This past Wednesday my Sansa E280 MP3 player gave up the ghost, so I set out to find a replacement. The E280 was an 8GB player and I wanted something at least as big since I had nearly 7GB of music on it. I was wandering through SAM's Club when I spotted just what I was looking for. IPods!!! WoooHooo. They had the Ipod Nano in both 8GB and 16GB versions. The only drawback to the 16GB player is that it was only available in black. I can live with that.
Upon arriving home with my new toy, I unpacked it plugged it in and opened the instructions to begin downloading my music. There are virtually no instructions for this thing! There is a little fold out brochure with a few basic pictures on it. It doesn't really even tell you what they mean by eject the machine before disconnecting the chord from the player. Apple pretty much leaves it up to you to figure out how this thing works. I guess the assumption is that only 20 something techies buy these things and they already know everything there is to know about IPods! It never occurred to them that someone about to qualify for Medicare would ever purchase one and actually want to use it or would appreciate some well written instructions.
Sooooo, I went to the Apple website where you have to download ITunes and it automatically registers your player and sychnronizes your music from your Windows Media Player. I'm not that thrilled with having another media player software on my laptop, but I'll get over it. I do like the player and I already have over 800 tunes down loaded, with more to come. Since it looks like I may be doing more traveling next year, this is going to come in very handy on the plane and in the airports. I haven't attempted to download any of the grandcrew's photos for my viewing pleasure. The screen really seems a little small for that. If I really wanted photo/video capability, I would have bought the 120GB IPond touch. I just wish the instructions were more complete. I really do read them.
Post Script:
Okay, I'm not a real happy camper!!! Downloading ITunes has disabled my dvd drive! It happened on my desktop and my laptop. A little Google search has revealed that this is not an uncommon problem. So, unless one of you has a solution, this little piece of technology may be going back for a refund.
Friday, October 31, 2008
New Tunes!
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6 comments:
We bought our granddaughter the IPod and I have an MP3. I use mine for my daily walk. I just love to walk and listen to my music. Enjoy. Have a great day and weekend. Big hug. :)
I purchased an 8GB Sansa Fuze earlier this year and have been very pleased with it. A few years ago, I stopped buying CD's and simply decided to pay Rhapsody $12 per month for unlimited access to their huge music library. I was spending more than that on CD's every month anyway, so it has been a great trade off (and also introduced me to a lot of music I might have never listened to if I'd had to buy it first... they way their service works, you can 'surf' within music genres much like you 'surf' the web).
Anyway, the Fuze works with Rhapsody's software so that you can download your playlists to the Fuze and then, as long as you synch it up with Rhapsody's service once a month, you can take all your Rhapsody tunes with you, which, for me,is just as good as owning them outright.
Anyway, I haven't talked to many other people who've bought in to the whole 'subscription service' method of consuming music, so thought I'd offer up my two cents.
Congratulations on your new player. I have an 80gig Ipod myself. I really enjoy it.
But my Ipod did come with instructions. Glad you didn't have too much trouble figuring it out.
Sandee: I like the way mine works, but there is apparently a software issue.
Eric: I may return to Sansa if I don't get this thing worked out. I don't purchase enough music to make a subscription worthwhile, but I would like to add more of my own collection to the mix.
Travis: I'm sure you had better luck than I am currently having.
I have never heard of this problem before.
I found this manual online...Not sure it is the one your found.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_4th_gen_UserGuide.pdf
How exactly did it disable your DVD?
If you want to send me an email about this, please do.
yoursbond@yahoo.com
Well, I am with you on the whole "I need instructions" thing, and iPods from Sam's don't really come with much. Fortunately my son helped with the info, but we didn't have any trouble with the DVD player--I'm not sure we even have that?? They do seem to be pretty good about tech support, though. Shoot them an email before you give up your new toy. I mean, really! Life before iPod was pretty cumbersome!
tm
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