MP3 (1 Viewer)

[Gary Shipley]

My wife has decided she would like an MP3 player so she can download music from the Internet. i know nothing about these and need some help. What should I look for in a player? I don't want to spend much over $200. What brands should I look for as far as ease of use(since she is new at this) and dependability? Thanks!

 

[Clinton McClure]

I recommend an iPod. I have an older 4th generation 30gig video iPod and a 7th (I think) gen. 1gig iPod Shuffle. If she doesn't need a ton of storage space, you can get an 8gig iPod Nano at Best Buy for $149. Songs can be purchased through iTunes or Napster or several other sites out there. Plus, if you already have a CD collection, you can easily rip the CD tracks to mp3 format for use on the iPod.

A general rule of thumb when dealing with mp3 is the better the bitrate, the better the quality. The highest available bitrate is 320kbps which is labeled as archive quality. While the music is compressed and will obviously not sound as good as uncompressed WAV from the CD itself, at 256k or 320k, it is very close and unless you are an audiophile with an ear of gold, you probably will not notice when using earbuds or listening in the car.

I would say that of my 3500+ mp3s, 75% or better are 320k, 15% are 256k and the rest are 192k with a handful of 128k mixed in.

 

[Gary Shipley]

Thanks Clinton. Thats pretty much what I'm finding out. I think she'll going to go with the Ipod Nano from what I've seen. I've got all the info I need now. Thanks again!

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Before you jump right to an iPod Nano, you might also want to find out if she will likely want to use the device for anything other than just music.

Unless you don't mind buying something new (at these prices) everytime she has a new desire for such things -- and that would obviously depend on how often that happens -- it'd be good to figure out how likely she'll want something more before taking the plunge.

At the $200 level, there are quite a few options out there (even w/in the iPod lineup). It really depends on her priorities (and the likelihood of those priorities changing, etc).

_Man_

 

[Gary Shipley]

She doesn't want it for anything but music. She's not into using it for pictures or video, just music. She is very down to earth and doesn't want something everytime some new little thing pops up so getting the nano will suffice nicely.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Cool, Gary. Glad we could help.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

My wife insisted she was not interested in anything other than listening to music, either, after owning an iPod Mini for a couple of years. However, when the battery began having issues, I bought her an 8GB iPod Nano with video. She now loves the video feature when we travel. I will rip a few TV episodes from DVD for her to watch on the airplane. She uses the feature enough that I wish the device had 16GB of storage instead of 8GB.

 

[nolesrule]

Really, if she's only using it for music, just find the most capable mp3 player with the storage size you need. It doesn't necessarily have to be an iPod product, which tends to be more expensive than competitors at simpler price points. But it depends on the feature set she'll want for accessing the music.

Here's what I do. In terms of storage, my own CD collection is stored in FLAC format (lossless compression in a REAL archive format) for use at home, with duplicates compressed for mp3 players at 128kbps, because on headphones or a car stereo, you can't tell how bad they really sound because of poor speakers and ambient noise.

Purchased music from Amazon is 256kbps mp3 (and will eventually be converted to FLAC for consistency), but again copies are made to reduce it to 128kbps for portables.

Of course I sue a 4 year old Creative Zen Micro 5GB.

 

[pamela12]

well getting through the forum i got a better idea as to what to buy if you are a pure music lover and wanna download stuff from internet!

 

[maryannsms]

The battery life on the most recent versions of the MP3 player and the MP3 capable devices makes them great for long road trips, bus rides, or plane flights. If you're stuck next to the talkative traveler or the couple with the crying baby one the plane, you will want as much life out of your batteries as possible. Some of the newer devices offer up to 30 hours of listening to songs between charges, plenty of time for almost any set of flights. And if you want to watch videos on your device, you can get up to 10 hours of playtime on some newer devices. That's 4 or 5 movies that you can choose before you even get on the plane, so you won't have to watch reruns of a show or a movie you don't like.

 

[rottensoilder]

Yeah!Of course.iPod do a good job in there fields.But I think there is much cheaper Mp3 player on sale.Why not have look at Ebay or amazon







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