Hardware / software considerations? What about other music services, as good as iTunes?

iPods are clunky and only play one file type. I hate using iTunes. Get a regular mp3 player.

Any suggestions / preferences? What do you use? Are other music service catalogues as extensive as iTunes?

For my player, I have a small one made by RCA. It is expandable with SD cards.

I mostly have my CDs, music-wise. There's lots of sites to buy music from (I have purchased from iTunes, the site isn't bad, but trying to use it to put junk on your player is a nightmare.)

I have a Sansa Express, and love it. Mine came with 2gb, and it has a micro sd card slot that I've got a 2gb in right now, but they make up to 8gb in the micros, and they are the size of a pinky nail. The whole unit is the size of a lipstick, but it also records, and has a built in FM receiver. The end pops off to reveal the usb plug, so I never have to worry about finding a cord, and it says that it will play for 15 hours on a charge, but I have yet to have it run out on me, and I've gone longer than 15 on long trips. Mine gets seriously hard use, it is on almost constantly, and is routinely out in -20 degree weather, but I've never had a hiccup with it.

I got mine at TigerDirect, and I think in the US, the 1gb base model sells for less than $20 now. Get a big card to go with it, and that's a lot of storage in a very small package. I take out CD's from the library, and they easily download with just windows player. If I want to get serious, I use Audio Editor. Matched with my skullcandy lowriders' 40mm power driver, and the sound is just incredible. I have perfect pitch, and the slightest distortion makes me cringe. I almost got whiplash once listening to the senior choir at our church on Saturday night. The express is also really easy to edit off of. I just go into my computer with it plugged into the usb, and can drag and drop between micro sd's or easily delete or sync.

I'm on my second iPod, and let me tell you: the things are tanks.
I've dropped/sat on/punished in every way imaginable these poor things, yet they still manage to work for me. I use it all the time (probably at least four hours a day), and I've had the one I'm on now for a year and a half or so, and it's still going strong.
I had a Nano (1G, 4 gig.), and it went through the washing machine...twice...and it still worked. I'd still be using it if I hadn't outgrown the capacity.
I've used other types of players, but they all seemed to find a way to break.
In my personal opinion, you can't beat the iPod.

Anybody have any opinions on the Amazon MP3 service? I have a bunch of birthday money that's waiting to be spent and I was planning on getting a bunch of music from there.

if you want a high capacity player, then get a microsoft Zune. my ipod classic works well, and doesnt do anything wrong, but it doesnt do very much all told. it is pretty much useless as a picture and video player compared to the zune. zunes also have more memory for the same price and are actually a little bit smaller, dimension wise

Incorrect. They play both standard mp3 and the ac4 (whatever the iTMS uses).

I've found them quite elegant, particularly for quickly navigating through ~1000 songs.

Get an iPod touch. They are amazingly awesome.

I'm not a fanboy of either type of player. I owned a Creative Labs MP3 player for 3 years and it still works fine. If you are only looking to listen to music its stupid to waste the money on an ipod in my opinion. If you basically want it to do everything - Internet, edit documents, music, movies, tv shows, apps, games, etc, I'd get an ipod touch, which I have now. The wife is constantly fighting me for it since I put her favorite games on it. They also do have a replacement program now if/when the battery dies so you don't have to buy a whole new player. The itunes store is easy enough for me to use and I can download new stuff instantly right from the player. I've put about 80 cds from my collection on it so far. The only issue is size - The best you can get is 32MB and for most people that will not be enough. Itunes makes it very easy to adjust what you want on your player every time you sync though. After all, no one is going to listen to 10,000 songs in one trip.

What music service does the Zune work with? I'm used to iTunes, which is really easy to use, and, quite frankly, another music service is going to have to meet that threshold of ease of use for me to consider it.

I have a creative zen 16g, and its acting up on me. Creative is acting stupid with me right now, and I want to smack them in the rear, but if they don't honor my 2yr replacement plan, I'm going to chunk it and get an ipod.

I'm on my second ipod and i wouldn't use anything else. I had a 1st gen nano and it was amazingly perfect for me at the time. I am rather clumsy and it never broke on me. i just got a touch for free with my macbook, and it is awesome. there is all sorts of apps to choose from and everything so it's more than just for music.

The only reasons to use something other than an iPod, IMO, are either (1) you use Linux, or (2) you can't afford one. I haven't seen anything that compares to modern iPods in ease of use. With iPods, Apple redefined people's expectations for user interfaces on portable electronics. Seriously. Everything else looks overcomplicated and clumsy.



I LOVE AMAZON'S MP3 SERVICE.

Great format, great prices, no DRM. Integrates perfectly with iTunes.

