Ipod vs. MP3...

[etwinchester]

What is the difference between the 2?

Also, where do you download music and is there a fee for doing this?

I'm so out of the loop and I keep seeing discussions on the Ipod and MP3...

 

[allboyz]

Ipod is a type of MP3 player. There are different brands. RCA Lyra, Dell DJ, Creative Zen Micro are just a few of the other name brands. I just got my husband a Creative Zen Micro for Christmas and he loves it.

Oh and I'm not sure how much it costs to download. I think it is less than a dollar. My husband got a free month of Napster with unlimited downloads. It was free with his Creative Zen Micro player.

 

[Princess Nancy]

We have Creative Zen also. We like it. We pay $14.95 for Napster a month and with Zen you get free unlimited downloads on this plan.

The Zen was not cheaper per se but we did get more memory for the $$.

Good Luck

 

[buzz2400]

I did research when my son wanted to buy an ipod. Finally bought a siren mp3 through walmart and love it. Seemed that you had to buy too many accessories for the ipod and the cost just for the item (nano) was way too much. my mp3 player uses one AAA battery which lasts for a long time. I download music through walmart.com for 88 cents a song. I have also done it through a few other places (but walmart is cheaper). The other reason I did not buy the ipod is that I asked the sales person if I should buy one if son is hard on his things and the guy bluntly told me not to bother buying it. Basically an ipod and mp3 is the same thing. They both hold songs.

 

[Laurajean1014]

My son, sister and hubby all have Ipods (I'm way too busy for one). They love them. My son has not put it down since Christmas Day.

 

[allboyz]

No, the Creative Zen is not that much cheaper. My husband likes that you can listen to FM radio and record it though. The other mp3 players we looked at did not have that option.

 

[wekhogan]

My husband has the 30gb iPod and I have the nano. I agree, the accessories are expensive. $50 (each) for wired fm receivers to listen to your tunes in the car (the wireless had too much static), then $40 for a wireless fm receiver for the house. We love ours - it takes a bit of effort to upload all your cd's to itunes, but it's not hard. Songs to purchase are .99 or 9.99 for a whole cd. The buck a tune is a standard price for most sites. The iPod is an mp4 player - you can't download tunes you bought from musicmatch or napster, for example - but you can burn a cd in musicmatch of the tunes you bought, then upload the cd to itunes.
For New Year's Eve, we used the wireless receiver to play my songlist and it transmitted to the radio in the kitchen, the stereo in the family room, and the radio in the upstairs, simultaneously.
Once you get all your music in one place, it's really convenient.

 

[allboyz]

Interesting...I thought Ipod was an mp3 player. lol I wondered what mp4 players were when trying to decide which player to get my husband. Now I know. Always learning something new..

 

[aDVCguy]

The ipod of course!

At least that's what my VISA bill says!

 

[Forevryoung]

I am a self proclaimed technology geek. I also hate spending money. I bought myself the 30gb Ipod on Saturday after doing much research. My reasons are as follows:

1) The cost is comparable to other similar technology, I didnt care about an FM transmitter because I never listen to the radio and I have a nice microphone tape deck for recordings (I'm a Speech Language Pathology Student)

2) The Nano was too small for me space wise. Before adding cds I had over 14gb of music on my computer and it didn't make sense for me to get anything smaller than 20 or 30gb

3) I hate getting what *everyone* has just because but it turns out that the rating places I looked at (CNet.com for ex) rate the Ipod as the best

4) Sound quality is important to me and Ipods are known for their sound quality

5) They are super easy to use! Which is a plus I didnt know of until I hooked it up. Yes, it's taken some time to get all my music on it but it would be that way with any player. It's so easy I'm quickly teaching my grandma to use an Ipod Mini we got her for Hanukkah (I didn't know thats what my family got her).

6) *Everyone* has one and Apple is a great company so I have faith that I will be able to get tech support and accessories for my Ipod in the future.

7) Yes, buying the "accessories" seperately is becoming annoying and expensive (like having to buy a power adapter) but the only things I can potentially see needing after the power adapter are the car transmitter and possibly a docking station with speakers (eventually).

8) Yes, Itunes is the only downloadable music site that supports the Ipods but I realized that most of my music is on Cd's, my computer or gotten from my sister and friends (who are way more up on current music than I am).

