Tuesday, May 29, 2007

To ipod or not to ipod

I somehow managed to break my .mp3 player this weekend. It still works -- for now -- but I can't change the volume. The good news is that playing the new Maroon 5 CD really loud is really motivational at the gym. (Not so much for The New Pornographers or Ryan Adams. But I digress.)

So, now I need to make a decision -- iPod or not. Last time, Justin convinced me to go with the non-iPod -- and then he bought an iPod -- but now he's come full circle.

But I think I might have come full circle on this too. Over the winter, I ripped all my music -- as of today, 11475 songs, or 43.79 GB -- onto a portable hard drive. And while that works fine with Windows Media Player, let's face it, buying digital music through iTunes is now the standard. Plus, there's a size issue -- everything I own could easily fit it all on an 80GB iPod. Or I could get a nano, preferably one of the (Product) Red ones.

Of course, I could just get another Rio. I really liked my old one, plus, it's cheaper than an equivalent iPod. But that's probably true for a lot of the non-iPod .mp3 players -- most of which I know nothing about.

Then again, do I really need a new .mp3 player at all? I mean, this still works well enough for the gym, at least for the time being. Plus, I have the Motorola SLVR, which works with iTunes (it holds 100 songs), and which I use on my very short commute. In a worst-case scenario, I could just start taking it to the gym.

Decisions, decisions.


9 comments:

ChezWhat said...

Hey, Dara! Blakely told me about your blog. I have an ipod and almost never use it -- can't figure out how to easily switch music on and off of it, prefer listening to Pandora or XPN on my computer or NPR when I'm in the car anyway. I will say the major advantage of ipods is the accessories you can get for them. We have a thing that plugs it into your TV so you can play it like a stereo for parties. Which brings up the "it's hard to switch out the music" issue: it was still loaded with our Christmas music in May.

I said...

I like my Sansa. It looks like the mini IPOD, but it's cheapear and has can record vioce like the Rio plus it also has a radio tuner and vedio and picture viewing capacity.

mad said...

Whatever you decide to get, iPod or something else, get the biggest capacity available. I didn't when I bought an iPod and I regret not spending the extra dough.

dara said...

Tivey: I was wondering who was visiting from uscourts.gov.! I mostly listen to the radio in the car, but I don't drive that much. I need something for my commute on the metro, for the gym, and for travel.

If I get a big enough iPod, I won't have to worry about switching music -- it'll hold everything.

I: I'll have to look into the Sansa. One of my early players was a Rio Sport that only held about 40 songs, but it had a radio tuner. That's a feature I've been missing.

Mad: I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand, I can get something between 4-8 GB, and load a few hundred of my favorite songs, and, as long as it's easy to change, I can alternate other stuff whenever I'm in the mood. On the other hand, I could just get something gigantic and copy the whole portable disk drive onto it. That way, I have everything and can just listen to whatever random thing I'm in the mood for.

Malnurtured Snay said...

Just dig your discman out of the closet and burn a CD!

honeykbee said...

Alls I can say is that I love my mini. Takes a lickin and keeps on tickin.

Anonymous said...

you could always try the Zune

CBK said...

Samsung makes some good stuff, with FM tuners and a recorder. I'm not sure how big their max memory is, but I recommend checking the out.

dara said...

Malnurtured Snay: Despite my ever-increasing love of the mix cd, my discman has long since departed this world. I do, however, still have a walkman -- and some cassette tapes to go with it.

Honeykbee: The Nano is what the Mini used to be right?

Madame: I was intrigued by the Zune for about 10 minutes, but then I had this revelation -- Microsoft:Apple = Windows Media Player:iTunes = Zune:iPod. Plus, the Zune is no cheaper than the iPod. If I'm going to spend all that money, I want it to work with iTunes.

CBK: I'll look in to that, too.