Is one really better than the other? I was thinking of one for my 10 year old. She’d mostly use it for audio books and other stories. She’s not so much into music but might put some on it. I want something with a screen so she can see what she is choosing. Thanks
I bought a Coby MP3 player about 2 years ago…..8 GB for $40 – nice and cheap. It worked fine until recently when the screen went wonky on it. It was the handiest thing for keeping in my girls’ bedroom – I had stories, audio books, and songs on it. Now that the screen went wonky, it’s very hard to manipulate it and get the song/story you want to start to play, so I’m also interested in hearing what others recommend.
The worst thing with the Coby was that it was hard to organize things. It had it’s own idea about how things should be “filed”. So I might find Adventures in Odyssey in with my classical music….I tried using the Coby program to move things and the Media Player on my computer – neither worked very well. I ended up just living with it and putting things in “favorites”- which I could do on the player itself.
I was debating this too recently. I don’t want to hand over my iPod for audio books during rest time because it turns into game playing time. I also checked out mp3 players but was wavering because I sometimes want both kids to be able to listen at the same time and I think most mp3 players just have a phone jack or not super great speakers. As luck would have it my dh got a new smartphone and didn’t really need his old tablet anymore. It has great speakers so I’ve since confiscated it for audio books. It has a kindle app on it so I could put some books on it as well. It still has the games and an Internet connection but I’m working around those things since it was free. 😉
I know that really doesn’t answer your question but thought I would share anyway.
One way to think about it is that in iPod is an mp3 player plus more. It will play music and audiobooks, run apps, keep a calendar, do e-mail, allow you to read e-books, etc. And it can get on the web (for good or bad).
Is an iPod worth the money? I’d hate to keep a nearly $200 piece of electronics in the same bedroom as an 8yo and 6yo!!! But it’s a pain to have to replace a $40 mp3 player every other year, too.
Would the touch screen on an iPod last longer than my $40 Coby did?
My DD doesn’t need all the other functions of the ipod. We just want audio books and files. But, I don’t want something that is just going to have to be replaced all the time either.
So, is the mp3 player (Coby, SanDisk, Sony, etc) quality enough or are they just going to break and I’ll wish I had something else?
Are the nano’s the ones without touchscreens? How do you find the audio you want? I think it’s be awfully frustrating not to be able to “file” our stories & songs and then to have to scroll through everything to find what we want.
And can one buy an iPod that won’t go online? We don’t have wireless in our house (yet) so maybe that’s not an issue (yet). But I wouldn’t want games or anything other than stories and music for the children to access.
The only ipod that has internet and apps is the ipod touch.
Here is the iPod Nano that my kids have. It does have a touch screen and is very easy to use. The videos and photos are what you choose to load. Ours have none except on long plane trips, I may add one movie via iTunes. It is used for music and audiobooks only.