing my ipod and rip via windows media (used to use music match jukebox (pre yahoo take over) but my copy died)

the only bad thing i see is if i plug my ipod into another computer (with iTunes) it will blank my play list and sync theirs, but im sure there is an option to turn that off
and id only want to plug it in to someone elses pc as i use it as an external hard drive too

i dont care about the internal renaming of files from "album name-track number-track title" to abcd.mp3 its a silly form of DRM that would only hinder you copying specific songs over to another pc as you would have no idea what it was called

solution
its an external hard drive too, stick it in a folder

now i dont buy music online, i have enough cd's still to rip in storage without the need to buy online, plus CD's rarely have anti rip technology on them and those that do (if i know about them) i dont waste money buying
id never buy a whole album online for a few reasons
DRM
no choice in the bit rate
i might only want to see if the album is worth the money by buying a few tracks and then go to a propper shop and buy the CD

when they stop making CD's and deliver wav downloads ill think about buying online

they should abolish CD singles though, they use the same amount of resources to make a 3 track CD as a full album and most end up on some 'now thats what i call' compilation at some time too

had a quick gander at that floola link to answer a few of my questions

a> would i have to modify my ipod in any way
b> could i, if i wanted to, revert back to the apple way of doing things (like i said i have nothing against it and if i did i wouldnt have bought one)

but the website is borked
the first screen height is readable at 800*600 but after that 2 or three layers are ontop of each other making it 75% hard to read in places so i resized a level and its still garbled
it might be my box or ie but if they cant get a website working im not trusting them to not turn my ipod into garbage

edit:
never mind
it didnt like the resize much but i closed the link and re opened it (perhaps i should have refreshed) it looks normal now :)

Answering your questions:

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nope.
you don't have to. The iPod still works with the Apple software, is that you can manage its contents with iTunes (wich is nasty) or floola, wich is great! It is only the manager on your computer, not the iPod itself. I would recommend it. I was to sold my iPod untill I found it and now I don't have iTunes any more :D

I'm with Reactor, Sansa is fantastic. I have an older model that it still plugging away. My sister just bought the new player, the Fuze, and she loves it. It has the Ipod style, but you don't have to pay for the Ipod name.

http://shop.sandisk.com/store/sdiskus/DisplayCategoryProductListPage/parentCategoryID.11442300/categoryID.11886600

They also have another model, the View, that offers up to 32 Gb of space.

aye iPod is a large percent the name (as is sony etc) when it comes to memory based mp3 players

a had a cheap as chips (but not twice as nasty) 2 gb usb thingie once that worked a AAA to death in 8 hours (afaik thats average), it was a drag and drop with no management software so when i unplugged it from the pc it would have to rebuild the database (up to 10 minutes when full) and do the same when replacing the battery

got a technika (tesco own brand) 4gb one which was evil and the mp3 part started to play songs on fast forward which was funny for some songs (nine inch nails closer for one) but in the end it froze my computer when i put it in and the only way i could do anything with it was plug it into my xbox usb-joyport adapter and blank it there and reformat again under windows and use it as a 4gb flash drive with useless mp3 player buttons

when i started pricing up larger gb drives the prices started creaping too much that for £/gb the classic won out