Switchers Stories

[habsrock13]

Originally Posted by huyi

XD you have one crazy dad there .

Too true I do. He doesn't like it when things aren't going his way

[etomic15]

I started with a sony walk man portable cd player, it was a great player and I still have it and use it. I've owned a few other cd players but about 3 years ago or so I got a silver mini (hmm when the price dropped to $200) I decided I needed a player because i couldnt keep track of so many CD's. My mini was stolen about a week after purchase, so I bought a 1G 512MB shuffle. I was happy with it and had it for about a year then I got my mini back A year later! I used that for a few months then it died (3 years old I believe) I went on using a cheap creative zen nano 1GB $70. I used it for about 3 months and it got sand in it and it started falling apart. So I started using my dads NetMD player I hated it because it didnt work with Linux (thats all I use) so yesterday I bought a second generation shuffle and I couldnt be happier. I plan to use it until it dies

[redsox33]

When I was about 8 years old I got my first CD player, it had no skip protection, but i listened to it although it was a pain. I then upgraded to a new Panasonic CD player, with 45 seconds of skip protection and a radio. I loved it and brought it every where, but I broke it and that was the end of it. Then, after saving up money I was planning on purchasing the Ipod Mini (1G), but by the time I had enough money, Apple released the 2G mini, which had like a 18 hour battery life. I got the Mini and I was obsessed with it. But, within the first month I owned it, it stopped working. I sent it to Apple but they refused to replace it saying the player was broken because of abuse or something like that. My mom payed $119 to have it fixed at Ipodresq, and they did a great job. The Ipods battery life was declining, and my dad dropped my Ipod on the floor, so now the upper portion of the screen was cracked, so I sold it to a friend for $60. I then vowed never to buy an Ipod again because of Apples poor customer service, and how fast my Mini's battery life declined. I used my PSP with a 1GB memory stick. It was bulky, but it got the job done. In April of this year, my brother got an Ipod Nano and my mom got one also. I was amazed at how small they were but said they were a waste of money. Around the end of October this year, I started saving up money in order to buy a Creative Zen Vision M, but when Apple released the 5.5G Ipod, I decided to give Apple another chance. I bought it at Circuit City and I now love it. I have about 11gig of movies and TV shows and the quality really surprises me. I love my Ipod and am really happy with my purchase.

[Nader172]

My first introduction to music was when I was eight or nine years old. My grandparents bought us grandchildren Sony Walkman CD players. I remember listening to The Beatles constantly up in my room. They were the first band I ever got into.

About three years later my grandparents bought me a Memorex MP3 player that could hold up to 750 songs. It turned out to be a piece of crap after our computer crashed an upgraded. It synced from Music Match, and it wouldn’t reset or do anything. Since I was younger, I decided to just throw it across the room. It hit a wall and worked poorly. My brother bought it from me for 20 dollars later.

Then I bought my first iPod, it was a mini. I had it for a year and a half and I loved it. It never left my eyes. So, the year and a half went by, and now I have my iPod video. I still wished I had my mini. But you take the good with the bad.

Lesson, don’t purchase a Memorex!

[laurabird]

The first portable music device I owned was a CD player, I don't remember which brand. Probably whichever was cheapest, as I received it about ten years ago as a Christmas present from my parents. I remember it had like, 3 second skip protection
I've had a few other CD players since then, but I have to say never buy RCA from Walmart, those don't work very well if you're using them in your car. I bought a brand new one especially for that purpose and it was slightly broken in less than a month.

My first exposure to an iPod was through my brother. Because he loves technology and keeps up on the latest and greatest, he bought one a few years ago. It's a 3rd gen, but is currently broken now. I'd never thought about getting one for myself until after he got his.

My first mp3 player was given to me as a birthday present from my parents in 2004. It's a Creative MuVo, with 256 mb. It's worked out pretty well for me, because I can use it as a jump drive and it's super easy to transfer music onto it, and it's got the FM radio, and a voice recorder. I have to say my dad did a pretty good job of picking that one out. However, as good as this little device may be, it's started to go downhill in these past few months. The little clicky-button you use to skip through songs is broken. Whenever I try to skip to the next song, the whole thing just shuts off. I can use it for scrolling through a menu though. Hmmm...

I knew it was time to put some money down on an iPod, because I have over 7 GB of music and got tired of changing songs in that little mp3 player all the time. I considered a Nano, but wanted something with more storage. Looking on ebay, I found a 4th gen iPod with 20 GB, for $139 (plus shipping) and I bought it because it looked like it was in great condition. Well, my iPod arrived yesterday and I couldn't be happier with it. I think we're going to have some great times together!

[durrson]

My first Audio player was a Nokia 5510. It had internal storage (only) of 126mb!! Still it was great to carry ONE ALBUM AT A TIME around with me despite people calling me names as my phone was a brick!..

After a few months of this brand new purchase, it broke down, I took it back to my dealer who informed me that Nokia had discontinued my model and offered me a very expensive alternative which I turned down.

I’m on a very tight budget and dream about owning the latest iPod however my budget only made available to me a small 256 mp3 player. That broke down after a few months, (it’s not me honest)..

I have to say at the time of owning the 256 player, I had about 50 Gig of tracks, so you can imagine how frustrated I was only being able to carry a couple of albums at a time.
About 1 and a half years ago, I got a tax rebate from the Inland Revenue (£300) I so considered getting a 20gig iPod and after deciding how best to spend the money I decided on a 6gig iPod Mini which had recently been launched. It’s been used daily until yesterday, needless to say I’ve got my moneys worth from it.

Yesterday, I got my Christmas Present, (Got it early ‘cause I’m going abroad on Holiday on Christmas Day)... I open an iPod size box to find a 5G 80gig Black Video iPod!! Oh the joy! – I’ve spent yesterday and today cramming it with all the tunes I’ll want to listen to on my hols, several audio books, about 10 feature movies and about 10 seasons of various TV episodes...

And of course re-discovering this community in my quest re-familiarise myself with iPod/iTunes etc... (Previously didn’t iTunes)...

I consider myself a Born Again Podder.. and I’m so happy

[Step666]

Many, many years ago I became aware of the Creative Zen Jukeboxes.
At around the same time my dad got me involved in file-sharing (yep, you heard me right, my dad was the one who encouraged me to try it).

So, naturally, come Christmas I had reached the point whereby I had a fair amount of music on the computer but no way of listening to it on the go. I remembered the Zen Jukebox, spent many an hour trying to convince my parents but was eventually given a Panasonic CD player and a CD writer for my computer, not a terrible set-up but it was only a CD player, it had no mp3 capabilities so I didn't have the flexibility of being able to easily carry around large amounts of music with me.

Fast forward a few years, I'm in my second year at uni and my CD player has given up the ghost. I'm now in the market for a replacement device, I'm also far more involved in digital music so it becomes clear what the answer is.
I look around, I quickly discover that whilst the iPods are very popular every forum I look at recommends not touching them with a barge-pole, so I don't. I end up with an iRiver H340 and it was the second best purchase of my life (after my watch, I'd be lost without a watch). This thing is amazing, ok it's slightly thicker than the iPods of the time but it has a colour screen, it has video playback, it has USBOTG (can act as a USB host for other devices), it has a radio. The feature set is something even the current iPods can only match if you shell out on accessories. Also, there's no bass roll-off, the sound quality is excellent and it has a line-in and -out built into the player. This thing is the bomb, it puts everything else on the market to shame.

Fast forward a couple more years, my iRiver is getting a little old, the battery is dying, so I replace it. Works like a charm. I get 33 hours playback with my alt-preset-extreme mp3s, it's all I could've asked for and more. Also, by this time, RockBox is available for it so the days of long start-up times are gone, the shuffle feature is finally fixed.
Only problem is, it's a bit big. I mean, I can carry it in my jeans pocket comfortably but I'd rather have something smaller. Plus, by now, flash players are available up to 8GB so it'd be nice to have something that wouldn't be as vulnerable - not that I ever had any problems, but I had a few close calls.

So, yeah, there we are. If iRiver had an 8GB flash player on the market, I probably wouldn't be here.
The 8GB Nano had the best battery life of the 8GB players on the market, it was also available for the most reasonable price. Sound quality issues have been fixed by Apple. The only real problem is iTunes but I can live with that (just).
I didn't switch really, I just went (once again) for the player on the market at the time that best suited my needs.

[xmaxonx]

It began years back and I received a CD player. Then I got a newer Cd played. After that I bought a Sony MiniDisc player. Then I just didnt have anything except my computer. Then I bought an iPod Nano, but it got stolen so I didnt have anything for a while. Then I had a PSP and still have it but about 2 months ago I got money for my birthday and went on eBay and bought a brand new 30gb iPod video. Been lovin' it ever since.

[stuckinpast91]

Well, I had never been much of a portable music person until about a year when my mom started an account at some bank and they gave her a 128mb off brand mp3 player as a free gift. So she gave it to me seeing as she had no use for it and I put my(then small) music collection and just put a bunch of songs on it. Once I got use to it, I was hooked. I loved having my music their whenever I wanted it. At this point I didnt know much about iPod's except all the cool kids had them.
So one day I got a bunch of unexpected money and I went out and bought a 1st gen 1gb iPod nano. coming from 128mb this seemed like an endless amout of space and seeing that I just put 148 songs of my favorite band on their and at the time thats all I wanted to listen to 1gb was fine. about halfway through the 10month period I had that nano I had my first encounter with a 1st gen 5gb, scroll wheel iPod. I was amazed, I loved the b&w screen, the bulkiness of it, and the scroll wheel. but at the time my nano was doin me great so I just stuck with it. About another 5 months later my nano lcd broke and I knew that was my chance to get a 1st gen.
So I looked around and did alot of research, learing about the story of iPod's and how all the different generations and models came to be. Then I found a 1st gen for sale at a great price but realised I needed firewire so I had to pass it up. I ended up going with a 4th gen monochrome 20gb and it had a h.d. problem so I got angry and went out and bought myself a brand new 5.5g 30gb ipod w/video. I loved it until I got the 4th gen replaced and used it, even though that 4th gen broke too I just didn't ever like the 5th gen anymore, so I ended up selling the video. I found out I was gettin a PC with firewire so I took the video money and bought a 6gb refurbised mini since I always loved the look of those, and I tracked down the 1st gen I was gonna buy and bought it. The mini had some problems but H.P. took care of that. And the 1st gen works great. I guess iPods have become my hobby, Im amazed at all the different gens and all their uniqe characteristics, it sounds dorky but oh well. I also never wanted a shuffle until my mom got me one for x-mas and now, I see what the big HYPE is about. So thats my little story of how iPods became my phenomenon. Theirs been alot of wasted money on broken ones and stuff along the way but hey what can ya do?

[durrson]

An addendum to my previous post...

I LOST my new 80GB iPod Video Black on the Sand Dunes of Gran Canaria whilst on holiday!

My iPod was only 9 days old :-(

I was so devastated, my partner brought me a new one!!

[Step666]

I wish I lived in a world where I could do that and someone would just buy me a new one.

Still, someone's gonna get a nice surprise somewhere in Gran Canaria.

[aznskaterchick]

I LOVE talking about my equipment... Here goes....

Sometime in Jr. high (gr. 6ish) I remember getting my first portable music player. It was a JVC discman with 15-sec of skip protection. It was hard to jog to school with, so I would always walk...slowly. I would also listen to it in class, and get in trouble for it.

Next was a RioVolt CD/mp3 player in grade 8. This was during the times of Napster so I already had a LOT of mp3 files. But mp3 players were expensive still. I loved having hundreds of songs on a single disc, but the battery life was crap, and it wasn't a very reliable player (I actually even bought a cheap $20 Coby CD player to supplement my needs for a little while).

All these players are now dead.

Around the end of grade nine, I got sick of dragging my giant CD player around. Especially when so many other people had small little mp3 players, including iPods. Mp3 players were still kind of expensive...so I researched a lot and ended up with one of the lower models of Sony NetMD. I liked the no moving parts thing (that RioVolt needed to be babied in order to work), and I had no problems taking it to camp, snowboarding...whatever. The battery life was amazing (20 hours or so)... But I absolutely hated the software Sony came up with.

I hated the software so much, the next time I asked for an audio player, I immediately looked for drag and drop (my music is very organized). Also, I wanted excellent battery life, so I went with the Rio Carbon instead of an iPod. This was in grade 11. I still have it, and the battery life is still amazing (about 15 hours now). And even though it has a mini-harddrive, I don't feel scared about jogging with it, but I won't take it snowboarding (I still have the minidisc player for that actually! but no more sony software, so i just listen to what I left on there all those years ago). Also, all the firmware updates made it seem like I was getting a new player every few months. Of course, the company is dead now...

Now I'm in university. I downloaded iTunes so I could share my music with people in my dorm. I ended up falling in LOVE with iTunes. So, the next step? Ask for an iPod. I got one for Christmas this last year - a refurb 5G 30GB white ipod with video. It's awesome. I love that I don't have to choose what music to bring with me, I just bring it all (all 20GB of it) which leaves about 10 GB for movies and podcasts...which is basically my favourite thing. I subscribe to several video podcasts which keep me more than entertained in boring lectures. I love the little click wheel and the fact that people no longer ask me "What is that?" like they have for the last few years.

I actually still drag the netMD snowboarding, and the rio carbon to places when i want to be super descrete and only want music (that thing is tapered for pockets). But this iPod...<3
once you Pod...you don't stop ...podding? That sounded better in my head.

[RickB]

First post. To make this short, about a month and a half ago I bought a Zune. Now I think the Zune in certain aspects is a very good player. The sound quality is awesome, and the interface and the screen are very elegant. But unfortunately it has a very big flaw: the battery life sucks. I was lucky to get 8 hours. And since I listen to music about 10 hours a day, it just wasn't cutting it.

So I decided to get a 30GB 5.5g iPod Black, and so far I'm really happy with it. This thing really does get 14 hours listening to audio. And that is the main thing I will be using a DAP for.

Rick

[jzakoor]

Well, this topic is kind of old, but what the heck.. I'll post here anyways.

Well, my switching story actually runs the gammet. Ive had a walkman (sports edition), 2 Discman CD players, 2 Rios, an mp3 CD player, then my ipod... I love my ipod.. My entire family has been inspired by me in the sense that they all have them now. My little brother has a 2GB nano, my little sister has a 4GB mini, my older brother (and I) have a 20GB 4Gs, my cousin has a 80GB 5G, of course My family has smallest ipods to the biggest according to their ages... My sister has the B/W Mini, and shes the youngest, my brother (who is older) has the 2GB color nano, and of course, I am the middle child, my older brother is the oldest, my cousin is older than him... and ive been told by my cousin.. The family who ipods together, stays together. My brother has his engraved and thats where my quote comes from in my sig. So his is better than mine (naturally). My cousin went out and got his family a 20GB 3G, 40GB 4G, and he has the 80GB 5G.... Sorry if I got the sizes wrong btw. So thats my short story (it could have been waaaaaay longer, trust me)

[DawnTCB]

My first portable audio player was actually a radio with stereo headset... circa 1986, I paid $17 for it and used it for over 3 years, walking to class mostly. <side note: this radio was just plain black. I wonder why it never occurred to me to jazz it up a bit? > Anyway, the battery connection busted, my dad wrote a scathing letter (yes, that would be snail mail) to the company and they sent me a brand new one. Sweet! Another couple of years! My last couple of years of college, my folks got me a Walkman-esque cassette player, changed my life. Suddenly I could make mixed tapes and listen to what I wanted to... well, at least whatever I had wanted to listen to when I left the dorm.

Finished college, had an apartment and my then boyfriend bought me a fancy car stereo. By "fancy" I mean it had a CD player, which neither of us knew anyone -parents included! - who had a CD player in the car! Of course, practically minutes later the stereo was stolen. Used the insurance payout to replace it, stolen again 6 months later. So I put the cheapest cassette deck I could find in there, and got a portable CD player with the tape adapter. <side note: who knew years later I would use that same tape adapter on my ipod???> I never actually walked with the CD player - it skipped too much.

When the COMPAQ iPaq's first came out I was an extremely early adopter. Picked mine up and spent way too much money buying 128 MB of extra memory. Used it some for taking notes in meetings, some for playing games during meetings, but mostly for filling that 128 MB with mp3s. I thought I was on top of the world, I could carry 30 songs without a CD or a CD PLAYER!

In 2003 I left my job and my best friend who worked there. Once while catching up with her I saw this weird, glowing box between us on the car console. It was attached by some cables to the dash and periodically she would fiddle with it. Finally I said, what the heck IS that??!?! She says, "Oh, I thought you knew. It's an ipod." Suddenly all the news stories I had been hearing in the periphery came crashing in. "This little thing?" I said, "This is an ipod? But it's so... small?" She had a 40 GB 4G and that just seemed teensy to me at the time, clearly I had no idea what small was to become. I played with it a little, and decided I must have one. I began a campaign to get one from SO, but he wasn't really acting like this was a good idea... I mean, didn't I use my iPaq to carry around tunes??!?!

Surprise, surprise, my same friend found me a 40 GB 3G open box at Crutchfield and snagged it, best present I ever got, and the coolest thing I own. So I have travelled from having to listen to other people's choices on the radio, to a few songs I wanted, to 30 songs I wanted, to now all 8000+ of my songs, and I am thrilled with my iPod, best choice I ever made.