Portable music players
- Thread starter Spiderman
- Start date
I'm not too familiar with Zune, but I've had a friend who has owned both. He had the Zune first and about a year later bought an iPod due how easy-to-use Apple has made its software how often they update the softwate via updates. I'm the last person to advocate Apple, but it seems to me that the iPod is vastly superior to the Zune.
Ransac, cpa trash man
Ransac, cpa trash man
And any other player out there (I guess some type of "generic" one)? I heard that Apple is opening up their store so their songs can be played on any player, not just the IPod, for $1.29 instead of the usual 99 cents, right? Is that price comparable to otehr places where you might buy tunes?
Mooseman
Isengar Tussle
I have a IPod and I think it's good enough, easy to use ..... I do have a very old portable music play.... It's mostly just a 10mb hard drive that runs on rechargeable batteries...
I was looking at the cost of music.... the average CD has about 12 songs on it and costs (at deepdiscountdvd.com) about $13.50, so it's about $1.13 per song.... but you get the physical disc to keep for ever and ever..... (I guess you could just burn your own from the ones you buy online)
I'm starting to think that buying by the song would be better than getting the CD's, in that I can save the money on the song I don't like.
Is there a site where you can preview the songs? Does the IStore do this?
I was looking at the cost of music.... the average CD has about 12 songs on it and costs (at deepdiscountdvd.com) about $13.50, so it's about $1.13 per song.... but you get the physical disc to keep for ever and ever..... (I guess you could just burn your own from the ones you buy online)
I'm starting to think that buying by the song would be better than getting the CD's, in that I can save the money on the song I don't like.
Is there a site where you can preview the songs? Does the IStore do this?
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DarthFerret
Guest
All I know about any of this is I would suggest not purchasing an RCA brand portable music player. I got one for my wife (also an AM/FM radio player) and she loaded songs she had off her computer. Now she cannot figure out how to delete them and cannot put anything else on it cause it is full. I am sure there is a way to delete the songs, but the UI is so user unfriendly that she cannot seem to get it to work correctly.
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rokapoke
Guest
Itunes can definitely be used to import your music CDs to play alongside "electronically-purchased" songs. I have an iPod and I use it to listen to the CDs that I've owned for a long time as well as music that I have purchased via the iTunes store (which does, incidentally, have 30 second previews of songs).
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rokapoke
Guest
The format is m4a. I suspect that will play just fine on Windows Media Player (but this site doesn't seem to list that file type as supported or unsupported). Winamp specifically supports that file format.turgy22;279362 said:
As for pricing, iTunes currently still charges only 99 cents per song, even the ones without DRM. I'm not stating this to advertise for iTunes per se, but as a Mac user, it's really convenient for me.
I would. Unless I got the actual CD from someone and got the songs that wayOversoul said:
Call me old, but I just don't trust those torrent/file sharing sites.And I don't mind paying $1 a song.
rokapoke: Is it obvious or listed somewhere which songs are DRM-free?
I may be asking for an IPod for my birthday... the 8 MB, the ones that can store up to 4,000 songs should be enough, right?
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rokapoke
Guest
It seems like, in the iTunes store, the DRM-free songs are indicated with a + by them. If I remember, I'll try to post a screenshot tonight when I'm at home and can do so.Spiderman;279394 said:
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BigBlue
Guest
I have owned several different mp3 players...
I had a 15 MB iPod. I loved it... until the battery started to die after a few years. Your only option then is to return it back to Apple for a new battery which isn't "cheap".
Prior to that I owned a flash memory (64MB - that was all they had back then) - it worked real good too - but wasn't as flexible as the iPod w/o iTunes.
If all you own is an iPod, the DRM doesn't matter. And, it's easy to get around. You'll always want to back up your music anyway. I simply make an Audio CD of my purchased music, then rip it back into iTunes as .mp3 files. My music, my way. I also keep backups of my purchased songs just in case. No need to pay an extra .30 per song really.
My wife has an iPod Mini (2MB flash) - it's cool too, but again if the battery goes you have to send it to Apple for a replacement.
