Hi,

Just needing some advice for my teenage son, an MP3 or an I-POD. Not too sure what to do as I have no experience with these gadgets?

Also if he does end up with either, how do we get music onto it???

Originally posted by sayz
Hi,

Just needing some advice for my teenage son, an MP3 or an I-POD. Not too sure what to do as I have no experience with these gadgets?

Also if he does end up with either, how do we get music onto it???

Hi sayz,

An Ipod is a mp3 player so I guess your first question is a bit like asking shall I get a vacuum cleaner or a hoover if you get my drift.

The bottom line for getting any mp3 player is how much do you want to spend? Basically the the bigger the memory the more tunes you can store and the more it costs. Other factors do come into play too such as additional features (e.g. in built radio etc) and of course make. Apple make Ipods and I see these as top of the range when it comes to price per gigabite of storage space.

On a personal note, and after a lot of research on the web, I opted for a creative zen 20gb player. This costs me about £150 but holds over 5,000 songs as good quality mp3s. Try googling for reviews of lesser priced models if you don't want to stretch that far.

As for how do you get tunes on your player - well most quality players will come with software to rip (transfer from audio CD tracks to mp3) and copy onto the player. That said there are many free mp3 rippers available for download and you can just bung a music CD in your pc and away you go. As for connections I think most are USB (either 1.1 or 2) or firewire so you need to make sure what player you go for matcehs waht connections you have on your pc(s). If you hook up to the net there are also sites where you can download mp3s some legal others not.

Hope this helps. pm me if you wnat any more advice.

Thankyou for the advice.

I do not have any experience with mp3's or i-pods this is why i have asked.

hiya
like frenchfrie i went for the creative zen touch. It has 24 hour battery life whereas I understand the ipod batteries are somewhat limited and expensive when they have to be replaced.

Originally posted by sayz


I do not have any experience with mp3's or i-pods this is why i have asked.


Sorry sayz,

wasn't trying to be clever - just helpful, honest! :)


As redhotjo says the creative has good battery life. In my opinion it is also louder (if you it to be) than the Ipod and, having listened to both, sound quality is definitely better IMHO.
To quote art attack "why not try it yourself?"

Personally I see Ipods as a designer fashion statement and not a music player... IMHO the sound quality on them is rather poor, the EQ on them is terrible...

personally I have a Rio Karma, it doesn't have the battery life of the Creative Zen's, but it's sound quality in simply amazing and the EQ is un-matched... full 5 band parametric EQ... great for those who actually love their music, and want more than something to use randomly...

you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1) how much music does your kid have? - ie how much space will he need on the player?
2) does he want it to look cool, or will he prefer something that sounds cool?
3) what are the chances of him being rough with it? (the Rio Karma and Iriver's are known to be a bit temperamental with rough treatment)
4) how much you wanting to spend?

Ipods are overpriced tat, IMO. Youre paying for the name. Id go with a Creative Zen or an IRiver myself.

for a first time user id say avoid the ipod im a proud owner of one but the headphones supplied with it are rubbish my ipod cost me 209 quid but new headphones and a leather case for it bumped up the price by a further 45 quid ive heard the samsung mp3 player is a good one id go for that one or the one what someone suggest in a earlier reply

After owning a Creative Zen Xtra and then a 4G iPod, I prefer the iPod. They both have their irritating quirks, the Zen Xtra has slightly better sound quality, but the user interface of the ipod is just better and easier. It's also smaller, but other players are smaller like Sony's MP3 player.

All you'll get anywhere is people's opinions on what they think is best (including me :) ) so if you get the chance, try them out.

Don't use the headphones that come with them if you care about sound quality.

Gosh all this useful advice.

Thankyou everyone.

I'd been searching for a music player for ages, looked at IRiver, IPod, Creative, Archos, etc etc, in the end i couldn't decide so i went for a digitfab dbhfl (catchy name huh :rolleyes: ).

It's got 512mb built in and it also uses SD cards. with a gig card i've got my favourites from my music collection and then some.
It's not great though, the radio's on these things are a bit pap, finging particular songs in between 400 odd other songs is a pain and the battery only lasts about 9 hours....
oh and i coulda got a 4GB player for the same price (micro HDD) however you can jig or drop this thing and it'll work fine.

Here we ago again with the Ipod.

The ipod is the best around.. the sound can be sorted out with a small program downloaded from the t'internet quite easily and the battery life on a new ipod is fantastic.

Why are we still dissing them.
My ipod looks way better than ANY mp3 player on the market and can also be modded to add different logos etc- can you do that on any other mp3 player? I doubt it very much.

