| I have a friend who is thinking of taking an iPod nano to a friend in Cuba, but they live in a more remote area (Marea del Portillo). I keep recommending an MP3 player because I’m not sure about downloading to an iPod, but thought I’d check and see if anyone here had any experience with these.What is best, iPod or MP3? How do Cubans download to their music players? I know I’ve seen enough people with them to think it must be possible.Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated. | |
| A good, basic $30 MP3 player will work great. Easier to get friends to load up. Take a couple of extra rechargeable batteries and a charger 100-240v.An iPod is more of a status symbol and is much harder to find a replacement battery when that one dies.
If they have a cell phone with MP3, maybe an 8GB micro SD card would be a good bet. |
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Thanks, Spunky. No cell phone, but the $30 MP3 is what I’ve been pushing. |
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![]("http://s29438.storage.proboards.com/2099438/a/77p0Kue6V5cVTXT1VVYT.png") What is best, iPod or MP3? How do Cubans download to their music players? I know I’ve seen enough people with them to think it must be possible.
Any advice/suggestions would be appreciated. I would recommend a generic MP3 player over proprietary products like iPod, Zune, etc. to anyone, whether in Cuba or elsewhere. With a generic player, you can connect it to any computer with a USB port (i.e. most any computer made since 1998 or so), and just copy files using the standard tools for Windows, Mac, Linux. Your device looks like a removable disk, and that’s all there is to it.With the proprietary players, you have to buy into their unique infrastructure and install its software (iTunes, Zune software, whatever) on the computer, this software is forever trying to "call home" to check for updates and such (to say nothing of reporting your activities to Apple/Microsoft intergalactic), and wants to "sync" your device to your computer, keep track of a "music library", etc. etc. This is merely annoying here in Canada, but would be a real problem in Cuba without easy net connectivity. And whether Apple or Microsoft will even support connections from Cuba, I don’t know.A generic player can be plugged into any computer, and if that computer has a CD drive, music can be copied from CD to player quickly and easily, so even if your friend doesn’t have a computer, it takes just a moment to use someone else’s to load music. Get a generic player with as much storage as you can reasonably afford, and go. |
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Thanks, everyone! This was very helpful. I think I have "won" the argument! |
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