OK, so the caveman returns, or how to buy mp3 player for daughter (1 Viewer)

[Kevin G.]

So, I am delving into mp3 territory, for my daughter's birthday. I have had limited experience, and am still not quite sure of all the different forms, or how they relate to players.
Let me preface by saying I have Itunes on my computer, from when Pepsi was giving away free songs, and I love the setup, and capabilities of the program.
I see some of the companies have banded together to achieve a standard in the industry, with the "plays for sure" stamp. But can I download Itunes for pretty much any MP3 palyer, or will an Ipod only play these files. All the ones I've been looking at play mp3 and WMA, but what's really the difference?
I'm not sure I want to spend the hundreds of dollars that IPOD wants for the latest and greatest... So I may go off-brand.

Thanks again in advance everyone...

 

[Christ Reynolds]

what kind of player do you want? a small compact one that holds about 500 songs, or a jukebox style player (still small) that holds more? every player plays mp3, so dont worry about that. not every player will play wma.

the ipods are popular for a reason, they are great players wit excellent build quality. but they arent the only game in town. iriver makes a lot of great players too. i have an ipod 4th gen 20 GB and an ipod shuffle. the shuffle is the size of a small pack of gum, holds about 250 songs, and has no screen. the 20 GB normal ipod holds about 5,000 songs.

i've never used itunes to download songs, but i THINK you can only play songs from itunes on an ipod. but you can play mp3s from any other source (your own CDs, etc). if you tell us what your budget is and what kind of player you have in mind, we can help narrow down your options.

CJ

 

[Kevin G.]

I guess I'm looking for best bang for my buck... She will not need 5000 songs, but at the same time I don't want to go small for a 512 either.
I'm, right now, looking at the 1-2 gig range. but 2 bills is a bit steep for an Ipod 2 gig. I mean, she's only 9.

 

[DaveF]

Based on my conversations with coworkers, my advice is:

Cheapest cost, buy the SanDisk 512MB player on sale for

 

[Kevin G.]

As an aside, I don't get how they can encode Itunes not to play on any other players; when I can play their songs on my computer just fine.
Is Apple's copywright that strong?

 

[Thomas Newton]

Songs that you purchase through the iTunes Music Store are encumbered with Apple's brand of DRM, which is different than Microsoft's brand of DRM. They also use an encoding called AAC (which, without the DRM, is not evil in and of itself, but which is not as widely implemented as MP3.)

This means that purchased iTunes songs won't play directly on anything but iTunes and iPods. You can use iTunes to convert them to unencumbered MP3s, but the procedure is not convenient and you will lose sound quality in the process.

Likewise, songs that use the Microsoft-style DRM won't play directly on iPods.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

welcome to the "wonderful" world of DRM. note that i put wonderful in quotes. because it sucks.

CJ

 

[Scott L]

pre-itunes 6.0 it was easy to strip the songs of DRM, but currently nothing can do it (yet). You can always burn to a CDR -> re-rip to your HD to get rid of the drm.

my sis has a 4gb nano and loves it.

 

[Mike Fassler]

I just got a 4gb nano and it is definately well worth the money, I also got the cable to hook it up to my stereo systems
and its pretty handy instead of running a long toslink cable from my pc to receiver i just hook up the pod and im good to go. creative and Iriver make some pretty good players for a good price as well.

 

[Ray Chuang]

I'd take an iPod Nano but one big problem is that the iTunes software is a complicated and finicky piece of software to use just to copy files to the iPod.

 

[PhilBoy]

I bought my daughter the SanDisk 1 GB player for Christmas.

It uses off-the-shelf AAA batteries. It's big enough to not get lost in the wash. It was just over $100 CAN and it has a display and carrying case. USB friendly and drag and drop song loading.

... oh, and in the ear headphones so I don't have to hear her (c)rap music .

 

[Brian Osborne]

Check out Samsungs players.
The 1GB model I picked up at best buy will do my WMV files that I have stored on my computer from my audio library. You can do it directly from Media Center. Also, you can download individual songs from lots of websites for less that Itunes.
They have FM tuners and picture viewers built in, also standard cable hookups - you can go from the player to a stereo via minijack-stereoRCA (although I haven't tried that yet)


check this review out...
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardw...eviews/2606/7/

 

[Dennis*G]

I got the radioshack 1gb mp3 player at Christmastime. I know the black friday price was $50, reg is $90. Does absoulutly everything I need it to do. has a mic for recording voice/notes and an fm tuner to boot.

I will admit that the navigation is not as nice as an ipod, but with the $150 savings, I can live with that.

Look at creative zen models, great sound (it should be coming from creative) and great navigation.

I just wish they would bring back models that use memory cards, but the mfg learned they make more using non-replaceable memory......

 

[PhilBoy]

I forgot to mention that the SanDisk also has an FM tuner and a memory slot for expansion.

 

[Ken Chan]

Files or songs? At least on a Mac, when you plug in the iPod, iTunes starts up and songs get synced automatically. There is effectively "nothing to it".

 

[Christ Reynolds]

yeah i was confused about that too. when i used windows, itunes was what i used to transfer songs to my ipod, and unless you turn the option off, all you have to do is plug it in.

CJ

 

[Michael_K_Sr]

Another happy iPod Nano owner. I have to say after viewing a part of the Rose Bowl on a co-worker's video iPod I'm officially hooked. I'm going to have to break down and pick one up.

 

[DaveF]

How so? I've found it mostly easy. Plug in an iPod and it updates automatically. I changed the preferences so it updates according to most recently added, so new CDs are added. All done.

I've had some troubles recently, confounded by my hard-drive crash, in managing my PodCast auto-playlist. I'm confused by how it manages auto-playlists and new additions simultaneously. But I could do it manually, which would be fairly easy.

 

[John_RO]

I'm a huge fan of the Creative Muvo TX 1GB. Will play MP3 and WMA and holds about 200 songs (or 20 CD's) ripped at 128. It's small, uses 1 AAA battery, and the flash drive seperates from the battery pack so you can just plug it right into a front USB port to transfer and delete files.

 

[Kevin G.]

Thanks for all the great responses everyone, the wife and I will shop this weekend for one, I will let you know how it goes...
Wish me luck...
Kevin