> Is it worth it to get a name brand (like an IPod), or is it a better deal to get a generic player?

I say the iPod is worth the money for a few reasons. First and foremost, it's a slick piece of hardware, with a great interface and fantastic design. Maintaining a big MP3 library and transferring songs onto the iPod using iTunes (included with the iPod and updates also free to download) is a breeze, because nobody designs software better than Apple. If you happen to use Macs, it's even less of a contest -- my iPod doubles as an address book and scheduler, since it synchs to my address book and calendar on my Mac.

Honestly, the iTunes/iPod interface practically sells the thing itself. Using iTunes, you can put in a CD, press one button, and it will convert that CD into MP3 files for you. Connect the iPod to your computer and iTunes automatically transfers any new songs in your MP3 library to the iPod. If you fill up the iPod, iTunes automatically creates a special "iPod playlist" it lets you edit. You can also make custom playlists and burn those to CDs.

It helps that iTunes is also the #1 online music store, and using it you can download songs (usually 99 cents per song or $9.99 per album, if you're in the USA).

Generally, the entire iPod experience is a thing of beauty. The other cheaper players aren't that much cheaper, and sometimes in exchange for a few features you may or may not want, you get a worse user experience.

If you decide on the iPod, you should realize there are three iPod lines available: the Shuffle, the Nano and the regular iPod. The Shuffle and the Nano are both smaller than the regular iPod and have some advantages such as the fact that they never skip because they have solid state memory instead of hard drives (though really regular iPods skip very rarely anyway).

The downside to those two is that they have a lot less storage space than the regular iPod, which also means a lot fewer songs. The iPod right now comes in 30 GB or 60 GB models; the biggest Nano is 4 GB. Apple sells the Nano as being capable of holding 1,000 songs and the 30 GB iPod as holding 7,500 songs. The regular iPods can also play video, but at the moment aside from buying music videos or a few TV shows from the iTunes Music Store, there's not much video to actually watch on them (sadly you can't yet just stick a DVD into iTunes and have it download it like you can with a music CD).

I think the decision comes down to the size of your daughter's music collection and how much you want to spend. The Shuffle is very economical if you just want to store a handful of songs (Apple claims 240 songs on the 1 GB Shuffle), but the Shuffle also lacks a screen on it, so you can't choose to hear a specific song while you're listening to it. This may be a deal breaker.

The Nano is a lot closer in price to the actual iPods and holds a fraction of what they can. At the same time, being smaller to carry around is pretty cool, and unless you have more than 100 CDs you'll probably not max out the 4 GB Nano.

Stephen