ipod?

“My son wants an ipod for his 17th birthday. No way I can spend 300 bucks on an ipod (or even 250, the best price I've seen). I might be able to get a few people who would give him presents anyway to go in on one with me. Or, even better (and more possible), I could get them to go in one one of the competing products that might be just as useful.

Anyone have any suggestions, experience, product reviews, opinions etc?”

“pedxing, I have the philips mp3, paid $179 I think for it. I prefered it because it also had radio. Like to listen to radio once in a while.

let me find the link:

philips


i really like it, but I think you can by more addons for the ipod. Oh, and the ipod also has more gb's memory.
last edited: 1/09/05 5:37:58 PM”

“That's easy for you to say Tango!

Thanks Gem!”

“Creative Labs Zen Micro, available on eBay for about $222. Or the Zen Extra. Either one is a better unit than the Apple in my opinion. I wouldn't pay retail for any of them though. There are so many eBay store owners that will undercut the stores that it's not necessary.”

“Sorry thought I found an Ipod for $200 but it was false advertising.”

“I think the ipod prolly has one of the nicest pc interfaces, with thei itunes product. But, if you buy songs from itunes, the format isn't compatible with other mp3 players, at least it isn't with the cheap little mp3 i bought.

The itunes songs show up as mp4 files.”

“fool that i am - I shelled out the $399 for an ipod for my son for xmas. just want to make my little boy happy, now if i could just get him to clean his room”

“I like the iRiver. It's flash memory, only 512 MB but it's easy to change songs when I get tired of what's on there. Simple drag and drop interface.
It was less than $150.

I bought one for my daughter with this in mind:
About 1 in X 1 in X 3 in.
It weighs just over 2oz with the battery and
it's much better than just earplugs in a leanto or tent platform full of snorers.

Not that any of you guys were snoring.”

“I have a 40gb iPod. I got it off eBay for $365 new--4th generation. 3rd generation (which is just as good) is much cheaper. Plus you can get a 10 or 20gb for under $200 easy.

As for the iPod...I love it. I bought cables that connect to the cd changer bus for both of my cars. So when I switch between them I take the ipod with me and it stays hidden and can be controlled through the car stereo.

As for iTunes, Roam is correct but there is a work around. You burn the mp4's to an Audio CD and then rip the songs back off to mp3 format. There are programs such as hymn which will convert them for you but it is advanced. Reripping is for the layman.”

“Dub, whatcha gonna do when your batteries fail? I'm curious to know if they got their little battery problem resolved. Do you know?”

“I read the reviews for mp3 players in general, and went with the iRiver 512's -- a pair of them for my two young'uns.”

“Supposedly the "bug" has been fixed with the fourth generation. I've used mine for an entire shift at work...12 hours. It lasts so long as you don't jump around too much advance songs a bunch. However, my buddy who has a third gen is having problems with his battery only after two months. Apple won't replace it until it's at 50% of spec.”

“Send your son to Duke, all freshmen were issued with one.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041209.gtschoolpoddec9/BNStory/Technology/”

“If nothing else, you could suggest to all who will be getting him gifts to give him a gift card to one particular store. And then if that total is not enough for the iPod, he can make up the difference.

BTW, I noticed at Target the other day that you can buy gift cards for music downloads. you can either buy x-number of songs or x-number of month membership to a music download site. Pretty cool gift.”

“Look into the Dell Jukebox, well maybe. Yea, $200

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/dj?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs”

“i love my iRiver.”

“Get him a job for his B-day. ;)”

“My son is a senior is HS, 17, I REALLY wanted to find something else for a LOT of reasons
Reason A: HOW much $$???
Reason B: It's so small, you'll just lose it
Reason C: It's technology - it'll be outdated in a month, THAT's why you don't spend that kind of $$ on a technology device.

At that point I showed him this "really cool" Compaq laptop I bought "a few years ago", it has (are you ready?!) a 7" COLOR LCD Screen, and GUESS WHAT, and INCREDIBLE 8 MB RAM!!! WHOOOO. But wait... it ALSO HAS a 20MB HARD DRIVE!!!!

AND, I ONLY paid $3,750.00 for it!!!


So, I went through all that to try to explain why that much $$ for a technology investment wasn't a good idea, then, when his laughter subsided, I ended up buying his #%$# ipod anyway, because, as wingding said, you only want to make them happy. (and Wingding, mine hasn't cleaned his room yet either!)

So my next question is... How soon is he moving out?”

“ya, but I caught the pair of iRiver 512's for about $143 a piece.”

“From everything I've seen the ipod is a better unit on every point but price.”

“The ipod is a beautiful unit if you are close to an outlet every 12 hrs. of playtime (or whatever the battery life is). For my purposes (backpacking, go figure), I much prefer the flash media players with a slot for an SD card. They are very small and light (2 oz), get 18-20 hrs playtime from 1 AAA battery, have NO moving parts and one 512 mb flash card will hold approx. 8 hrs. of mp3 music (ymmv). I just saw a nice Rio player of this type for less than $100 online. I'm just waiting 'til the 512 mb SD cards drop to ~$25 (current best price is $40). I will be able to shave a little more than a pound from my pack weight by eliminating the mp3 CD player, battery pack and CDs in protective case. Now if I can just solve the speaker dilemma.”

“Hey Wanderer, was that the Compaq Luggable? About 30 lbs and the keyboard fit onto the bottom. Little green screen which fluttered?
Everyone thought it was a sewing machine?
I built a spreadsheet one weekend in the late 80s on one of those... over 300 rows, out to colm dg. I'm still trying to recover from that, let me tell you.”

“oh yeah, IPOD. Check out what you need to do to have the battery replaced!”

“Check out Creative Muvo Slim 512k.”

