audiobooks on mp3? Which mp3 player?

[Gwenny]

My dd loves audiobooks and wants to get an mp3 player to listen to them. I know nothing about mp3 players and need advice about which one would be best for audiobooks. I've started to research a little, and have seen the Sansa Clip recommended several times because it has the ability to bookmark. My dd has never even held a cell phone or other electronic gadget and has no clue about technology (nor do I). We need simple, easy to use, and affordable.

 

Also, if she gets a mp3 player, are there a lot of free audiobooks out there to listen to? I don't want to pay a monthly subscription fee. What are some good sites? Can a semi-computer illiterate like me figure it out?

 

I need speakers of some sort for this thing, right? The idea of her with earbuds in her ear 5 hours/day bothers me.

 

Thanks

[happypamama]

We have a Sansa Fuze and a Sansa Clip and love them both. They're both very affordable and easy to use. I tried the Coby ones; they were terrible -- couldn't bookmark, couldn't organize things. My 10yo uses the Fuze and Clip just fine. Of the two, I would probably recommend the Clip; it's smaller (and therefore a bit easier to lose), but it uses a regular USB cord to charge it, which is convenient, because several of our other gadgets use the same one. The Fuze uses its own type of USB cord, and they are not compatible. (I also think the Fuze is more expensive than the Clip; we had a Fuze and loved it, but when we wanted a second mp3 player, I think the Clip was cheaper, and actually, I think I like it better, because the menus work with an up-down button, rather than a dial, like on the Fuze.)

 

Amazon has a set of speakers that are about twelve dollars that work really well with the Fuze and Clip, and you can buy a transmitter for using them in the car too.

 

We've gotten several audiobooks from Librivox.org.

[amey311]

Your public library might have loads of MP3 books to download. We do that all the time. Also, if you have a computer, it's possible to listen thru that if yours has speakers. The library may require software to download audiobooks (mine uses Overdrive and it is a decent program - it didn't want to install extra toolbars or search tools or anything on my computer).

 

If you think you'll use your local library, I would check on their site to see what players are compatible with their download system. We've gone thru 3 mp3 players for Thing 2 because DH buys inexpensive ones that aren't compatible (there are inexpensive ones that ARE compatible, but he's managed to avoid those :glare:). Thing 1 has a Sansa Clip and Thing 2 now has an older ipod Nano that DH bought on ebay.

[Gwenny]

Thanks!

 

Looks like my library has tons of titles for mp3 and is compatible with the Sansa Clip. Now, do I need 2,4, or 8GB? How much memory does a book take? She'll want Harry Potter on there and they are pretty lengthy.

[happypamama]

I'd get at least 4G. 4G will hold some pretty lengthy books without running out of space too quickly. DH has had some lengthy books on his; I'm not sure about Harry Potter, but some of DH's longer books have been bigger than 1G, so 4G or more is more comfortable for him in terms of how often he needs to get new books. 8G is nice if you want a big selection at once but probably not necessary if you're mainly doing audiobooks and will listen to one complete book before moving on to another one.

Edited August 10, 2012 by happypamama

[Gwenny]

Another question. Can you somehow store audiobooks that you want to come back to again and again? She will listen to many of her CD's many times over throughout the year and she's a little nutty about getting rid of things. She'll probably fear hurting the books feelings if deleted.

[happypamama]

Not sure about ones you get from the library -- I think you probably can't store those, because like paper books, they're only lent out for a certain period of time, and then they expire. That's my understanding, anyway.

 

If you download them from librivox.org, or if you buy them from somewhere, yes, those you can store on the computer as long as you want. I have a bunch of books from there, and I just put a few of them on the mp3 player at a time.

[weddell]

You can store as many audiobooks as will fit on the mp3 player's memory.

 

We have a couple sansa fuzes and use the library for audiobooks as well. To download from the library you will probably have to use overdrive (free software from the library). After downloading the audiobook to your computer through overdrive, you will attach your mp3 player to the computer and choose transfer. It it give you a choice of where on the mp3 player to download the audiobooks. The mp3 player uses file folders just like a computer and keeps music in one place, audiobooks in another, etc. The default for mine is for overdrive to put audiobooks in the music folder, so be sure to change the file path to audiobooks instead otherwise some audiobook features won't work (bookmarking, etc).

 

If she has audiobooks on cd (or music), it would be a good idea to rip them into mp3 files and then you can put those on the mp3 player as well (very easy to do). Once you have the convenience of having all your books and music on one little portable device, you will never go back to cds.