Need an mp3 player

[jer446]

I have a predicament.. I dont really want to spend that much money, because i rarely listen to music. I was about to get a shufffle, then decided to hold off. I have the napster thing where i can download as many songs as i want for free, so if i get a napster compatible device, like the dell dj or iriver, i would have to convert all the songs. But they are so ugly compared to the ipods and shuffle. The shuffle doesnt have a screen which is also another thing thats bad. Can you help me make my decision.

 

[Brize]

That's certainly a predicament if you're using a Mac.

You can't play your Napster files on an iPod (of any kind), and I'm not sure that any of the Napster compatible devices will work with a Mac.

Edit: You clearly have access to a PC, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use Napster. If you intend to stick with Napster, you've no choice but to buy a compatible player, i.e. something other than an iPod.

 

[JeffTL]

My advice:

Dump the Napster, take the money and buy a fair number of songs from iTunes with it every month. Then you can keep them if you ever quit buying -- with the all-you-can-eat Napster subscriptions you lose it all if you ever quit paying.

Then get some sort of iPod, a shuffle would be nice if you don't want a lot.

 

[jer446]

im buying the shuffle i think..i dont have a mac yet, but i hopefully will be soon..my brother has an ipod, so i just convert all the wmas to mp3 so he can get them on his ipod. Its worth the effort because i downloded 800 songs on the first day.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Get the Shuffle!

I got my 1gb one y'day... it's brilliant. You don't need a screen...

It comes with all the software to run it: iTunes for Mac & PC
Works beautifully together.

You won't be disappointed. Trust me.

 

[stevep]

Haven't bought an iPod yet, but I did get as far as looking at value for money - if I've done it right I should have attached a graph showing how much a gB of iPod costs for each model - from £135 to £7 per gB across the range.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Haven't bought an iPod yet, but I did get as far as looking at value for money - if I've done it right I should have attached a graph showing how much a gB of iPod costs for each model - from £135 to £7 per gB across the range.

Value for money is relative – I wouldn't just go on GB alone.
Other factors like size, weight, robustness, replacement value if stolen or dropped etc. come into play.

I will buy an 80gb iPod when they are released for longer trips but the Shuffle is an extremely elegant (that word again) little player that works so easily with iTunes. It's not that much of an effort to dump a new playlist or a handful of albums on it once every few days...

 

[stevep]

Value for money is relative – I wouldn't just go on GB alone.
Other factors like size, weight, robustness, replacement value if stolen or dropped etc. come into play.

Actually, value for money based on measurable criteria, such as cost/gB, is not relative, it's absolute. I'm not suggesting that cost/gB is the only yardstick, but these other factors are not so easy to be objective about.

If you really want maximum gB per £ (or $) then you wouldn't go for an iPod. However, you wouldn't then have the (purely subjective) 'cool' factor of owning an Apple product.

Based on the graph, (and on the fact that I, personally, wouldn't want anything other than an iPod to go with my iBook) I would have to go for either the 1 gB shuffle or the 20 gB iPod - and I'm not sure which yet.....

 

[Solafaa]

Althou i like ITMS i would recomend you buy the CD's. Every song i got from ITMS i burned it and then ripped it, it better for me. I dont have to worry about placing them on more then 5 computers, i have more control over them.

The thing i dont like about Napster is that if you ever stop paying you lose the songs, they never belong to you, you are just renting them.

 

[jer446]

well it belongs to you if you convert them to mp3 it takes away all restricitons/