Ipods can be given extra software to do different things on them, like reading ebooks and stuff --Can you do that on other players?- same again answer!

Ipod IS a fashion accessory- you dont see any celebs using any other make of player do you? Its an Ipod they have.

The headphones I've found ok- if you dont like them- buy some ones you do like.. sorted.

Rant over.
Choose the 'pod- you'll be glad you did!!

IPod's are the best, end of. Everyone who slates Ipod's are just jealous they couldn't afford a decent mp3 player :P

Originally posted by J-Blaze
IPod's are the best, end of. Everyone who slates Ipod's are just jealous they couldn't afford a decent mp3 player :P

Bit of a sweeping staement there JB :rolleyes:

Reason I bought the zen was down to two things - battery life and sound quality. Remember it sill cost me £150+. Whether that is a few quid cheaper than a 20gb Ipod was neither here nor there for me. Having decided I wanted one I wanted best in terms of sound quality and battery life hence my choice.

And as a point of interest my son does have an Ipod and having used it it does come up short on these two key points, all IMHO of course. :thumbsup:

I'm happy with my ipod, had it about 4 monthes. I use it mostly in my car so the limiting factor on sound quality is the speakers, still sounds good though but have to turn the bass down. I'd have thought the same went for headphones, if you get better headphones, your ipod will sound better. No probs with battery life, a couple of hours charge lasts a full night of driving.

-PK-

....................................

all those people who are saying Ipods are the best and that people who slate them are just people that can't afford them are talking out their asses...

my Rio Karma cost me just under £200, 20Gb, you CAN'T sort the Ipods sound quality with some download, you cant fix a hardware thing with software :P

the Rio Karma *DOES* have the best sound quality for a media player, please note the term *MEDIA* as the Rio Karma plays more than just MP3's, it plays WMA, lossless FLAC and also Ogg Vorbis

you couple a Rio Karma with some high quality ripped Ogg Vorbis, set up your parametric EQ right and you'll be drooling... especially if you put it into its docking station, use the audio outs into a nice stereo and suddenly... well... WOW...

I researched for quite a while and tested them all out... and I came to my decision, as a music lover you only really have a choice between the Rio Karma or the Iriver's anyways because they simply kick all the others ass when it comes to sound quality and what codecs they support!

Double post please delete.

Originally posted by frenchfrie
Bit of a sweeping staement there JB :rolleyes:

I don't even own an IPOD I was just trying to ruffle some feathers hehe. :D

Originally posted by spook
can you point me in the right direction for this?

I think you can find what you need at ipodlounge if you do a google search for it.

Or ipod mods is a good site as well.

Originally posted by J-Blaze
I don't even own an IPOD I was just trying to ruffle some feathers hehe. :D

How adult. :loopy:

I still think the most advanced and full featured players have to be Archos, they range from your solid state players to your 100gb pvr's(personal video recorder) absolutly great for playing movies on the go and litening to mp3's and they look pretty smart http://www.archos.com

Originally posted by ANGELUS
My ipod looks way better than ANY mp3 player on the market and can also be modded to add different logos etc- can you do that on any other mp3 player? I doubt it very much.

Really useful when it's in your pocket!

Originally posted by jonhanson
I still think the most advanced and full featured players have to be Archos, they range from your solid state players to your 100gb pvr's(personal video recorder) absolutly great for playing movies on the go and litening to mp3's and they look pretty smart http://www.archos.com

Dont even get me started on those robbing sods @ Archos!
I bought an Archos AV340 last year.. cost me £550.
It was outdated in months.

****** me right off to the point where I flogged the bloody thing.

Im not paying 1/2 a grand for something that is going to be outdated in like 4 months.

Archos= robbing arseholios!

iPods are much better than Zen's because they both have pretty much the same sound quality, however, the iPod is smaller, better lookin and MUCH more easier to navigate. They also are more tolerant to the outside environment.

However, I have just had to claim on the guarantee because of a massive system failure. Which pretty much sucks.

Everyone that is ranting about the price, I would agree with. But if yer in Florida's apple store and it is the launch date of the 4th generation click wheel, can't not get it (i have the 20GB Version.) Especially when you save £140 in toal:D Due to them being £300 over here at the time. A pretty nice save thanks

Anyone know if any of these devices can RECORD from a line-in socket or a mic socket - that would make it really useful for recording gigs (naughty) and recording band rehearsals?

That and wma playback would decide it for me.

There's quite a few players on the market with WMA support and line-in and/or microphone. A good place to have a look around and read some opinions would be http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop/