8 GB Music Player that's PC/Mac Compatible

bigpanda

So my bro wants an MP3 player and seeing as his birthday is next week I thought I'd get him one. I'm going to place an order by Wednesday to make sure that he gets it in time.

His requirements:

at least 8 GB
Wants to rip his music collection (CD's/Vinyl)
both PC and Mac compatible
Would like to avoid the iPod
Under $250

He's on an anti-iPod stance right now because they're trendy and popular. I however, hold no disdain for them and have used them since the 3rd gen models. I haven't been able to find anything that seems to fit his criteria except the iPod, mostly because they're not Mac compatible. I'm still heavily considering getting him one anyway because I think he'll warm up to it once he's used it for a while. My only real concern is compatibility with things like windows audio files or iTunes audio files if he ends up buying a track from somebody using DRM. He said he's going to stick with CD's because the doesn't have to worry about it probably won't be that big of an issue.

So I'm looking for recommendations, pros/cons, past experiences. If you can provide a link to the product that would help as well.

Thanks in advance.

Chief1138

Not wanting an ipod because they are popular is pretty idiotic. They're popular for a reason: they are good MP3 players.

Vulpine

Anything that acts as a generic USB mass storage device should be fine so long as it's formatted in a way that makes it read/write on both Mac OS X and Windows. Without installing anything else, that pretty much limits you to formatting it as FAT32 (with all the limits this entails) but should make it work fine on both platforms.

thunderclump

Tell him his reason for not wanting an iPod is retarded.

As said above, they are good, and have earned their popularity partially because of it.

ben0207

Man, the iPod Nano would be perfect.

Your brother is retarded.

Error

Creative Zen Microphoto. It's old, there's better and newer models. But it's 8 gigs. Only 4 gigs are used for non music storage though.

bigpanda

Yeah, that's why I'm thinking an 8GB nano would be ideal. I might just go that route and let him find out for himself why i love my iPods. He had asked about the Zune but I told him not to waste his money on that.

I'll probably talk w/ my parents and make sure they're not getting him one already just to make sure I don't double gift. I already got him some DVD's and was going to get him some clothes too, but I think I might take the DVD's back and get him the pod unless somebody can give me a really good alternative.

taliosfalcon

I say go with a 4 gig Cowon D2 and a 4 gig SD card. Pretty much the entire thing is a screen, its small, nifty touch screen controls, SDHC card support, plays videos very well, and memorys only limited by how many cheap sd cards you have . Also with internal memory only it gets 50+ hours of battery life playing audio, and 25+ hours with an SD card in, i'm not a huge audiophile so i cant say myself, but from those who are it apparently has pretty much the best sound quality in any player out right now too

gneGne

Samsungs are really stylish

MotherFirefly

yeah, really, nano is the way to go here. I use mine all the time, and believe me I'm not all for trendy things.

You can find plenty of mods and stuff to if you want other stuff.s