iPods

I'm happy enough with my CD player, I have a nice enough puch to store the player and 32 discs and seeing as I avoid mp3 when possible I'd probably only use wavs and thus only fit a small part of my collection on one.

Plus the fact they cost far too much.

Yup, I have that too!! It is great! Every CD I own is right there with me all of the time when I am in my car.

Jim, do yourself a favor and get one. I just got one a few months ago, and I love it. Plus, it is great to bring to the gym.

are they stored on it as mp3s or is it real CD quality?

There are of course other brands of the same thing, which are generally much cheaper, so you should shop around first.

I think the 20gb iPods are around £200 now, 40gb ones are £250 or you can get Creative Zen 40gb ones for around £160 I think.

I'd rather get one of these Goodmans GPDR40 40GB Multi Function Personal...or I may get a PSP later in the year.

As CD quality WAV you can fit 100 minutes per GB I think, so on a 20GB one you could probably get 30 hours of CD quality music, and personally I don't know who needs more than that, lol, it's as much as 20-30 albums

They're MP3's.

As to WAV-files, they take about 10Mb per minute of CD-quality music. So you'd fit 102,4 minutes into a GB of space.

Other mp3/mediaplayers are worth watching, but the iPod is a lot easier to use than most others, although it doesn't have the extra functions some other players do.

Ice

I agree with Ice. Its the easability of the Apple Ipod which makes the model as attractive as what it is. They may not have other additional features that other mp3 players offer, but at the end of the day, you are buying a portable player because you wish to listen to music. Nothing else.

I have a 20GB Ipod and I love it. Like Sara, I dont go out the house without it. I have even taken to listening to it while I am at home. I can have it as loud as I want, and I dont get any hassle from annoying parents :P hehe.

The Apple Ipod GUI (Graphical User Interface) is much better than what I have seen on other mp3 players and if I was looking into purchasing a portable music player, then fair enough, shop around if you so wish, but I would definately reccommend the Ipod.

20GB fits 5000 tracks and a 40GB fits on average 10,000 tracks. As for quality, as long as you have 320kbps files, then I dont see why you would want/need CD quality songs. High range mp3's are pretty good. Personally I dont notice much difference and Iv noticed that on a number of songs, that using the Ipod earphones I have heard more sounds than on other earphones.

Definately recommended Jim.

Being into recording and playing Ice, do you notice a discernable difference between the stuff on a cd and on the Ipod?

i got the 20gb one summer last year and it's about three quarters full now. fantastic little thing, especially when you're doing a lot of travelling.

I have a Creative Nomad Zen Xtra 30Gb. It's not as pretty as the ipod and just a little bit bigger and heavier, but I believe it's a better deal. I think the ipod is a little overated and overpriced. The rechargeable battery is removable so you can just go to your electronics store and get a new one instead of having to send the ipod back and have to pay a fee to get it replaced. That is a big plus and its lasts about 10 hrs per charge. It can also be used as an external hardrive to store photos and files. The software is pretty easy to use. I have my whole cd collection stored and I still have almost 20gb left.
I am very happy with it and can't imagine living without it, especially on those loooggg car rides.

Amazon.com: Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra 30 GB...