mp3 players for dummies

[LMNOP]

Little help, please.

So I'm looking at mp3 players and I don't have a great need for one but, you know, there's a ton of them out there for pretty cheap so maybe we need one for workout music or somesuch (and, hey, I'm up to a grand total of zero Christmas gifts bought for the missus so far). However, I haven't had a home computer go belly up in a while and they still do what I need them to do so I'm working on Windows98.

Questions:

1) Any ad that has any amount of detail says that W2000SE is a minimum requirement. If I just want to take mp3's from a computer to the player, is that true? I mean, is the player completely useless if I can't use their software?

2) Few ads mention shuffle. Is that because it's a rare function or such a common feature that it doesn't need to be mentioned?

3) Answers to the above notwithstanding, let's assume I still want one. Recommendations? Brands to avoid? I guess I have it in my head that I can get a 1G for like $150 or less. And I want it to shuffle.

Thanks,
Paul

[HeuristicsInc]

i think shuffle's pretty darn expected.
if you don't mind mechanical parts, you can get a cd diskman that plays mp3s. that requires only cd burning software... mine is called "soul".
-bill

[Adam!]

If you're looking at an iPod variety mp3 player you'll have to install iTunes to use it (easily), so yeah, you're probably going to need a newer OS than 98. If you can run iTunes now, then you'll be fine.

I like my Creative MuVo TxFm, which comes in a 1 Gig flavor and can almost definitely be had for under $150.

All new MP3 players will shuffle, except for the iPod Shuffle. That one doesn't.

[blue]

both apple and sony require crappy programs to get your music onto the player, and won't allow you to just drag songs on and listen to them.

really annoying.

[fluffy]

LONG RAMBLE YOU SHOULD PROBABLY SKIP IF YOU JUST WANT A <a href="#shut-up-fluffy">SIMPLE ANSWER</a>

You can drag songs directly to a mounted iPod in iTunes, at least on the Mac. (You drag the song to the iPod's playlist entry, not to the drive itself.)

I personally like iPod the best. Its interface used to be kind of bland but was still better than all the others, and it's always improving with every firmware update (which happens every few months), and the current user interface on my 3G iPod is rather different (and much better) than the one it came with. It's also the only portable mp3 interface I can stand, personally.

Unfortunately, iTunes for Windows is pretty assy. (The Mac version is a lot better; iTunes is very much designed for Mac, and it doesn't translate to Windows very well.) There's third-party things which can load stuff onto an iPod though, like MusicMatch or a few opensource apps, but if you just want a simple plain-jane mp3 player, just get any of the standard flash-based players which come in boxes of cereal or whatever. iRiver ones are apparently very good, but really most of them are pretty much the same except iPod and the various Creative Labs things, which I hate since their user interface is like a bizarro-universe version of the iPod.

gizmodo.com often posts about every new portable mp3 player on the market, usually in the <a href="http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/">portable media</a> tag.

Also, most of them don't require Windows 2000 (BTW there's no such thing as 2000 SE) to load music on unless you want to use their playlist manager. If you just want to put mp3s on you can usually just use the player like an external drive.

<a name="shut-up-fluffy"></a>SIMPLE ANSWER

But yeah, like, if you don't want to upgrade your system past Win'98, just get whatever cheap flash-based player has enough storage to hold all the music you want to listen to at any given time.

[deshead]

Any ad that has any amount of detail says that W2000SE is a minimum requirement. If I just want to take mp3's from a computer to the player, is that true? I mean, is the player completely useless if I can't use their software?

I'd be wary of companies that publish "Windows 2000 SE" as a requirement, 'cause as fluffy mentioned, there's no such thing.

They problably mean Windows 98 SE ... And yes, it is an absolute requirement, regardless of which software you use, because earlier versions of Windows don't have proper USB support.

Answers to the above notwithstanding, let's assume I still want one. Recommendations? Brands to avoid? I guess I have it in my head that I can get a 1G for like $150 or less.

I'll second Puce's recommendation of the MuVo. I love mine (1Gb unit.)

That said, anyone I know who owns an iPod (proper, not shuffle,) wouldn't trade it for anything, even the Windows users.

[boltoph]

anyone I know who owns an iPod (proper, not shuffle,) wouldn't trade it for anything, even the Windows users.

Yeah man! That's right. I got a 20GB iPod comin' my way. The fat one. Eff that skinny thing. I bet the skinny one breaks within two years of purchase.

[jb]

I have totally given in to iTunes. I let it organize, rename, whatever. I import songs I download from other sources, and just let it do what it does. And I'm happy with that, because I don't have to think about it.

It's not perfect, and there are a couple things I want them to fix, but for the most part I enjoy its simplicity and dependability (I find it to be both of those things).

[blue]

You can drag songs directly to a mounted iPod in iTunes, at least on the Mac. (You drag the song to the iPod's playlist entry, not to the drive itself.)

directly to itunes, but not directly to the device. i mean, you can, but they won't play, and that is freakin' annoying.

[Calfborg]

I use the iPod plugin for Winamp instead of iTunes. It's very nice.

[Kamakura]

I have a 500mb USB storage stick that doubles as an mp3 player, audio recorder and FM radio. It cost £25 which is I guess about $35 or so. It's great and has never let me down: Yet. It doesn't shuffle.
Who really needs shuffle? An album should be listened to in track order, otherwise it's not an album; just a haphazard collection of songs.

[HeuristicsInc]

i'm annoyed at itunes in the pc, because it steals my wav files and won't let me tell it not to.
-bill