HTH

 

[tink2dw]

My Dd miss-places her CD player every other week. She usually leaves in a school class so she gets it back.

Most mp3 players are microscopic in physical size. Did you see the one that is a 1 inch cube?? After months of research and not getting paid till the day before Christmas eve. It came down to what Walmart had in stock.

We chose the Sony Pysc CD/MP3 player $49.00 that runs on 1 AA battery and a $20.00 walmart card for the 88cent downloads.

Dd loves it!! She got all her CDs burned and several downloads burned to CD

She has excellent sound quality and will never run out of room for more songs and best of all it's not so tiny she will lose it forever.

And she decided she didn't want an I-Pod because they are so restictive.

 

[LilMamiBella]

We chose the Sony Pysc CD/MP3 player that runs on 1 AA battery and a $20.00 walmart card for the 88cent downloads.


How many gb's does it have?


And she decided she didn't want an I-Pod because they are so restictive.[/QUOTE]

How are ipods restrictive?

 

[strasfamily]

From what I understand with a monthly service like Napster, once you terminate the service all of your songs that you downloaded are gone. With Itunes, once you buy the song it is yours forever.

Just one more thing to consider expense wise in the long run.

 

[CastMemberDWA]

alrighty....here goes my opinion - take it or leave it.

don't bother with buying the little speakers for any MP3 player and do this instead. Invest a small amount of money in adaptors/cords to take the audio out signal (headphone jack) to the audio in jacks (RCA red/white) to the speakers or sound system you already own. Plug into to your surround sound system you may already have. It always slays me that many people will spend lots of $ on gadgets they don't need when for just pennies they can cable into what they already own.
Being just a little bit techno savvy goes along way! So take a quick trip to Radio shack and get the headphone to split RCA cables and you are all set!

Now if you want to have your IPOD play in your car then definitely get the radio transmitter gadget that plugs into the lighter.

Personally I love IPOD because Itunes has the best selection of songs available. It is the industry standard. AND- you get what you pay for.
I am a techno geek and a professional musician and hands down I would go with the IPOD. (I confess that I am a big Apple fan too!)

 

[ladysoleil]

originally posted by LilMamiBella

How many gb's does it have?

If it's a CD player, it will play MP3 files that are burned to a CD. So, it doesn't have any gb's- it'll hold as much music as you can fit on a regular CD.

You can fit a lot more MP3 files on a CD than regular songs, though, so if you don't have a huge MP3 collection it would make sense to do that. The price is certainly right.

 

[Forevryoung]

alrighty....here goes my opinion - take it or leave it.

don't bother with buying the little speakers for any MP3 player and do this instead. Invest a small amount of money in adaptors/cords to take the audio out signal (headphone jack) to the audio in jacks (RCA red/white) to the speakers or sound system you already own. Plug into to your surround sound system you may already have. It always slays me that many people will spend lots of $ on gadgets they don't need when for just pennies they can cable into what they already own.
Being just a little bit techno savvy goes along way! So take a quick trip to Radio shack and get the headphone to split RCA cables and you are all set!

Now if you want to have your IPOD play in your car then definitely get the radio transmitter gadget that plugs into the lighter.

Personally I love IPOD because Itunes has the best selection of songs available. It is the industry standard. AND- you get what you pay for.
I am a techno geek and a professional musician and hands down I would go with the IPOD. (I confess that I am a big Apple fan too!)

Great idea but I dont have a stereo system in my apartment I only listen to music through my computer these days which is why I said I would get the small speakers *eventually*. It's not necessary right now. And I found my old IRock fm transmitter from when I had a car without a cd player so I dont have to buy the one specifically for Ipods... It worked last night. So I am all set for now, $400 later (well $270 of it was from Hanukkah presents) and I leave for Disney tomorrow

 

[etwinchester]

So, with an IPod, where can you download the music from?

 

[LilMamiBella]

So, with an IPod, where can you download the music from?

Itunes
bearshare
bitcomet
piratebay
walmart- think
ipodtropolis

 

[etwinchester]

Thank you.

When you download from these places, can it be just a charge per song or per CD instead of a monthly subscription?

 

[Kelly Grannell]

Visit the websites and you'll get the answers you're looking for.