My current .mp3 player is my Blackberry Storm. It currently has 8GB ram, but I can expand it to 16GB. Obviously it's different than an .mp3 player... but it works great for me.
Both my kids have generic ones which work just fine. I don't sync them with iTunes, but they sync with media player or other software.
A coworker has a Zune and he likes his just fine.
I had a 15 MB iPod. I loved it... until the battery started to die after a few years. Your only option then is to return it back to Apple for a new battery which isn't "cheap".
Prior to that I owned a flash memory (64MB - that was all they had back then) - it worked real good too - but wasn't as flexible as the iPod w/o iTunes.
If all you own is an iPod, the DRM doesn't matter. And, it's easy to get around. You'll always want to back up your music anyway. I simply make an Audio CD of my purchased music, then rip it back into iTunes as .mp3 files. My music, my way. I also keep backups of my purchased songs just in case. No need to pay an extra .30 per song really.
My wife has an iPod Mini (2MB flash) - it's cool too, but again if the battery goes you have to send it to Apple for a replacement.
My current .mp3 player is my Blackberry Storm. It currently has 8GB ram, but I can expand it to 16GB. Obviously it's different than an .mp3 player... but it works great for me.
Both my kids have generic ones which work just fine. I don't sync them with iTunes, but they sync with media player or other software.
A coworker has a Zune and he likes his just fine.
Is it 8 MB or 8 GB? Whatever the 8 one is...
I thought that you could only play iTunes on the IPod, but if you can turn your own music into that format so it can play, then yeah, DRM isn't that big of a worry... I was just thinking that if in the future, I got something else than an IPod, I would still want my music from ITunes to play on it...
I actually have a Blackberry from work, maybe I should check it out more and see if it plays music
I thought that you could only play iTunes on the IPod, but if you can turn your own music into that format so it can play, then yeah, DRM isn't that big of a worry... I was just thinking that if in the future, I got something else than an IPod, I would still want my music from ITunes to play on it...
I actually have a Blackberry from work, maybe I should check it out more and see if it plays music
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rokapoke
Guest
You better make sure you buy 8GB, or else you may be stuck listening to the same two songs over and over again...Spiderman;279441 said:
It is 8GB.
Yeah, BB's point of burning the songs to CD and then re-ripping them does remove the DRM. So you shouldn't have problems with other programs (e.g. buying music via iTunes but syncing via Windows Media Player).Spiderman;279441 said:
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DarthFerret
Guest
Your Blackbery probably does play music (mine will) but the music takes up such a large amount of memory that if you dont have an expansion card in it it is prolly not a good idea. My curve has almost no memory left after all the stuff our IT guy puts on it.
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EricBess
Guest
IStore doesn't do that. YouTube frequently has even the non-hit songs from albums, so I usually check there if I'm trying to see if there are other songs I might like from an album.Mooseman;279335 said:
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BigBlue
Guest
The storm comes w/ an 8GB card, and you can buy a 16GB card for it too.DarthFerret;279449 said:
Curious what your IT staff fills yours with... I don't run any non-standard apps, but I would think if you had proprietary applications for your work, that could easilly fill space (but not 8GB)... Doesn't the Curve also have a slot for expansion memory?
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BigBlue
Guest
(typos in my earlier post, it was GB, not MB)...Spiderman;279441 said:Is it 8 MB or 8 GB? Whatever the 8 one is...
I thought that you could only play iTunes on the IPod, but if you can turn your own music into that format so it can play, then yeah, DRM isn't that big of a worry... I was just thinking that if in the future, I got something else than an IPod, I would still want my music from ITunes to play on it...
I actually have a Blackberry from work, maybe I should check it out more and see if it plays music
iPod will play .mp3 (standard) files or .m4p (iTunes DRM) files. It won't play WM player files (can't recall their extension)... Pretty much all players will do .mp3 files as they are the most universal standard and don't have DRM associated w/ them. The newer iPods also play movies, but I'm not sure what formats since I don't have one of those.
The Storm is the "best" Blackberry as far as music goes. The others don't have the space for music as much... Though you can get expansion memory for some of them.