Know anything about MP3 players?

[sharbear]

My kids both want a MP3 player for birthdays, christmas. I don't know much about them. Anyone have one, know anything about what to look for? My DD wants one to listen to around the house, in the car, stuff like that. My DS wants one he can wear while running. So I think that I want a different one for my daughter than my son. How much memory is sufficient? I've seen them from 128mb to 30GB! The ipod look nice but they are pretty expensive. We don't have a MAC, can you still get an ipod or should we look for a Rio or another brand.

 

[jimmytammy]

Great question, I personally have been wanting one and that will probably be my Christmas present this year. I haven't had time to research all of the in's and out's of them. I am wanting something that I can take a CD and transfer onto and then listen and delete. I can't really use the personal CD players while I'm cleaning or exercising because they are too large so I was wanting something smaller.

I'll look forward to any information as well and when I get the time to do some research and find out anything, I'll post it.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

I have an iRiver 128mb. I wish I would have went with the 256mb, but really that is my only complaint, otherwise I LOVE IT. I swear I have had the same one battery in it for the past 6 months. It is super small and comes with a thing to hang it from your neck. You can also buy an accesory so you can strap it to your arm for workouts. I have about 2 1/2 CDs on my iRiver right now. The better quality the MP3 the more space it will take up. So even if it says it will hold say 8 hours of music, it could be less.

The software that goes on your computer is pretty good and I think there is even an upgrade that I haven't downloaded yet.

 

[Keli]

I love my MP3 player. It's a magnavox (sp?). I have a memory card in mine so if I wanted to spend the money I could get a larger card without buying a new player. I've had this one for 4 years now and I literally use it everyday. I don't think you'll need two different types of MP3 players though, I would just get a small one with a memory card. Mine came with a leather case with a transparent window (like cell phone covers) that has a clip on the back so you can clip it onto you clothes but I tend to slip it into my pocket since I have a really long cord from the ear piece and that works best for me. Make sure you have a quality ear piece though. It won't matter how good the sound is if you can't hear it well.

 

[elgerber]

Can you tell us a little more about these? Can you listen to songs starting wherever you want to on your MP3 player, or do you have to start at the beginning? Does that make sense? My kids both have cd boom boxes, that they got less than 2 years ago, and neither of them work anymore. One just skips constantly and the other one says no disc when there is one in there. And these are Sony, which I thought was good quality, and they don't carry them around or beat them up, the sit on their dressers and are only used to play cd's at bedtime. My dd right now uses her portable cd player hooked up to little speakers, but it eats batteries. I thought maybe I'd buy them MP3 players and small speakers, and transfer all their CD's on to those, figuring they wouldn't have the same issues as the cd players. Do you think that would work?

Thanks!

Erika

 

[LarryE]

I have a gateway 128 mb one and it's awesome you just pull the cap off and it connects straight into the usb port, no need for bulky wires to carry around..

and with xp you can plug it into any system and it will recogize it as a drive so you won't need to carry software around either.

 

[ahutton]

DH got one for me for Christmas last year. It is a Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-N505 Type R. I have used 2 batteries in 10 months, and I use it almost daily at work. It runs just under $100. It came with everything you need in order to download music from your computer, either MP3 or CDs, onto Minidisks or directly into the memory. I love that flexibility - I have 6 disks in my desk for different moods or what I want on a particular day. There is a car adapter which can adapt this to either a cassette deck or CD player in a car. The adapter was $20 at Target.

I bought DH one for his birthday in August, along with a cassette tape adapter for his truck. He uses it daily, and also runs every day with it. I picked the Sony MZ-S1 S2 Sports Net MD MiniDisc Player which is $150 on Amazon.com right now. He loves it. We just learned over the weekend we can plug it into our home theater receiver and play music over it from there too, so it is even more versatile than we ever expected. I picked that one for him because of running, it was a bit more durable, had better shock resistance and came with a wrist strap.

We are extremely happy with both of them.

 

[hercamore]

The apple Ipod is the best selling MP3 player.

Yes, it is pricy. We bought DS one for xmas last year, and he is thrilled with it still.

Very durable, too. He's dropped it out of this pocket twice while biking thru to college.

We are getting DD one for xmas this year.

Target has just started selling them now. DS has the 10 (2700 songs) for the nonMac computer downloading.

herc.

 

[LarryE]

Originally posted by hercamore
The apple Ipod is the best selling MP3 player.

Yes, it is pricy. We bought DS one for xmas last year, and he is thrilled with it still.

Very durable, too. He's dropped it out of this pocket twice while biking thru to college.

We are getting DD one for xmas this year.

Target has just started selling them now. DS has the 10 (2700 songs) for the nonMac computer downloading.

herc.

Exactly, especially the 40gb version

they have windows versions as well, even though I would only buy one if I had a Mac

 

[luvflorida]

We bought our daughter an MP3 Player for her 13th birthday and she loves it. It is very small and easy to take anywhere. I would tell you the brand but she has it in her backpack at school at the moment. I know we got it at Best Buy for around $150.00. It holds a ton of music and it's easy to download music onto. It came with a small case with a clip to attach it to yourself. All she does is periodically recharge the battery and she's set to go.

I have the Apple I-Pod, (holds about 4,000 songs), and still can't figure out how to use it. It came free when I bought my Volkswagen Beetle last month. My daughter and husband managed to download some music onto it but it wasn't easy. A lot of wires and complicated directions. Of course, I'm not computer savvy AT ALL, so I get easily frustrated if something doesn't work the first time. I still have trouble remembering how to turn the I-Pod on, and the equipment to use it in my car, well, forget it. Much too complicated for me.

 

[LarryE]

I'd be more than happy to take that complicated ole' i-pod off of your hands for ya

 

[luvflorida]

Larry E.- Sorry, you're too late. My college-age son already helped himself to it.