Hey everyone, since I don't consider myself a member of the "ipod" generation (more like the walkman generation), I don't know much about the advantages or dis-advantages of what's out there.

So, I want something something simple, cheap as possible but dockable on one of those clock radio looking things without having to plug in an extra cable. You know, just place the device on top of the speaker thing...

This will be mainly used for playing music during dog walks or working out at the gym.

Thanks for your help!

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

Aw, go ahead and give in, Evan. Get an I Pod. I have one and every piece of recorded music I own is on that sucker. It doesn't matter what I feel like listening to, it's there. Right there in my shirt pocket!

__________________
" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

iPod...

If you walk into a best buy store, I think that Sandisk has a line of MP3 players called "Sansa", and you can get a dock for one of those- there might be others- I'd go this route but the only apple I've loved was a //e =) All of these devices come in a range of sizes, memory capacities and colors- walk through best buy once just to see whats out there.

Retail-wise - you will usually pay more for a device that has an apple logo on it. Savvy shopping may negate this though. You normally get a slicker interface (ipods have the wheel thing) but for just listening to music...I've never missed a wheel on my $20 creative micro mp3 player.

All of these devices normally work pretty easy, you USB plug them into your computer, and copy/move the .mp3 files from your HD to the device (it shows up as a drive on your computer).
...as long as they are all MP3's...more on this later.

Batteries- most of these have internal batteries that get reharged via your USB port. my cheap/old model runs on 1 AAA battery (which lasts a good 3-8 hours of play time- depending on where I put the volume. the non-alkaline-battery-powered units should have better battery life, but I find that I forget to recharge it, so being able to swap out batteries is nice.
something to think about if you dont plan on plugging this into your computer every so often.

If you already have an itunes account, you might want to actually buy an ipod of some style, or convert your M4p's (itunes native protected file format) to MP3's - which is not a 1 step process (I'd just burn them to a music CD, and then re-rip the music cd into mp3 or wma format using Nero or windoze media bloatware...)

Itunes has historically been slightly buggy when installed on windows, but I think they've fixed most of that by now. - it does take forever to load which turns me off. I do keep it because it lets me buy one song at a time legally, but I otherwise never use it- things like VLC media player (videolan.org) or nero (came with my DVD burner) do all the converting, burning and file fussing I need.

You wont **need** itunes if you have an ipod, but it'll be easier to shuffle music around if you have it (itunes is always a free download from apple)

the biggest question is - where is all your music now ? if its in itunes, get an ipod- easiest to integrate-just hunt CL for deals. If not, you might save some money buying non-apple, but you'll need to learn a new piece of software or 2 (do you have a lot of old-school CD's that you want to rip - or is all your music already in .mp3 format ?

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

iPod.

Apple has such a huge market penetration in the portable music storage arena, that it takes an additional amount of effort to utilize non-iPod units for most applications.

If you already have iTunes, it's a no-brainer.

Just traded my 07 ML for an 09, and noticed that even MB joined the foray!! The 07 simply came with a mini stereo connection in the glovebox for an auxiliary audio device, while the 09 included an iPod interface!

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

ipods suck if you want to share music or get music off two computers. Plus itunes is kind of a ripoff ciompared to downloading songs off Amazon.

__________________
1984 300TD

Thank you all for the great information!

I don't currently have iTunes and 99% of my music is on CD with a couple of /mp3's from Amazon. I don't mind ripping CD's down to .mp3's.

What I envision is smiply having something that will hook to the computer, show up as a hard drive and then I can drag the files onto it. I'd rather not have something fully automated which is a complaint that I've had with Apple almost since their inception.

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

well then any mp3 player will work. I have a sansa and its pretty good.

__________________
1984 300SD Orient Red/ Palomino
1989 560SEC
2016 Mazda 6 6 speed manual
1995 Ford F-150 reg cab 4.9 5speed manual

G-Benz gave me a walkman last year. Would you like it?

__________________
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

New iPods, likely the Touch and Nano, should be announced at the keynote speech tomorrow in S.F. and likely mark the return of Mr. Jobs to the podium.

Smartphone. Consolidate what you have stuffed in your pocket

Any blackberry, Palm OS, and windows mobile phone will play music.

My blackberry has an 8gb microsd card in it. Eventually I am looking to upgrade that to 16gb

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SDSDQ-016G-A11M-Sandisk-16GB-Microsd/dp/B001F6YRNO/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1252443914&sr=8-15

Using your smartphone is a no brainer. I also use bluetooth headphones. I will never ever use another wired headset again!

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-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

Agree with the Smartphone.

Kill 2 birds with one stone.

I've had my Windows mobile phone 7+ years(this is my second), had music, phone etc all on one device. Easy sync to the PC, doesn't dock to a speaker device, but I've never needed that.

And the Blue tooth headphones are nice too.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

iPod or iPhone.

__________________
08 W251 R350
97 W210 E320
91 W124 300E
86 W126 560SEL
85 W126 380SE Silver
85 W126 380SE Cranberry
79 W123 250
78 W123 280E
75 W114 280

The best bluetooth headphones I have owned to date are the Motorola HT820s. Comfortable wrap arounds. I own two

__________________
-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

I already have a LG Chocolate so I'm covered in that respect. The player is primarily for the GF...

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250