“LOL @ Wanderer!

I'm going to give my son a couple choices and hope that he chooses wisely, and if not - that he learns from the experience.”

“The only problem is that the ipod is the only one with the cool factor for kids. It's a tricky one.”

“The ipod rocks!! I bought the ipod 60GB photo a few weeks back and love it. I have about 110 albums loaded on it so far and about 100 or so pictures. The nice thing about the ipod is that I can take it anywhere and play it. I can put it in any car and tune the radio to 87.9 and play it through speakers or at home through the home stereo. Definately recommend the ipod.”

“the iPod has the really cool navigation system also, that I haven't seen any of the rival players beat yet.

The iPod may be the creme de la creme of pocket music players, but it also carries a corresponding price tag. Apple quality don't come cheap.”

“A lot of the car manufacturers are starting to put the ipod connections standard.”

“Limpy - I remember those things - we used to tote (lug, pull whatever it took) them to clients offices when I first started working after college - and we thought they were just awesome!”

“Wanderer - My baby just turned 19 and I think he'll be here with me until he finishes community college at least (that could take another 10 years with how serious he is about it).”

“If you're not set on an Ipod here is a site.
http://www.coolmp3store.com/index.html
I haven't purchased anything from here so I know nothing about cust. svs.”

“if you need to store more than 300 songs-ipods are great.Their big gb units are smaller than the competitions.
However,they do have battery issues.
I think the new flash players are the way to go.Why?Because i cant get 30 hrs of music on a unit that is as big as a pack of wrigley chewing gum.Also they run on 1 AAA battery not osme proprietary batt.Please note apple has just announced their flash player calle SHUFFLE.I would avoid this as it is a rechargeable battery which at that size will last maybe 2hrs.
I am getting the 1gb creative muvo mp3 flash player.It also has an fm tuner.Something apple has never gotten around to.
I got mine for 160$ off amazon.
I would be careful on ebay-as many peeps there are selling grey market/refurbs...
Lastly from the reviews i have read on AMazon,you should avoid any Rio product.”

“the fact that you can't just drop in a fresh AA is what sold me on non-ipod. also, wma files sound better for the music that i listen to.
last edited: 1/18/05 7:31:33 AM”

“Daughter and son gave me their review of their new iRivers over the weekend.

Daughter played music all weekend on one set of batteries. She is envy of all her friends. Everyone wants one now.

Son is preparing to run Nashville marathon. Wore iRiver while running over the weekend. Loved the 'non-skip'.

Two users, two big A+'s!”

“didn't read the whole thread, but I heard ipod is coming out with a $99 ipod. Doubt it will be that great though.
yupp found it:
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

yeah, you can only shuffle, so you can't really pick the song you want to listen to. Hmmm...but it's small and lighter then a car key.

I love their photo gallery. LOL. the ipod shuffle over and over. Like there is so much to see... LOL

1 GB $149
512mb $99

hmmm...not sure...
last edited: 1/18/05 8:06:01 AM”

“I'm loving all this info - thanks for keeping it coming.”

“http://web9.himbeersoft.htmldesign.de/content_int_eng/index.php

I have the previous player to the one pictured on the right the NEX 1A. It was less than $100.00 of course you still have to buy the memory card. It takes a compact flash card, so as much memory you can buy you can have on the player. Also no internal moving parts.
last edited: 1/18/05 8:57:56 PM”

“Doesn't anyone make portable music players that uses either an SD or CF card for storage (much like a digital camera?) I've seen national-brand 1 GB SD cards for as low as $70 now, and think that they would be way more skip resistant than any sort of disc -- be it hard drive or whatever.

And instead of having a music CD, you'd have a music "chip". How cool would that be?”

“get your threads straight, board rookie!”

“PhantomSoul read my post. The NEX 1A uses a compact flash card (so does my Digital EOS). It has no internal moving parts!”

“the $400 dollar ipod i bought my son for xmas broke - so i'm going to bring it to the apple store to see what they say”

“the archos gmini's are nice too. i have the 220, 20 gig, cf card type 1 and 2 compatible (great for storing photos on trips). recognized by the pc as another hard drive when plugged into the usb (drag and drop whatever files you want to and from it). the built in mic is top notch. $174 after rebate. downside, battery life. 7 hours before recharge required.”

“Bill bought me this for Xmas..I really like it!
http://www.pogoproducts.com/ryw_lx.html

I put my music on a card!”

“wife wants one for x-mas

i just read through this thread. great info.

the last post was 9 months ago, which can be lightyears in newer technology so i thought i'd ask-

any info updates/new suggestions?

she'll probably use it for working out, ignoring me, horseback riding, ect.

no skipping is more important than huge memory.

i'm thinking the iriver is the one to go with?”

“I’m finally breaking down and getting an MP3 player but not an Ipod. I chose the Sandisk e140. It has a radio receiver, 1 gb of hard space plus a card slot to expand memory. The biggest factor for not getting an Ipod is the battery. It’s an internal battery that you can only charge by putting it on it’s charger. No popping fresh AAA’s in when and if they go dead. And once it wears out you have to send it in to get a new battery put in and you void the warranty if you do it yourself. The Sandisk lasts like 14-17 hours on one AAA. Plus price. I’ve seen the Sandisk ($149ish) for as cheap as $79 and $48.

I’ve wondered how the MP3 players do in the cold.”

“Okay, I want either an Ipod or an Ipod like thingy. I really like the idea of being able to store pictures and video rather than just music.

C'mon salespeeps, what do you recommend and why?

Also, for song downloads, what site is the best and least expensive? I can currently download quite a few songs without needing an outside source, but there are a lot more songs that I want but don't have access to.”

“IPODS ARE EVLI! Get a SanDisc”