ipod, or other brand of mp3 player?

[ChrisinNJ]

OK, so I may belong to one of the last households that doesn't have an mp3 player yet. So my ?? may sound stupid, but help me out anyway

My hubby works full time & we have a home based business. We have a radio/cd player in the shop (garage) that we listen to while we work. We are getting tired of the same 3 or 4 cds & we don't get great radio reception. We both like contemporary Christian music & listen to it alot on sirius in our cars.

So I am thinking of biting the bullet & getting hubby an ipod/mp3 player for fathers day. I was looking at the refurb 8gb nano on apple's site for $99.00.

Is this a good deal? Does it really matter if I get ipod or another brand (sansa fuze). Do I need a different type of music file if I get an off brand??

Also is it expensive to buy a decent docking station w/ speakers for the shop? Haven't gotten that far yet.

If we buy music through itunes, can it be shared on more than 1 device (you know in case I ever get one for myself...LOL)

Any other info or recomendations for an mp3 dummy?

Thanks!!

 

[cjnix29]

I would only by an ipod. My sister has cheaped out and gotten several other brands, all that didn't last very long. Once you get the music downloaded onto your computer from itunes, you can put it on as many devices as you want. Best deals I have seen on them are on the apple site refurb'ed, so I think that is probably a good price.

 

[deerhart]

We have both ipods and the sanza fuse. We run itunes on one computer and windows media on another. We have to convert files between the two (ie buy on itunes, put on cd and then rip to other machine OR buy from somewhere else like walmart or amazon, then copy and convert into itunes)

It is more difficult if you have more then one brand and really requires two computer setups. We bought the fuse for our youngest child (not ready to spend the money on an ipod for him) we also have an itouch and a shuffle in the house. We can load the same music on all of them (fuse does take conversion)

 

[DisneyNutMic]

We have Zunes at our house. Three of the in fact. It's Microsoft's version of the IPod. I love my Zune because there is the magical little thing called a Zune pass. I can put up to 3 devices on my account. We pay a monthly fee and we can download as much music as we want to any or all of those devices. We are big Christian music fans here too and Zune even has a genre for just that. I understand that Itunes does not.

 

[Kies99]

Based on what you wrote in your posting, the Sansa Fuze is the right choice for you, not the iPod.

Sansa is easier to load with music as it uses a simple "drag and drop" system. The iPod requires you to use iTunes software which takes some getting used to.

I had a Sansa Clip prior to my iPod and now my daughter uses it. We also got a Sansa Fuze for my FIL for his birthday 3 weeks ago. Sansa's are good players that are easy to use and last.

 

[HLDisney]

iTunes does have Christian music since I've purchased many Christian songs from there.

I can't speak to the other brands since I only have an iPod and more recently, an iTouch but I'm happy with how they both work. It's easy to buy new songs and also to copy the songs from my existing CDs to iTunes. I've also bought mp3s from Amazon and easily downloaded them to iTunes.

Helen

 

[DisneyNutMic]

iTunes does have Christian music since I've purchased many Christian songs from there.

I'm sorry I guess my post was a bit misleading. Zune Marketplace has a special section just for Christian music. It's my understanding that the songs are a little harder to find on Itunes. I don't know first hand because I've never used Itunes. Thank you for clarifying.

 

[ICF]

Based on what you wrote in your posting, the Sansa Fuze is the right choice for you, not the iPod.

Sansa is easier to load with music as it uses a simple "drag and drop" system. The iPod requires you to use iTunes software which takes some getting used to.

I had a Sansa Clip prior to my iPod and now my daughter uses it. We also got a Sansa Fuze for my FIL for his birthday 3 weeks ago. Sansa's are good players that are easy to use and last.

I've always used Sansa players (except for my iPhone I just got) and have always been happy with them. They are easy to use and work great with Windows Media player. I get most of my music from Amazon or Walmart so there are no conversion issues.

 

[elgerber]

I just looked at my Itunes and there is a category for Christian/Gospel. We have many Ipods in our house, and we all find them incredibly easy to use.

