Portable MP3 players

[Fly320s]

These things rock.  Yeah, I know that I'm getting to the party late, but here I am.

My wife bought me a Rio Surge player for my birthday.  It has 256meg on board expandable to 1 gig using flash cards.  It came with a 30 day free trial with unlimited downloads at Napster.  I've been downloading songs for about an hour now.  I have about 50 or so.  I love high-speed internet.

After I finish my free trial period with Napster are they worth the money to continue using?  Are other sources better?  I hear that even Wal-Mart has MP3s for download.  

Any other tips or tricks for these neophyte?

[Dannyboy]

I recently bought a 20GB iPod.  I wish I had had one of these things when I was in the Army.  It's the best purchase I have made in a long time.  I don't even deal with Napster or iTunes.  They don't have much of anything I like plus I can get most of what I like for free from the record label websites.

[bratch]

I have a 40 Gig Creative that I love.

I was trying to sign up for Napster but cant get it to stay open it errors almost instantly and shuts down.

The Napster seems like the deal  to me though $15 unlimited instead of .99 per song.

[DigMe]

Napster has it's advantages and disadvantages.  The primary disadvantage is that if you cancel your subscription or they go out of business the mp3s will no longer work.  Basically you're "renting" music with napster unless you pay a  separate fee to actually buy songs that you can burn or do what you want with and keep forever.  

Fly320s,

What kind of music do you like?  If you join www.emusic.com you can ge 50 free mp3s with their trial membership.  You have to give them your credit card number but they are legit.  I joined, downloaded my free 50 mp3s and cancelled.  It's affiliated with allmusic.com which is a solid organization.  The only thing is they are heavily focused on artists on independent labels so it might not be ideal for you if you are into more mainstream stuff.  You could look around their catalogs for a while without joining and see if you're interested.  At the very least, if you can't find music you like then you should join and download all the tracks from Brian Regan's live comedy album!

brad cook

[bratch]

Wow I didnt knwo that about the napster deal.  Thanks for the heads up.

[TarpleyG]

I bought a lifetime music download at iMusicSearch.com for $28.  It uses Limewire file sharing and has been great thus far.  Just another option to look at.

Greg

[DigMe]

I bought a lifetime music download at iMusicSearch.com for $28.  It uses Limewire file sharing and has been great thus far.  Just another option to look at.

Greg

SOrry to tell you but you been ripped off, my friend.  imusicsearch just gave you some software to access the same p2p file-sharing networks that you could have accessed for free.  Limewire software is free.  However, all that music you're downloading is pirated.  Yup...it's just typical file-sharing so no matter what imusicsearch tells you it's no different than just downloading music from kazaa or winmx or something.  The artists are getting no royalties.  If it sounds too good to be true then it usually is.

brad cook

[Fly320s]

Thanks for the info, gents.

I'll have to check in to the Napster issue.  Though it seems to me that they should still work since they are saved as WMA files and that I don't use Napster to play the files.

[DigMe]

Thanks for the info, gents.

I'll have to check in to the Napster issue.  Though it seems to me that they should still work since they are saved as WMA files and that I don't use Napster to play the files.

It doesn't matter.  IF you download the files from Napster's monthly fee thing they WILL NOT PLAY if you don't sync your mp3 player once a month or if you cancel.  It doesn't matter that you don't use napster to play the files.

brad cook