Cool MP3?

Jodun

Thanks so far, anyone else??

Dark_Forces

You could wait until October or November when Sony release their 'bean' shape mp3 player.

More here --> More

mechy

Jodun wrote:

Hi

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but...

I've got twins approaching their 13th birthday and I wanted to get them MP3's. I'd been thinking of mini ipods, but at about £130 each that's a bit pricey for me. Can anyone suggest a cheaper alternative that will still be cool at school?! (And what's an ipod shuffle? Can you only download your cd's onto that?)

Thanks for any suggestions.

Hi, I bought a shuffle, I think thats the term 512mb, bought off e'bay for a total of £35.50 including P&P & insurance. It does the job, Also you can use it as a flash memory stick and a voice recorder. So its got a number of functions. Can come in real handy. If you are buying off e'bay, you will almost certainly need a paypal account. You will probably buy from Hongkong.
If you buy thru this method, make sure you read all the page, ie P&P,Insurance, so you will not get caught out with the final price. (like I did)
Good luck

Jodun

I don't think I'll go for a Shuffle, I think one with a screen would be best. The Sony Bean has all the looks, but only a 1 line screen - not sure if this would be good for them or not.

wolfman

One thing to watch with Sony mp3 players, is that their main downfall is that they enforce their Atrac format. I don't know if this is the case with their Bean player, but it's very frustrating to have to convert such a generic format as mp3 into Sony's Atrac format to listen to music on their player.

wolfman

Donnie wrote:

A remote control hanging from the headphone cord coupled with a clear LCD display will almost always be preferable to a player which not only doesn't allow you to see which folder you are in. Not only that, it doesn't even allow you to play them in the order of your choosing.(iPod Shuffle)
It's nonsense. Style over substance.

Of course you conveniently overlook these 'design flaws'.

The thing is the iPod Shuffle is the size of a remote anyway with the same functionality, so why need one, it's just something extra to carry. The downfall with the Shuffle is the lack of screen, but I personally (having sold both my iPods) enjoy not having so much choice. I have over 1,000 albums, and it's quite refreshing just to listening to what I currently have on the Shuffle.

As for having a screen with only 128mb, I really don't see the point. Maybe with a larger selection, but 128mb you may as well just flick through it sequentially.

For me the Shuffle is a quick way of picking up and playing music and works great as a flash storage drive. It's only 22 grams, and the size of a pack of gum so doesn't get in your way. You just pick it up and go, and if you don't like a track then you simply forward to the next one.

Donnie

Come on Wolfman... That's nonsense. The inline remote control of the Philips is probably less than a quarter of the size of the Shuffle.
Why are you talking about 128MB? The players in question are 512MB.

That's up to 12 good quality CD albums. Imagine having to scroll through the tracks(130+) one by one(as you would have to do with the Shuffle). It's silly.

The Philips allows you to store each CD in individual folders. So you can 'superskip' to the start of each album and then choose any track within them.
The tiny, but functional remote control allows you to control all this without having to take the player out of your pocket. Quite useful for not attracting unwanted attention to your player.

22 grams? 31 grams? Who cares? They are both small and light. But the Shuffle is just a potential style icon with few useful functions. Close to useless in my opinion.
The Philips LCD bluelight display looks cool, especially the scrolling action of the title and artist info.

Just because you have over 1000 albums doesn't mean your choice is suitable for 13 year olds.

Even with my 35 track 128MB player I wouldn't want to take out my player everytime I wanted to select a track and then have to memorise the position of the track in order to find it. That's nonsense.
No 13 year would put up with a situation where they couldn't listen to the track that they wanted to.
Come on, stop this nonsense.