Topic: How much memory do I need? (New cell phone)

[Scott S]

 My cell phone gave up the ghost this week. Got a new phone yesterday that, among other things, is also a walkman. Believe it ot not, I'm one of the few remaining people on Earth who's never had an ipod. I have a few hundred songs on my computer, but I always just burned them to...gasp!...a CD!

 I'm thinking about uploading them to my phone and having an ipod jack installed in my car. Memory sticks are available for the phone; 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and...I think...16GB. I can get the 8GB stick for less than $30. How much music, in general, will that hold? I think it also comes in handy for storing pics and video on the phone, too.
 I'm pretty behind the times on all this stuff and, you know what? It doesn't really bother me that much! 

[gmonkey]

Safe to assume roughly 1 MB per minute of music at 128kb/s which is good quality so 8GB gives you on the order of 8000 minutes which is roughly 130 hours which is roughly 5 and a half day and nights of music.  Do you feel you need more?

[flybox1]

i typically use a higher bitrate for most of my stored audio.
i use a 16gb Creative ZenXfi for my audio.  it holds ~ 1800 songs i rotate frequently. (100 hrs)
It also has a SDHC slot, and in it i have a nother 16gb card for vid and pics.
i would suggest getting the biggest you can afford.
IMO, you'll always find sht to put on it, and, it can come in handy when needing external storage for data...go no less than a 16gb.

[Duke McDukiedook]

I don't have a jesus phone or an ipod either, and I'm not a luddite.

[Gordon]

If you plan on shooting much video with the phone, then definitely go bigger.

What kind of memory cards does it use?  If it's MicroSD you can get a 16G here for 35 bucks:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0304662

[333]

Keep in mind that an IPod hook up requires a true IPod or IPhone.  Otherwise you need an auxiliary hook up.  And stay away from those FM type adapters.  The audio quality sucks, as the upper end of the frequency response is clipped at 12k hz(as all analog FM is).

You might invest in a new head unit altogether for the car.  I got a Sony that has IPod, aux, and USB for under $170.

[xfactor]

What car do you have ? Also what phone did you get? Most now a days have a large internal memory but the way I see it the bigger the better right? You can't ever have too much memory.

[Scott S]

 The car is an '06 Nissan Altima 3.5SL. It has the eight speaker Bose stereo with 6 disc changer and integrated Sirius radio. I like the factory stereo just fine, especially with the steering wheel mounted controls.

 The phone is a Sony Ericsson W518a. The cable is a data cable with a USB port. I'm not sure if there is a true ipod cable for this phone or not. The card is an M2 card.

 Card:
 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330381115012&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

 Ear buds and cable:
 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130427186698&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

 The largest memory card I've found so far is 16GB:
 http://cgi.ebay.com/16GB-MEMORY-STICK-M2-SONY-ERICSSON-WALKMAN-W518A-/130420845368?pt=Digital_Camera_Memory_Cards&hash=item1e5db02b38

[Gordon]

I'm surprised your stereo doesn't have an aux. jack in it.  You can do what I did with the stereo in my Subaru and put in an adapter that plugs directly into the antenna jack in the back of the unit, but your phone would need to have a standard mini headphone jack on it. 

I guess it would need that even if your stereo does have the aux jack, though.

[Gordon]

Here it is!

http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/accessories/overview/mmc-70?cc=us&lc=en

[Scott S]

I'm surprised your stereo doesn't have an aux. jack in it. 

 I know that there's a factory option for an ipod/aux. jack. It mounts in the arm rest/center console. I've seen it before; I'll see if I can find a link to it.
 I "think" that it mounts to something on the back of the radio...not sure...never really needed to know before now!

[Gordon]

I didn't dig too deeply, but from a little searching it seems like with your particular stereo it's both difficult and expensive to connect an aux jack directly to the radio. 

If that's the case, even though the sound quality isn't nearly as good, you may be better off with an FM transmitter.

[333]

You are gold if you have that jack in the console, and if that cable Gordon found is the one for your phone.  That's all you need.  Once it's connected, you should be able to select "aux"(or something like it) as an input.