Looking for opinions on MP3 Players

[Cajuncowboy]

I am thinking of getting either the 30 Gig Ipod or the Toshiba 20GB gigabeat Digital Audio Player with Color Display. Does anyone have any experience with any of these or any thoughts on any others that might be good?

 

[jterrell]

I am thinking of getting either the 30 Gig Ipod or the Toshiba 20GB gigabeat Digital Audio Player with Color Display. Does anyone have any experience with any of these or any thoughts on any others that might be good?

I would only say don't get a Lyra.
I have an ipod shuffle that works great and have been very happy with its size and amount of music versus size.

Its easy to slide into a usb port at work and go keyboard clacking.

I am a pretty big fan of the itunes software though so am biased towards apple's stuff.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

I would only say don't get a Lyra.
I have an ipod shuffle that works great and have been very happy with its size and amount of music versus size.

Its easy to slide into a usb port at work and go keyboard clacking.

I am a pretty big fan of the itunes software though so am biased towards apple's stuff.

My Daughter has a Lyra. Has had it for about 2 years and it works fine for her. But it's storage capacity is not as big as I want. Right now I think I will go with the Ipod w/ Video but I also like the gigabeat.

 

[Yeagermeister]

Look in the tech zone we discussed a few of them. I have a Dell mp3 player (made by creative labs) and it's great. All I'd say is don't just blindly go buy an Ipod because there are others that are just as good for less money.

 

[TruBlueCowboy]

My Daughter has a Lyra. Has had it for about 2 years and it works fine for her. But it's storage capacity is not as big as I want. Right now I think I will go with the Ipod w/ Video but I also like the gigabeat.

I'm with you. Not sure why jterrell is down on Lyra. Probably had a bad experience with one. I have a simple flash memory memory I only use for working out and it's been fine for 2-3 years now.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that not only is Ipod hardware more expensive, but I believe you can't find cheaper competitors online for their format of music. There are tons of cheap WMA sites but the apple music format is limited. Don't quote me on that, though, because I've always purchased WMA models.

 

[Danny White]

I am thinking of getting either the 30 Gig Ipod or the Toshiba 20GB gigabeat Digital Audio Player with Color Display. Does anyone have any experience with any of these or any thoughts on any others that might be good?

I have the 60GB video ipod and I really like it.

As many will point out, there are probably other brands out there that are just as good and possibly cheaper. I went with the ipod, though, because since it is the most popular, there are far more accessories, etc for it than for the others.

Tru's right about limited content out there for apple's mp4 format, but what I've done mostly is rip content from existing DVD's I have.

I purchased a program for about 30 bucks that lets me rip to mp4 format from any DVD I have. It works great! I'm sure you can also find software that converts from wmv to mp4.

Just heed my warning in the tech section, though, about the new update from apple... but that seems to only affect the 60GB, not the 30.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll love it!

 

[Reality]

I have owned a 4gb iPod MINI for a few months now and I love it. I have the iTrip Mini adapter that allows me to play it in my car which is SO much easier than CD swapping and sounds very good at least in my area. iPod sound quality is really good but I've heard bad things about the shuffle so I would definitely avoid it.

I bought a lighter Sony player recently as well that's smaller but easier to use while exercising so I'm looking to switch music download sources from iTunes over to one of the wma sites. I'll make another thread about that.

Anyway, if you don't plan to own more than one mp3 player and you're looking for a good one with plenty of accessories, iPod is definitely a solid way to go. However, I've had friends that swear by other players so don't feel it's the only real option.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

Well, I bought the Ipod with Video and the whole shootin' match. The only question I have is How in the world do I delete a song or video once I have it on my Ipod? I see no delete function. And why did Apple include 2 Apple Stickers in my package? For 300.00 bucks they could have given me a coupon for two real apples from the grocery store!!!!

 

[Danny White]

Well, I bought the Ipod with Video and the whole shootin' match. The only question I have is How in the world do I delete a song or video once I have it on my Ipod? I see no delete function. And why did Apple include 2 Apple Stickers in my package? For 300.00 bucks they could have given me a coupon for two real apples from the grocery store!!!!

In the default, your ipod will sync to your itunes, so if you delete a song or video from your itunes and then Update, it will delete it from your ipod.

It's clear where the limitations to this apply, though, because if you want to put songs on from a different computer's itunes, then it would automatically delete any songs on your ipod that are not on this new computer's itunes.

Also, you may want to change the way a file is titled or something like that on your ipod, without changing your itunes, and the default won't let you do that.

The solution is to go into your ipod options on itunes, and click the box that says "Make my ipod and external drive."

By doing this, you disable automatic synching, but you enable yourself to handle the files on your ipod in a whole new way.

Now you can import and export data files to your ipod. You can retitle files on your ipod, create playlists on your ipod independent from your itunes, and import files from any number of different computers. And, of course, you can delete files on your ipod without deleting them from your itunes.

The downside is that all updates have to be done manually now. If you download a hundred new songs, you have to click them and drag them over by yourself and create new playlists on your ipod and move them into them.

It's a little more work, but definitely worth it.

 

[jterrell]

I'm with you. Not sure why jterrell is down on Lyra. Probably had a bad experience with one. I have a simple flash memory memory I only use for working out and it's been fine for 2-3 years now.

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that not only is Ipod hardware more expensive, but I believe you can't find cheaper competitors online for their format of music. There are tons of cheap WMA sites but the apple music format is limited. Don't quote me on that, though, because I've always purchased WMA models.

I hate wma crap

I use the Apple which produces higher quality or Ogg/Vorbis.

I need to use mine on both linux and win pcs.

Lyra made me use musicmatch software(yuck),

I have heard they are better now using native media player but again I hate being tied to a windows box.

 

[jterrell]

In the default, your ipod will sync to your itunes, so if you delete a song or video from your itunes and then Update, it will delete it from your ipod.

It's clear where the limitations to this apply, though, because if you want to put songs on from a different computer's itunes, then it would automatically delete any songs on your ipod that are not on this new computer's itunes.

Also, you may want to change the way a file is titled or something like that on your ipod, without changing your itunes, and the default won't let you do that.

The solution is to go into your ipod options on itunes, and click the box that says "Make my ipod and external drive."

By doing this, you disable automatic synching, but you enable yourself to handle the files on your ipod in a whole new way.

Now you can import and export data files to your ipod. You can retitle files on your ipod, create playlists on your ipod independent from your itunes, and import files from any number of different computers. And, of course, you can delete files on your ipod without deleting them from your itunes.

The downside is that all updates have to be done manually now. If you download a hundred new songs, you have to click them and drag them over by yourself and create new playlists on your ipod and move them into them.

It's a little more work, but definitely worth it.

Yup the beauty of itunes which is awesome software.