to be shocked at the price of Ipods?

[Aworryingtrend]

DH and I are both complete technophobes. We don't have sky, I've never seen a 3D film and our stereo is one of those old 'ghettoblaster' style ones.

However, we were at a friend's the other night who was playing music from the Ipod using it as a stereo and I could really see the advantage of having so much music easily available.

So I just had a look online with a view to buying one- they start from £132! And thats without the holding bay jobby that it sits in with the speakers. Not really sure if I am looking at the right thing, but they seem to start from £60, so basically you are looking at £200 for a new stereo!

Am I hopelessly out of touch, and this is value for money for such a gadget? Are there other things like Ipods you can buy that do the same but are cheaper?

Finally, AIBU for being so blinking clueless about all things technical at the age of 28?!

It's well known that Apple overprices all of their products. Ipods are the worst, and everyone seems to have one mainly because it's so popular, so out of pressure to conform or simply because they struggle to look at anything else, the majority end up having one.

I've always preffered Creative's products and will be forever sticking to them. Paid £120 for an MP3 player about 4-5 years back, and it still works, has suffered rough n' tumble (unlike Ipods which can be fragile) and the music quality through any kind of headphones is fantastic.

In terms of how much you pay for an mp3 player, mainly you're paying for how big it is in terms of gigabytes - basically how much music it can store, and the extra gadgets that they may or may not put on there.

I won't have an Apple product in the house! And I did all my early training and work in Graphics on a Mac, so I've no excuse really.

I have a perfectly fine MP3/MP4 player (only 2GB memory) and it cost £20.00. Bought one for me and one for DS so we need not worry about losing them. But because its not an iPod it is not acceptable amongst his peers!

So you are paying for the name and image IMO.

I second Yukana. Look at Creative Zen products, and avoid Apple like the plague.

You can get a very basic MP3 player for as little as £10. For about £40 you can get one that will hold more music than you could shake a stick at. If you want one with a flashy screen, with video capability, and camera etc you will have to pay more. But if you only want the music, then look around for a better solution, and spend your money on good speakers.

Thank you all, so many people have them, I thought it was just me!

So...what we want is something we can:
a) upload our existing Cds to
b) download music to from the internet
c) can be played through speakers.

We wouldnt be bothered about headphones, it is for when we are in the house for both os us to listen to.

Would any mp3 player fit into a holding bay speaker thing? How do you know which mp3 player fits into which thing? If you buy a creative zen mp3 player do you buy creative zen speakers?

Thank you so much-as you can see I need help...

I bought my 5th gen ipod nano 2nd hand from eBay. Try looking 2nd hand, you don't need to buy brand new. You could probably get the speakers from there too.

Oh, and if you get an FM transmitter you can play all the music on your ipod through the stereo in your car.

Happy to help. :)

a) Uploading your existing CDs:
Very simple to do. Every mp3 player should tell you how to upload your music from a computer to the player via the manual. If it doesn't come with it's own software don't worry, there is a function on the free-software Windows Media Player called 'Synchronisation' that allows you to do this.

b) Download music to mp3 player from the internet:
My own mp3 player cannot do this, but then again it is about five years old. You will have to pay more, but I believe Creative Zen will have one or more products that will allow you to download music from the internet from your mp3 player directly. Check for wifi/lan capabilities and if you are still clueless/can't find it then I'd suggest giving their sales team a call.

c) You can either choose to buy the mp3 player brand's own docking station that may come with speakers (docking stations I believe can charge your mp3 player, too) or you can buy speakers that you can plug directly into the headphones socket/jack that will play your music through them.

Creative Zen do both their own docking stations and speakers I believe.

Other than that, in terms of size, if you are majorly a music lover that spends most of your time listening to music, I'd suggest buying a MP3 player with a size between 30-60 GB of space. If you listen to music sometimes or don't have a lot of music, I'd suggest a size of 10GB and up. (GB = Gigabytes, if this wasn't obvious!)

Hope this helps.

Relatives gave me a lot of money for my birthday and I wasn't supposed to fritter it away- so I bought an iPod touch.
£189!!

I don't know how I could have bought it- such a lot of money for just a gadget, not even a phone. I do use it, we do travel regularly enough and I'm sure I'll be grateful enough of it when I'm Interrailing this summer, 5 weeks away, but all the same...
I use my 3 in 1 stereo and portable cassette player much more, and they cost £30 and £1 respectively!
I'm still a bit miffed that you can't copy films onto iTunes without downloading free trials of programs all over the internet.

Thanks so much. SoftKitty, i can see the advantage of buying one second hand and getting it cheaper but I would be worried about there being no comeback, especially as I have no idea where to start with this.

Yukana, thank you for that post. I am looking on amazon now and can see Creative Zen have 'travel docking stations'. Do you think that means the sound quality wouldn't be very good as they are intended to be portable?

Im lookign on Argos at docking stations and all I can see are ones compatible with Ipods, I can't find any compatible with MP3s?

Thank you again!

