MP3 Player

[Doris_Pinks]

Well I suppose it is a kind of computer!
Daughter would like one for her birthday, yet again I am at a complete loss as to what I am supposed to be looking for! Anyone out there know about MP3's??  I know they play music but that is the extent of my knowlege :-[  Thanks DP

[Doris_Pinks]

[Moggle]

DP I think of them as a little tiny 'hard drive' that you hook up to your pc to download music on to, then play the music like a walkman or a discman. The Apple I-pod is probably the 'coolest' one but start at around £70, while you can get cheaper brand ones from around £30 ish from Argos.

They should say how much storage they have which will equal a certain amount of songs that you can store on there to play.

I guess you put music from your cds or that you have downloaded leagally (or illegally?). I don't have one yet myself, but it is on the list for the near future.

Is this making sense and helpful Doris?

Edit

This one looks quite tempting to me, Packard Bell are a good make. http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0317580757.1110297152@@@@&BV_EngineID=cceiaddedflfdjgcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=202356&category_oid=-23188&fm=4&sm=2&tm=undefined

[Svea]

storage requirements? i.e. how many gigabite of storage does she want? how much music does she have?
cost of the thing? what's your budget?
user friendly? what is cool?

i own an iPod 20Gb. now, i got that in october for my birthday. my music collection right now is not small, but not huge either (about 1000 songs). this only takes up under 5Gb so far. so i have space for about another 3000 songs or so :) (depending on compression rate, but this is at 128kbps)

the new mini ipods that have just been released are 6Gb, come in funky colours and i think cost about £140 ish?  also, the computer programme used to coordinate the MP3 player with the computer is excellent (iTunes) - and it works on both my work PC and my home Mac.

more info: www.apple.com/uk

hopefully others can tell you about their MP3 players. there are lots out there. but i loves my iPod :D

[Svea]

256Mb is nothing though - if this gadget is to last and be useful in a few years down the line, you will need at least 5Gig. i would say. even apple's Ipod Shuffle (the smallest) comes at 1Gb - but for me would only ever be a second player (much like having a second car ;))

but that is just my two pence for the day :)

[Sarah-b]

Hi DP - hope you are well and had a good birthday!

Bought OH a MP3 player for xmas and it was a Creative one - only downside was that the volume didn't seem to be loud enough  - so I would say "try before you buy" - sometimes there may be a demo track on the player to try out.

With MP3 players, you can fit several Cds on there (limited by the size of the storage) - so that is useful. You can also use them to store all sorts of other files - like a floppy disk, but bigger. You can also download music from the internet - do you have broadband? bo you have a limit to the amounts of downloads you can make. These things usually connect to your pc via a USB port - and most people have one of those these days.

Hope this helps.
Sarah.

[Shoyu]

I have a 40gb iPod, it's fantastic. 40gig may sound quite excessive but I'm a musician and have a huge collection of music of all styles to get on there. Obviously classical tracks take up more space than pop stuff and you tend to want to save it at a higher quality. If I set it on shuffle I can find myself listening to Brahms' 3rd symphony followed by Hell's Ditch by the Pogues!

Look into the IPod mini, probably quite a useful size at a more affordable price.