I need a portable entertainment device for my vacations...

[Chzn8r]

... and I'm really stumped. There are 2 material things I love in this world, and that's music and video games. I'm still in the dark ages when it comes to portability.

-I have a standard CD player and have to carry around 2 huge wallets just to have ~80 albums at my disposal. So of course I know the clear and instant advantages of an MP3 player, in so many ways. Yet the worthwhile ones to invest in are all very expensive ($200, $300, etc...) and I'm not sure if I want to spend that right now. So if I choose a portable music device, I will either:
A) Get an iPod, a trusted brand that may be a little pricey
B) Get a different drive-based MP3 player that's cheaper but doesn't have as much of the guarunteed quality, or
C) Get a disk/card-based MP3 player that I can just put a few albums on at a time, then have to replace them. Smaller and cheaper but not as smart of an investment compared to the bigger ones.

On to video games...
-The last Gameboy I owned was, you guessed it, fatty, which I only had Pokemon Red/Blue, Metroid 2, Zelda Link's Awakening, and Mario Land 2 for. Of course, I've gotten my continued GB/GBC/GBA fix through emulators... but I can never play them away from my computer (don't suggest a PSP or a palm pilot, plzkthx). My toss up here, if I go for a game device, is whether to:
A) Buy a Nintendo DS, which right now would be the most expensive, and has the wireless multiplayer/online possibilities, but not much of that will be realized for me for a while.
B) Buy a Gameboy Advance SP, which would still allow me to pick up and play all old GB/GBC games, and is of course much much cheaper. Plus, I could potentially pay $60-80 for one of these now, and trade it in for $30-40 around the holidays towards a DS.
C) Wait for a Gameboy Micro...? Nah, not my thing, even though it could have a great pricepoint. It's not for avid gamers anyways, can't play older games and the screen is only 2 inches.

Keep in mind that this has to be some money well speant, though that shouldn't be a problem as either a portable system with hundreds/thousands of games, or a music player that I can always load up with tons of music depending on my mood will make a good choice.

And of course there's the 3rd option, just buy Half-Blood Prince exclusively and read it on all my upcoming plane/car trips, though I was going to do that anyways

[Meat Puppet]

my hand just works for me

[Destai]

I just bought an ipod 20 gb. Its brilliant. The battery is improved, you can upload up to 20,000 pictures from your pc in full colour with the detail of a digital camera (its not an ipod photo) and uo to 5,000 songs. I have a gameboy advance and its great also. Id just buy the old model of GBA at a discount.

[Rye]

my hand just works for me

And your AVATAR. >:o

[Lindy]

iPods are NOT guaranteed quality, you'll be following hype, not good reviews. I considered one, then I actually looked around at other possibilities, and I was impressed by every single alternative.

The sound quality on an iPod is sub-par compared to most of the latest MP3 players, it has a more powerful output, but not the quality to match it, couple that with the fact that the higher output burns down the battery insanely fast, you'd be better off with a higher quality player, lower output and better quality headphones.

Something like the Zen Touch : http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10274

Zen NX (One of which I own, and I am VERY happy with it): http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10274

Or maybe a MuVo : http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10659

With Creative, considering they've been in the business of MP3 players for longer than Apple, have a wider range of products and are proven BETTER by specification, you'll have more guaranteed quality with them.

Don't get an iPod, it's equivalent to just taking more money and flushing it down a toilet.

Compare prices :

$197 for a 30gb Zen NX on Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=507846

$259 for a 20gb Plain iPod : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...onics&n=172594 (You have to add to cart to see the price)

Logic prevails, no?

In terms of gaming, get a Gameboy Advance SP, there are no overly impressive DS games out right now compared to a wide library of GBA games, get that for now, enjoy it lots and then trade it in if and when you want a DS. Plus, you can't play old Gameboy games on a DS, only GBA games.

[Chzn8r]

you can upload up to 20,000 pictures from your pc in full colour with the detail of a digital camera (its not an ipod photo) and uo to 5,000 songs.

I can fit about 2,500 songs on a 20 GB iPod. Apple assumes all your songs are 3 minutes long.
And I didn't plan on using it for pictures, but yeah, there's that possibility.

Any more opinions on this decision would be great help.

[Rye]

iPods are NOT guaranteed quality, you'll be following hype, not good reviews. I considered one, then I actually looked around at other possibilities, and I was impressed by every single alternative.

The sound quality on an iPod is sub-par compared to most of the latest MP3 players, it has a more powerful output, but not the quality to match it, couple that with the fact that the higher output burns down the battery insanely fast, you'd be better off with a higher quality player, lower output and better quality headphones.

Something like the Zen Touch : http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10274

Zen NX (One of which I own, and I am VERY happy with it): http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10274

Or maybe a MuVo : http://creative.com/products/product...&product=10659

With Creative, considering they've been in the business of MP3 players for longer than Apple, have a wider range of products and are proven BETTER by specification, you'll have more guaranteed quality with them.

Don't get an iPod, it's equivalent to just taking more money and flushing it down a toilet.

In terms of gaming, get a Gameboy Advance SP, there are no overly impressive DS games out right now compared to a wide library of GBA games, get that for now, enjoy it lots and then trade it in if and when you want a DS. Plus, you can't play old Gameboy games on a DS, only GBA games.

I like the sound quality on the iPod. The only time it was bad was when I was listening to .wav files, which isn't too shocking. I like my 20 GB iPod a lot, but I'd consider bringing my walkman along on a long trip as the iPod's battery life is abysmal. It takes 2-4 hours to charge completely and you get about that much time with it before you need to charge it again.

Though the iPod is pretty nice, despite it's flaws.

I'd recommend a good old GBA and if you have lots of money, a portable DVD player.

[Aphelion]

I'd get an iPod and a GBA (SP, if possible). The latter because it is simply THE BEST portable game machine ever created. I don't know if I'm the only one to consider it that or not, but that's only my humble opinion. And then, I'd get an iPod, which seems to be a new worldwide hit and - of course - it's very useful.

It's all up to you: if you think buying both wouldn't be a "money well-spent", don't do it, but those are definitely the choices I'd consider.

Hope it helps.

[omnitarian]

SP vs DS? Well, the fact that you don't own any GBA games (I'm assuming) pretty much makes it a toss-up. I don't know if a net cost of $20 would be worth playing your old Toasterboy games for a few days. Then again, the DS might go down in cost before the holidays, but since they already have the DS + free SM64DS thing going on, we can't really be sure. I guess I would opt for a DS if you're just going to sell the SP anyway.

[Necronopticous]

Go for the PSP!

[Lindy]

~<FONT color="GOLD">It's a good comic, though the profanity makes it inappropriate. -Necronopticous</FONT>

iPods only support AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF, good luck trying to get anything else to go on it.

I tried looking up technical specs on the apple site, but it lacks anything other than the frequency response.

About the only advantages I can see for an iPod is Firewire support, but that's only useful if you're transferring massive quantities of data, USB2.0 is fine for everything else, and the size.

In terms of the actual musical playback, battery life, every other player wins, in fact most of them are as small as the iPod now anyway so that advantage is severely lacking.

Oh, and the whole photo thing, but what the hell is the point of having photos on an <b>MP3</b> player? It's like the stupid excesses of the PSP, having an MP3 player, movie player, internet access...oh yeah, and it like, sometimes plays games, you know?

[ZeZipster]

I say you should get a PSP. I've hacked my PSP to play a bunch of NES, SNES, and GB games. I could sit there and play it for days, just like I could my SNES/NES back when I was a munchkin.

[Necronopticous]

I say you should get a PSP. I've hacked my PSP to play a bunch [...] SNES [...] games.

The NES sure is nice, but skipping frames to make the SNES games run at normal speed is so irritating ;( I sure hope Y and the gang fix up the core programming to fix the speed issues.

And I wouldn't say <i>you</i> hacked it xD Isn't that taking too much credit?

[ZeZipster]

I say you should get a PSP. I've hacked my PSP to play a bunch [...] SNES [...] games.

The NES sure is nice, but skipping frames to make the SNES games run at normal speed is so irritating ;( I sure hope Y and the gang fix up the core programming to fix the speed issues.

Ditto, but to be honest I had already dealt with frame skipping on my old slow computer, so I'm kind of used to it. If they do, I might buy a 1 gig mem stick just to put GBA games on it too.

[Lindy]

Ok, now THAT is one of the good things about the PSP, but it's just so damned expensive to get the sticks to hold all of the stuff.