I have a travel docking station from Creative Zen. I find it absolutely fine at home. I have also used it in village halls, and it was ok, but not brilliant, so if you're using it in a large space I wouldn't recommend.

That's the only problem with non-apple products. Most of the docks you can buy are designed for use with ipods and other apple devices. (because they have cornered/dominated the market so aggressively I guess). If you have something non-apple, you usually need to attach it via a cable. Still works very well, but you don't get that neatness of just popping the device into a dock. Non apple products don't fit in docks designed for ipods.

I have a big speaker thing now that I plug my mp3 player into when I want really loud sounds. And I keep the travel dock for quieter times.

Dd1 has the ipig to go with her MP4 player. The only thing is it connect via an adapter at the back, instead of sitting in the dock at the top.

Thanks MrsMellow. So- can you attach an Mp3 player to any speakers? or do they have to be special ones? I wouldnt mind using a lead- as it would be in the house I could just leave it attached all the time. it is quite a big space so would want good quality.

Do you think it would be possible to get "something" which has speakers which connect to Mp3, and also has a radio?

I am at how clueless I am. Its like a whole new world...

I'd recommend buying it directly from or at least taking a look directly on Creative's website. :) Here is the link: uk.creative.com/welcome.asp
I've always had no trouble with Creative's sound quality, so I wouldn't worry. If need be, call up their sales team and ask for honest advice on the best quality products for your needs.

Sadly MrsMellowDrummer is correct, most docking stations due to the overwhelming popularity of Apple products, are for Ipods. Sadly they use their brand to dominate the market and therefore people fork out huge amounts of money for something they could get a lot cheaper.

Do you think something like this would work?

www.amazon.co.uk/GEAR4-HouseParty-Speaker-Dock-Radio/dp/B0018DKQWK/ref=sr_1_9?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1307701480&sr=1-9

if so, please could some kind soul link to the kind of lead I would need? Thank you!

I got an ipod Nano back in September 2007 and its still going strong. I went to Tottenham Court Road and haggled and got the price down by £10, so I paid £120. I listen to it for 2 hours a day whilst commuting and whenever I'm in the gym or walking by myself, so I feel I've definitely got my money's worth.

I also find it incredibly simple to use, unlike my previous Sony Mp3 player which was much more faffy to get music onto.

uk.store.creative.com/speakers/travelsound-zen-mozaic/4-17972.aspx

Something like that, perhaps?

The one you linked is sadly, for iPods. Make sure to check when buying a docking station/speakers. :)

My iPod is the only piece of Apple stuff I own (should that be iOwn?). For what I paid for it I've had more than my money's worth - I wanted something with a LOT of storage (I have an 80gig Classic) that had a lot of docks available for it - which is why I went for it. It's easy to use, does what I want it to and has survived being dropped several times - I'm the sort of person who uses bounceability as a criteria for picking mobile phones.

Fucking hate iTunes as a piece of software though - and the obsession with putting i in front of everything as a wanko product name.

I am a bit of an iPod devotee.... I bought my iPod mini in Jan 2005, and it's still going strong! I listen to it up to 4 hours a day on my commute, and it's been droped, stood on, soaked, and somehow is still going strong. I reckon I've had my money's worth out of it!
Oh, but hate hate hate iTunes too!

You can attach any mp3 player to any speakers with an earphone jack. To the mp3 player they're no different to headphones. I use PC speakers. The flashy dock things are a bit of a waste of time IMO. Or you could just do what my Nan did when the wireless first came out and put the headphones in a bowl to amplify the sound.

iPods are expensive but Apple by all accounts offer exceptional customer service. They replaced my knackered iPod with a brand new one for free after I dropped it on the floor and I have heard similar stories from lots of people.

Thanks all, I like the look of the creative zen stuff and will go to Currys/Comet later on the hope that a sales assistant half my age will take pity on me knowledgable and non-patronising sales assistant will clearly explain the options.

We got an amazing dock from Costco, if you have a card or can find a willing stranger at the door friend to get you in?

Its an Intempo, and it has 30w per channel and a 15w subwoofer....it can make the pictures on the wall shake, I kid you not! I use it with my ipod classic, but it had adapters to fit most variants.....

Aworryingtrend - You might not need an MP3 player or docking station at all. If you don't care about portability and already have a computer and a stereo with auxiliary in, you probably just need to run a cable from the headphones socket of your computer to your stereo and play everything from the computer instead.

Cable should cost you less than £5.

PS yes - at 28 YABU to be so out of touch how are you going to help your kids with their nursery school homework, it'll need way more technology skills than this.

I would agree with suchprospects . I have my ipod because I walk/bus everywhere, but otherwise we use the computer at home. Laptop with a decent set of speakers fits the bill fine for us, only problem is no remote but we find with playlists we dont miss it at all.

At 28 years I would have thought you would have mad IT skillz

Buy an iPod and you will be able to do all the things you describe very easily with iTunes. Buy something else and it's not so straightforward.

Start by just using iTunes to rip your CDs.