What are my options for an MP3 player for DD (7)?

[emilyprentiss]

My DD is going to be 7 soon. She's asked for a CD player for her birthday.

However, I think that really, an MP3 player would be a better thing to buy her - can use it on the move, download audiobooks, no CDs lying around waiting to be trodden on etc.

I'm not very clued up about these things, and so I wondered what my options are. We're an entirely Apple household, and all the music we currently have downloaded (and there's a LOT, including all the tracks for her dance classes) are in iTunes on my Apple desktop.

I'm prepared to spend up to about £100 although obviously if there were cheaper options, that would be a complete bonus.

The iPod Shuffle probably isn't an option as I think the shuffley nature of it would drive her crazy, she'll want to find specific tracks and play them.

And whilst she's probably the most sensible 7 year old you could hope to meet, obviously she is still a child, so I'd welcome advice about more child-proof options.

Many thanks in advance.

I'm sure there are people who will come on here and point out that iPods aren't the best value, but for ease of use, given that your music is already in iTunes, it can't be beaten. The shuffle isn't that bad actually as you don't need to shuffle the tracks- you can play them in the order they're in, and skip till you get to the one you want, but if you feel you can stretch to the Nano that would be lovely.

But if you don't mind figuring out how to export from iTunes for another device, get a Creative Zen- they are well specified and good value.

As well as the value for money question, some items are simply more of a target for theft, so I suppose it depends on whether friends already have something like the Shuffle or Nano.

I did look at the Nano (8 GB at prices from about 70 pounds) and the Zen MX (16GB + SD at about 60 pounds) but also saw a player with 4 GB at about a tenner. I know it's perhaps not as 'easy to use' as an Apple player, but at the price one could get a second and store away just in case of loss/theft. Very different to being able to purchase a second Apple player 'just in case'.

Have also seen an Android tablet at under US$ 150, which suggests that one could buy 3 or 4 for the price of the cheapest iPad.

The main thing is to check for Mac compatibility. Also presuming that you live in Apple land check if the gadget can play AAC (MP4) files. That will be the default format that iTunes will copy a CD in. You can convert pretty easily from AAC to MP3 using iTunes, but it does add to the fiddliness.

Also if you bought any music from the iTunes store a few years ago it will be locked. I can't quite remember when that changed but now they will be fine. To see if this is going to be an issue right click on the music you've bought and look for the "Kind" field on the summary tab. It will either say "Protected AAC" or "Purchased AAC". If it's "Protected" then it will only play on an iPod. There are ways of getting "Protected" files to play on machines other than iPods but it's fiddlier still than AAC to MP3 conversion.

Yes iPods and iTunes are very easy to use together, however other MP3 players can be really pretty simple too. Some of them you plug in and they appear like memory sticks. So it will be there on your desktop, open it up and drag the music you want onto it straight from iTunes.

However some will need their own special management software. I owned a Zen years ago and that was like that, but as said that was years ago so maybe things have changed for the better. Getting tunes onto them can be a bit more complicated but it's still not impossible.

this is all really helpful stuff, thank you very much.

I shall go away and research the other options, but I'm beginning to suspect we'll end up with the iPod nano. DD won't give a monkey's whether it's an Apple one or not, but I can see the fiddliness of file conversion / transfer putting me off.

Thanks again

Depending on the "distance" from iTunes to your MP3 player it could be as simple as dragging the files into the player in Finder to something as "nasty" as having to burn tracks to CD, re-import them, copy them to a location on disk, import them into the player's managerment software and then copy onto the player.

It all depends on exactly what player you go for.

So don't discount it, but do choose carefully.

There are plenty of MP3 players on the market and plenty of conversion software for all kinds of things.

You could get a Creative or a cheap thing from Ebuyer.

I have 3 Creative players a Nano plus, a zen vision M and a Stone.

I don't understand why everyone has iTunes or MP3 the best file format is the criminally over looked ogg.

Ebay have zillions of Ipod Nanos for sale..mostly 3rd and 4th gen ones. Most start at about £5 and end at about £40/£50 so way cheaper than new one.

I have a Creative Zen and it's dead easy to transfer music files from my external hard drive to it, but I confess I havent tried to load it up from iTunes yet.....

I got my dds both a £6.99 one from currys and glad I did as they have both gone awol after a couple of months. Would have hit the bottle roof if I'd paid a lot of money

If you want her to be able to do it herself from your main music library i would go with an ipod for ease!

this is a good one. At that age I'd get her something like this to save wear and tear on the eardrums.

Ryoko - perhaps MP3 caught on so widely because over 10 years ago there was MusicMatch Juke Box (as a versatile player) and WinAmp to 'rip' CDs.

Both were free. I had them recommended to me by some guys setting up radio station advertising systems (transfer of advertising sound clips for national campaigns on commercial radio, and placing them in the stations playing schedule) when I was involved with IT support for a station prior to it going live.

WinAmp had at least 5 years lead on Ogg, perhaps as many as 10 years, and was on CD covers etc. Lots of Windows XP users would have had it from day 1, at the time when machines started to have 20 and 40 GB of storage.

Whether Ogg is technically better than MP3 I don't know - but with so many formats to choose from, and the majority of players (and now mobile phones) being capable of playing MP3s without any hassle, it's surely no wonder MP3 is a very popular format.

Thanks for the link MM - I was after a player with SD facility and the 8 GB model for 4 pounds more looks ideal.

Having radio in it is a bonus (I had been expecting to have to give that up if I swapped from my existing player - 18 months old and only cost a tenner, but only stores 1 GB of audio/data).

For the interest of the original poster that SanDisk Sansa Clip player doesn't support MP4(AAC) files.

So presuming that you're using iTunes on a Mac and haven't changed the default import format or are buying things from the store then as a default they're not going to work on the player.

It really is pretty simple to convert the music files to MP3 format but it is an extra bit of faffing you'll have to go through and a lot more files to manage on your computer. But in return you do get a decent player at a good price.