Ipod & ipod dock recommendations please...

[ovumahead]

Hi all

I'm a bit of an impulsive div when it comes to purchasing new electronic things, and would really appreciate some help and advice on getting an ipod and an ipod dock.

Or something similar. I'm not fussed about ipod as a thing in itself, but it seems they're the market leaders in a lot of these things. Would be happy with any other mp3 player really, but it has to be very very easy to use as I'm impatient and a bit thick. I had a Zen Creative mp3 player for a while and never got on with the software.

It's for our bedroom which isn't very big, but I do want something that's got good quality powerful speakers in case it migrates to the living room.

any suggestions? (The cheaper the better - £200 max for everything)

Thanks people!

Was thinking of something like this and this

We've got an iPod classic as it has enough space to store all the music we could possibly want to listen to for the rest of our lives. In our bedroom we have a Pure Chronos DAB and CD player but there is a version with an iPod dock instead of the CD player. It sounds good and gets very good reviews.

In the dining room we have a Revo Domino D3 which has DAB, internet radio and an iPod dock. Again, it sounds great and has amazing bass for such a small unit. If internet radio isn't your thing then there's a version with just DAB and iPod dock.

That Panasonic isn't an iPod Dock. You can connect an iPod to it via the AUX input jack and a cable to the iPod's headphone jack. However that's not ideal for a few reasons. The sound quality won't be as good as a proper dock and you'll have to fiddle with the iPod to play what you want to play, the stereo will basically act as a big set of speakers.

Yes it does have USB socket, but iPods don't like playing that way, and they're not alone in that. The socket is really meant for people to copy music onto a USB memory stick and then plug it into the stereo. And to be honest with an iPod you're paying a premium for it's portability. If all you want this for is a bedroom then maybe it's easier to go with a "normal" stereo and a USB stick for some music.

To really work well with an iPod you want something that has an "iPod dock".

We have this one upstairs and it is very good value for money.

Get the biggest ipod you can afford in terms of GBs. We have a 8GB one and it does not hold half of our music.

Thanks all. DH is not keen on ipods because of the inability to synch music from more than one computer, and because he thinks apple are annoying...

Am interested in what you said badgers - can you really just stick music on a memory card and stick in into a stereo? If so, we want to do this!!! Do we just get a normal memory card (like for a digital camera) and a USB card reader?

"DH is not keen on ipods because of the inability to synch music from more than one computer"

You can sync from more than one computer to an iPod... It's easier if you manage your music manually but it's still possible, with limits, with an automatically managed iPod.

"can you really just stick music on a memory card and stick in into a stereo? If so, we want to do this!!! Do we just get a normal memory card (like for a digital camera) and a USB card reader?"

It depends on the stereo, the stereo above has a USB port and seems to accept USB Memory Sticks and USB friendly MP3 players that work in a certain fashion (which excludes iPods).

And if something says it's an ipod dock, will any mp3 player be able to fit?