 

[mrodgers]

bought our oldest daughter a Sansa Fuze for Christmas 2 years ago not knowing anything about MP3 players. Liked it so much I bought my youngest and wife one this past Christmas.

I bought everyone an MP3 player.... and I don't have an MP3 player for myself

Oh, I've tried sneaking stuff on the wife's player, I want to use it to plug into my guitar amplifier and play backing tracks, but she finds them and deletes them!

 

[ndfi78]

Zune is superior in pretty much every way in my book. One of the biggest selling points is the Zune Pass that DisneyNutMic mentioned. You have unlimited downloads (valid as long as you keep the Pass) AND 10 free song downloads that are yours to keep every month. Plus the Zune software is so much easier to use then iTunes. For example, if you have an iPod you can only hook it up to one computer for syncing at a time, if you try to hook it up to another computer it will wipe your iPod and load whatever is on the second computer. With Zune you can hook up to another computer and selectively sync songs/videos/pictures without a problem.

 

[Pigeon]

I would go for the Sansa Fuze hands down. You can get refurbished ones for about $40 and they are terrific. We bought dd an iPod nano at about the same time dh and I got our Fuzes. We like the Fuzes much better, and as adults, we don't care about the brand name.

The Fuzes are expandable, so if you need more memory you can buy a memory card and stick it in.

 

[Pigeon]

We have both ipods and the sanza fuse. We run itunes on one computer and windows media on another. We have to convert files between the two (ie buy on itunes, put on cd and then rip to other machine OR buy from somewhere else like walmart or amazon, then copy and convert into itunes)

It is more difficult if you have more then one brand and really requires two computer setups. We bought the fuse for our youngest child (not ready to spend the money on an ipod for him) we also have an itouch and a shuffle in the house. We can load the same music on all of them (fuse does take conversion)

We've got both, too, and have one computer. You can convert itunes files into mp3 using the itunes software. It only takes a few seconds. There's no need to jump through hoops to do it. In any event, I don't like Apple's obnoxious proprietary formats and prefer to buy from Amazon. Both players work just fine with the Amazon songs.

 

[java]

My techy son just bought a Zune after his IPod touch got stolen at school. He is loving the Zune.

 

[crazelion]

I love my sansa and sandisk mp3 players. I have bought severaal as Christmas presents. My foster kids have Sansa mp3 players.

For life do not by mp3 player call nexter the things do not work.

 

[deerhart]

We've got both, too, and have one computer. You can convert itunes files into mp3 using the itunes software. It only takes a few seconds. There's no need to jump through hoops to do it. In any event, I don't like Apple's obnoxious proprietary formats and prefer to buy from Amazon. Both players work just fine with the Amazon songs.

The problem is when you go to run things into your library (and search to pull the new stuff in).

Itunes ends up (or used to when we set this all up 3 or 4 years ago) converting EVERYTHING to Itunes and then we couldn't use them for Windows media to load on the other player.

I am just to lazy to go through and load all the music we had one by one, so we just split it to separate computers.

Now we have all the music on an external drive and keep all the kid friendly music on a separate machine for the kids MP3 players (since we have songs and versions of songs that they are NOT old enough for yet )

I keep having to hide DH's Itouch because my youngest keeps finding it to listen to Weird Al songs and well there is lots and lots of other songs on there he shouldn't be hearing.

 

[luvthemouse71]

I say iPod..I've tried other brands and always end up coming back to the iPod. I think iTunes is also far better than most of the music management software out there.

Love the iPod Touch and iPhone in particular..amazing devices.

 

[skiingfast]

If you want a premium MP3 player go with a Zune for the reasons suggested. If not, try hooking your computer to your stereo system and listening to www.pandora.com. It's free and plays a variety of music.

 

[ndfi78]

If not, try hooking your computer to your stereo system and listening to www.pandora.com. It's free and plays a variety of music.

That might be the best suggestion so far for their needs