Sweet! I'm hoping to get an iPod nano for Christmas, so this is good news.

I've had a sansa mp3 player for... 2 years now? ish. Its worked great! Easy to use style, not that far off from an iPod. They're pretty cheep. Easy to use. Only prob I've ever had with it is- one day for whatever reason it decided not to turn on. Next morning it was working fine though. iono. Anywho I love it.

I've had my Samsung for goodness only knows how long. It's a touch screen that came out WAY before the ipod touch. It's been dropped a thousand times, and apart from a few scratches on the back, you wouldn't notice. It's so easy to upload file onto it. The battery life is great too.
I wouldn't touch an ipod. You're basically paying for a name.

I have two iPods, a Touch that I charge at home and use at work, and a Nano that I use when I work out (the Touch is really small enough to use to work out too, but it's not my thing). My Touch sees the most work as I listen to it for eight hours a day. It's never died out on me, and I've never had any problems with it. The interface is better than anything else you're going to get out there too.

I charge up both my iPods at a single station that lets me charge them both at the same time. It also functions as my alarm clock, and can play either iPod in surround sound. I never use a USB cord unless I'm actually downloading music to my iPods.

I've used it a couple times. Found it a bit difficult or clunky, but I'm sure it's worth another try. I think I was still getting use to the Mac OS X environment during that time, which I'm sure had something to do with it.

What I really enjoy is eMusic.com. It seems to be better for indie and lesser-known artists, but I was able to download the Johnny Cash's "Fulsom Prison Blues" album. I bought a year's subscription of 30 songs per month for like $115. Cheaper than buying an album per month. Since I tend to prefer not-so-famous artists anyway, that'll keep me happy for a while. And, it's MP3 format.

Still, iTunes is the best overall experience. I use it more for keeping up with podcasts. Nice thing about having an iPod is you can get your music from anywhere and take advantage of the iTunes Store when you want it.

You can also buy used iPods from places like Amazon.com for cheaper. I bought the most recent model of the nano (the square-shaped one that plays videos) and it mysteriously came up missing one day. Never found it, and was tempted to try some other music player, but the iPod works too well with iTunes to bother trying something else. So I got a refurbished 1st Gen nano for about $60 off Amazon.com. It handles podcasts a lot easier than the new iPod models, so why pay more?

Another thing... check out the prices of the original iPods on eBay. If you manage not to lose or break it, a used/refurbished iPod will retain its value better than almost any other consumer electronic device out there.

Just curious... have you ever tried using hulu.com on your iTouch? My cousin has one that played with a little bit last weekend. I wasn't able to pull it up, but thought it might need something like a flash player installed that could be downloaded to the iTouch. I've heard it doesn't do java or flash... can't remember which.

I was able to get a refurbished iPod Nano 3G from Apple for ~$85, which is almost 50% off the list price, although the Nano 4G is now out. Given that price was the main differentiator between iPod and other MP3 players, and that that barrier was removed, I had to go for it. Thanks for all your input.

I thought Amazon.com's music service wouldn't even work with Mac or iTunes.

Yep, it does.

No, not really. I actually don't like hulu.com even on my computer as I like to pause the video and let it load all the way before watching it so I don't have to deal with that annoying pause croutons, and for some reason I've never been able to do that with their videos. I have no idea why.


Yeah, I like my 3G Nano better. I have no use for video on my Nano, and Apple surprisingly put no originality in the design of the 4G.

Yep, they're just MP3 files, so they'll work on any music player.



Yeah, I noticed that myself one time when I was sharing an Internet connection and thought I'd lead the show load and then disconnect: no dice. I suppose it has something to do with protecting the content from being fully downloaded and distributed by pirates without commercials... aargh (pirates these days just aren't the same as the old days, when they blew up ships and stole gold).

But as far as using hulu, I've never had any trouble with the stream being forced to pause outside of the commercials. I watched a kinda cheesy documentary about the Air Force's Red Flag drill at Norris AFB... the commentary was rather hokey, but those flying scenes looked pretty sweet in hi-res.

I have a 3G myself and am really happy with its small profile. I was surprised that they went back to the 1G and 2G profile - which I consider kind of clunky - for 4G. The new features - shake to shuffle and watching video in landscape - just didn't seem compelling enough to not try and get a bargain on a 3G.

My credit card statement surely disproves that.

Honestly? You need an Amazon account, and to download a teensy little application which manages the download. When you click "Buy Now" the download app launches, downloads your songs, and copies them into your iTunes program. The format is a high-bitrate (good quality) MP3, with no restrictions on copying or usage.

Amazon even offers thousands of free songs and many heavily discounted albums. (You get one kinda neat free song when you download the application, in order to test it.)