media recorder recommendations

[Memphis]

My daughter turns 16 this month and she wants something to record and play the songs she likes. Whats the way to go? Ipod? MP3? Other? Loking for reasonable price, ease of use, etc.

[Prince Valiant]

It's all beyond me. I just give my wife the ipod and she figures it out. If my wife can figure it out, it HAS to be easy.


AND I'm lucky she doesn't read this forum :)

[Cjburn]

Seriously, find an old Sony Walkman and give it to her. Pop an Ipod Nano in the tape player. Then tell her the Walkman was good enough for you, it should be good enough for her. That should freak her out sufficiently, then tell her to open the tape deck to find her Nano. That should be good for a couple laughs, hell throw the video on you tube and become a celebrity.

[SSDude]

Mp3 format is the way to go. I tunes comes with to many hooks, restrictions.
Zune, Sandisk, Sony. anything but Apple.
Plenty of media available through the Milwaukee County library system. Get online and reserve it. Ripped to the computer for $0.

[jbiscuit]

Not sure I agree totally with ssdude here on this one. The iPods are really nice devices nowadays. Apps, access to the Internet and email, iTunes etc. The suggestion to check out media from the library I'd a good one but in addition to that there are plenty of ways to get mp3s into the player without paying $$ for it. Same goes for the apps. I'm not real familiar to the Zune and it's potential but I'm sure it's nice also. If it were my money though I'd go with the iPod.

[GTO Jeff]

I'm generally anti-Apple just on principle. That said... My Sandisk, Zune, and Sony mp3 players are in a drawer somewhere gathering dust while I use my iPod.

The iPod costs more but it's worth it. It's so much easier to use than any of the other players. Plus it's the only kind of mp3 player that has integration into many newer cars and home audio systems. You don't NEED to get tied into the Apple music store and associated costs. The iPod works fine with any mp3 files from any place. My iPod is a 5th-generation 60 GB video unit that I got factory refurbished for $100.

I get my music from Napster and ripped from my own CD collection. It's $60/year (that's $5/month) and for that money you get 60 DRM-free (i.e., not copy protected) mp3 downloads plus unlimited streaming. Additional downloads are $0.99 each or you can record the streaming music on your computer using a free application like Audacity. The 99 cent downloads are higher quality than what is streamed. If you are a Best Buy Reward Zone member there are numerous promotions throughout the year for free downloads. Or copy CDs from the library.

If you use iTunes to manage your music collection it's easy and it will keep your iPod automatically in synch.

[05caddyext]

on what principle are you against apple?

[Myles]

iPod itself is fine when it comes to the hardware. Do NOT use iTunes. It works great in theory but has too many fucking bugs and it does fucking retarded things. If you use an iPod use winamp or anything else. There are a ton of programs that can do everything you need with an iPod. I have cleaned too many computers that had iTunes and the problems stemmed from iTunes itself and now the spyware that they got.

I have played with my brothers Zune and that is one really awesome peice of hardware. I would suggest that over an iPod anyday. When I had a nano I was not impressed. Playing with the new ones, they don't impress me either.

[GTO Jeff]

on what principle are you against apple?

Steve Jobs' smugness and Apple's insistence that you do everything (or most things) their way. Plus their cult-like fanboys are irritating. But so are other fanboys so I guess that's not Apple-specific.

Apple's not so bad these days, now that they use Intel processors and other more standard hardware. Plus OS X is not bad compared to the old days.


Do NOT use iTunes. It works great in theory but has too many fucking bugs and it does fucking retarded things. If you use an iPod use winamp or anything else.

hmmm, I've never had a problem with iTunes (retarded or otherwise). Back in 1995 Winamp was the shniz but now that we're in the 21st century it seems pretty lame - and talk about bugs! I could never get any version newer than 2.81 to work right.

I would not use iTunes if I didn't have an iPod. I actually like Windows Media Player but talk about a kludgy piece of software... Once you work around all its bugs then it's actually pretty nice.

[moels]

My kids all have Ipod touches, thus I have Itunes on my PC. It does cause some issues with my computer and it gets frustrating. Is there another program that I could use to get all the same stuff onto the Itouch without killing my computer?

[Yooformula]

I have an ipod nano, iriver, zune player and a little philips mp3 player. the philips is the easiest the fucking thing in the world to load/use and last for what seems like forever!, not to mention was only $40. the rest of them are a pita and take a decent amount of time to load shit onto them.

[cheap80Z28]

main reason I got the mp3/zune over an ipod was for the radio,
doesn't ipod need an add on fm tuner??

[Yooformula]

I think the nano has an fm tuner already, I know the philips player has one.

[Undertaker]

My kids all have Ipod touches, thus I have Itunes on my PC. It does cause some issues with my computer and it gets frustrating. Is there another program that I could use to get all the same stuff onto the Itouch without killing my computer?

I use SharePod. Works very nice and is a very small app.

[wrath]

Buy a refurb Sansa for $20. When she loses it/destroys it/washes it replace it with another one. You can buy 9 of them for what an iPod Touch costs.

[moels]

I use SharePod. Works very nice and is a very small app.

Will try that out, thanks.

[badass88gt]

I have a Sansa and my iPhone, the Sansa is much easier to load that the phone but I haven't tried anything besides iTunes, which I hate.

[WhatsADSM]

iPod

[Karps TA]

iPod is really the way to go. It's just an iPod world out there. To say otherwise would mean you probably still love your Beta tapes, and can't wait for HD-DVD to really take off.

But that said I bought a Sansa Sandisk player refurbished from Woot.com a couple years ago and it's worked great. I think I paid like $20 shipped for it, and it's like 2 gigs. I wanted to be anti-apple as well.

[0TransAm0]

i have a zune HD and wife has a ipod touch. they both work fine. i only use the zune when im cutting the grass. zune hd has a HD radio ipod touch does not. couldn't tell ya wich one is better i like them both for differant reasons.