MP3/MP4 Player for a pre-teen?

[Kaos Kid]

My 12yo girl wants an MP3/MP4 player, preferably one that I can convert video files for and transfer for her to watch as well as music. I see cheap ones that I don't trust, but I can't afford $200 for the good ones either. I had thought I could get her Kodak video camera to play video that I put on its memory card, but even when transcoding with the same codec as the camera uses I couldn't get the camera to recognize them so it must look for a proprietary tag that the camera adds to videos that it produces itself. I was hoping to stay at no more than $75-$100 if possible a little more if you know of a unit that is a great buy for its price. Do you know of any diamonds in the rough in my price range that would fit the above requirements but not break the bank? I've checked out the egg, but most of them with the best reviews are in the $200+ range. Help out an old fart to find something that will make her happy!

[KnightRid]

Tell her she cant watch video on it and your problem is solved ;)

Seriously, we got the kid a regular mp3 player years ago that was cheap and worked. Even on cell phones, video is so tiny that even if the screen is crappy quality (cheaper ones) you wont really notice it a whole lot.

Here - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6855616156 - get that. Seems it works great but the menus suck and it feels cheap - who cares as long as you can figure out how to navigate and it plays stuff.

Actually - http://www.amazon.com/Coby-MP977-4G-7-I ... B0047Q4F40 - even cheaper with 23 reviews and a 3.5 overall rating.

Good luck!

[Major_A]

See if you can find an old smart phone to buy. Then buy a mSDHC card and go nuts.

[bubba]

Got my daughter a Sansa Fuze, but its MP3 only. She loves it, simple to use and small. Loads up what she wants for the day and takes off.

Before I got her a tablet for around the house and long trips I was looking at the Samsung Galaxy Player.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

Got her a Galaxy Tab2 7" instead. For the bus to/from school and short trips around town she uses the Fuze so she doesn't have to be subjected to "old man music".

[Kaos Kid]

Yeah it looks like I may be able to swing that Galaxy S, she definitely wants video capability and I like the formats it supports. I have to use PayPal so I may not be in time to get that sale price from the egg but once my transfer clears from my checking account I can look for it on the 'zon perhaps. She really is such a great kid but a bit of a loner and her little brother gets anything he wants via mommy so I try to make things better for her whenever I can (can you believe she has no desire for a phone? Not that we can afford the plans, but its easier when we don't have to say no). She hates the bus so she can tune out with a video (bless her heart she is really into the old Supermario Bros/Legend of Zelda vids right now) or some music and so be able to deal with the loudness and chaos on the bus (25 minute drive to middle school) or when she has to go to grammas.

[Major_A]

If you feel comfortable you can probably flash the Samsung player to the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean).

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1418

[Kaos Kid]

See if you can find an old smart phone to buy. Then buy a mSDHC card and go nuts.

Update

A friend had a Samsung Moment that she wasn't using so I have been playing around with that. So far all it has cost me is $10 for an 8GB mSDHC card I couldn't get some old cheap headphones I had to work with it, but it could be that they are defective (I haven't used them in years) so I will have to buy some earbuds too I guess. I figured out which codecs it can play and was able to use ***Freemake Video Converter*** to transcode some old Legend of Zelda rips that I made for her PC, and it plays mp3s just fine...It currently uses Android 2.1 Eclair but I am researching rooting it and trying out the 2.2 Froyo custom rom that I've read is on the SDX-Developer site because it is supposed to be able to eliminate all the bloatware that Sprint has on this thing as well as helping with battery life. Also, when I try to connect the wi-fi it says "unable to scan for networks" (even if it is sitting on top of my router, lol) so maybe a flash will fix that too...I've never done it, so does anybody have any advice about rooting this POS? I've got a few days to kill since she didn't give me the USB>>>PC connector so I can't flash it until I get one anyway and it is proprietary (the mini connector on the phone side is smaller than all the USB>>>PC cables I have for my tracphone and digital cameras so no love for me there). Still if I can get this thing to resemble an mp4 player then she should be happy with it for awhile. I have went through all the menus and have shut down all the services that I could see to help with battery life. She will only be watching vids that I copy over to her mSDHC card, it will never be activated with a service plan but it would be nice to see if I could get it to connect to my home network via wi-fi.

Thanks as always for your help and opinions

[Major_A]

Sounds like a good deal! Go to the Play Store and download Vitalplayer. So far it has played every video file I've thrown at it. If you want alternatives to convert video be sure to check out...
XMedia Recode (my personal fav)
Handbrake
Vidcoder

Here are some not-so-user-friendly instructions on how to root that phone.
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/h ... ng-moment/

Believe it or not as long as you follow the instructions to the letter it should be pretty painless.

For headphones and a charging/data cable check on Monoprice.
6' Micro USB Cable - $0.68
Earbuds - $2.47-$12.56

[Kaos Kid]

So far freemake video converter has worked fine for me, even compatible with burned data DVDs on an old RCA Divx/Xvid player. The default vid player on the Moment has worked with freemake files as well, I don't care much for the default file system though because although MP3s can come up with the title names, etc. the video file system will only show thumbnails, so you have to click on the thumbnail to pull up a menu with the title name. If the VitalPlayer has a better file system that lets her choose vids by title name instead of or in addition to the thumbnails, then I'll install that. I've already had to buy her some $10 headphones at Wallys since she couldn't wait for delivery but that USB cable is so cheap I can get three shipped for half the price of one on any other site (and shipping is more than the items), so I can hedge my bets against DOA and RMAs.

[dsboone]

I used AppGeeker VOB AVI converter. It's a nice little program that can convert back and forth from most formats like mp4, avi, vob, wmv, mov, wmv, 3gp, mpg, etc.

It has all the codecs already built in.

Haven't used it in a while though so i am not sure how its going.

[NiceAnn]

Did she watch cartoons? Or Disny Land? I use this dvd video converter, it could rip DVDs of Disney, Paramount, Sony, etc and TV shows by chapters to your PC, smart TVs, plus your iPhone, iPad, and Android phone and tablet, very cool and easy to use.
http://www.videoconverterfactory.com/dv ... converter/