Well, my 15 yo son wants a new mp3 player for Christmas and I have no idea what is what on all the different models out there. Since I know this forum is full of young, hip, electronic savy individuals, I thought I would see what the consensus was here. Thanks for all your input. Oh yeah...there is a budget!! around $200, but tell me what you think if there wasn't.

 

Get him an Ipod Nano..they're like $150 or something.

 

Agreed, I'd suggest the Ipod Nano that holds 8GB also. Goes for $150.

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

 

I have to agree the ipod is one of the best out there. How into gadgets is your son? if all he wants is an mp3 player the nano would be great. the ipod touch is basically an iphone without the phone. it runs all the same programs and has wifi for internet access, but it only has 8GB on the base 229$ model. if he really needs a ton of storage. the classic ipod would be the way to go.

 

thanks. He actually needs a ton of storage. He's got a butt load of music and pics, he said he needs at least 16. He mentioned the ipod touch but but when we saw the price, he decided he could live with something a little more economical.

 

+1 on the nano

 

Yeah, if not the nano maybe Zune? It's microsofts version of the iPod. I think the Zune 16 is like $180...holds 4,000 songs and it's also got a built in radio tuner like the iTrip but higher quality and it's built in.

 

My vote goes for the Creative Zen.. it is about the size of a credit card of course a bit thicker with expandable memory.

you can get em in 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 gig, they play all formats, they play videos, they do photos and stuff, they do pretty much everything. They have a large screen, excellent audio quality, plus, they are expandable with SD memory cards.

so you can get him an 8 gig for about 100 bucks, then get another 8 gig SD card and that plugs right in the top. The only issue i guess is MP3's on the SD card do not integrate with the plasylists, however he can fill the internal memory with 8 gigs of music and do videos and pics on the SD card.

also, the SD cards are already available in 32 gig, which means this thing is pretty expandable.

personally i dont like Ipods. i think they are clumsy, a pain in the *** to use, thier software sucks (itunes for FTL) and overpriced.

The Ipod Touches on the other hand are about the coolest damn things to hit the market in a very long time.

you can find these on Amazon.com for a very reasonable price.

 

Thanks, I checked this out and it seems like just what I'm looking for, which means the teenager will hate it. Hope to convince him, it's just what he wants.

 

why not a classic ipod? I just got a classic ipod with 80 gigs for cheap. it's pretty time tested, it works, it plays videos and it has a **** ton of room.



you can get em for like 180 bucks.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...ult#ps-sellers

 

Classic Ipod will be great, watching vidoe on the bigger screen is alot better and once he starts putting vidoe on it that 16GB would fill up fast.

 

As predicted he did not like the zen, even though it had a bigger screen, more memory and lower price. It didn't have a touch screen. He is willing to go down in memory in order to get something with a touch screen. I guess it's about having the latest and greatest mod for mp3's. Just very frustrating for me. If I could have gotten another teenager to suggest it, he might have liked it. But because it was his MOM, he won't be caught dead with it. Can't wait til he has a teenager.

 

i guess Ipod touch is all that is really out there that fits what he is looking for.

I bought my wife one and i havent had a decent conversation with her since. all she does is curl up on the couch and play games on it.

The ipod touch is definatly one hell of a device, they can be had for roughly 200 for the 8 gig version. With that he will have 8 gigs for MP3/videos, internet browsing, countless apps and such.

There are some cheap chinese knockoffs of the touch for dirt cheap that apparently work pretty well, i dont know of any others with touchscreens though.

I really do like the Ipod touch, but im hoping for the Zen for xmas myself. It is a bit more flexable in the ways i need flaxability.

plus once that 32 gig SDHC card comes down in price i can up the storage to damn near 40 gigs. lol

 

The touch is great if you want more than music and video. Being able to get on any wifi connection is great. Also he can get an app that will dyno your car and stuff like that! It's a win win situation.

 

Ugh. I hate spoiled teenagers with their stupid Mp3 equipment. I had a creative zen vision M, and That was problably the best mp3 player ever. It broke after a year and a half, which was really disapointing. ANYWAY, *grabs iphone and Ipod classic*

Tell him he can put whateverhe wants on the zen, not only is it a portable music player, but it's basically a 32 gb harddrive to tote any information around he wants. Other than that, you absolutely cannot go wrong with an ipod.

 

My personal vote goes for the IPOD nano. You can get the 16 gb version for 200. OR, if you can still find one of the older models, you can get an 8 gb version of it for 100. That's what I did.

 

Thanks for the input. And I have to say, my son is not spoiled. He does have a lot of stuff that I didn't have but he also has to work for it. He is required to do a long list of chores around the house, babysit, and maintain an A/B average.

He is getting a new mp3 for Christmas, because his was stolen due to his negiligence and I refused to replace it for him until now.

Not all teens with stuff are spoiled.

 

The way dodobird explained the zen is a lot like the ipod, actually. I have the 30gb ipod classic (3rd gen) and I've used it for everything. You can place files on the ipod and transfer the file through computers with the computer charger/sync cord. I've had a maximum of 11 full length movies in good quality on there, 400 songs (can hold TONS more..I just don't know that many), 300 photos, and when I needed to transfer my old 3ds max file I had it on there too and that was close to 9 gigs worth of stuff and I still had tons of space.

 

This new one from sandisk is badass. It has a color screen and lots of memory and you can get ones with even more memory if you need that and its cheap.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...gtCjCVRqCjCVRq

 

i have the creative zen photo and let me tell you does it suck.

3 of them broke before this one!!! and they run like ****, i would get a I pod or some thing if i were you.