Grade A gadgets: MP3 players top students' must-have lists
By LINDSEY UNTERBERGER
lunterberger@journalsentinel.com
Aug. 22, 2004
Carrying a Walkman was hip in 1985. Ten years later, so was toting a portable CD player. This year, teenagers and 20-somethings are putting MP3 players alongside pens and pencils on their back-to-school must-have lists.
Electronics store employees say the portable digital music players, which can store thousands of songs downloaded from personal computers, are flying off their shelves as teens head back to class.
A survey conducted by the National Retail Federation in early July found that spending on electronics for back-to-school shopping was up almost 15% from last year, and industry experts say the pocket-size players are one of the main reasons.
Michelle Binn knew she had to have an MP3 player before starting her sophomore year at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
The 19-year-old from Oconomowoc will study in Rome this semester and said there was no way she was going to lug all of her CDs overseas.
The case in her car alone holds 12 CDs, all of which she will be able to download into an MP3 player that fits in the palm of her hand.
'A cultural staple'
Craig Peterburs, store manager for Circuit City in Brookfield, said MP3 players are ideal for students who attend campuses such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University, where students walk to class.
"The ease of obtaining music is huge, and now there's the need to make it portable," he said. "It's not so much a requirement (to own an MP3 player), but it's become a cultural staple."
Joe Sabatini, an agent on Best Buy's "Geek Squad," which provides 24-hour technical support, said Apple's iPod, the iconic device launched in 2001, is still the most in-demand digital music player of the season.
"That's like the hottest commodity since Tickle Me Elmo," he said. "It's almost become like a status symbol."
Other gadgets making the grade for the back-to-school crowd include: DVD burners, pen drives, camera phones, digital cameras, small LCD-TVs, Xbox and PlayStation 2 gaming systems, and of course, laptop computers.
To her mother's dismay, Jackie Staus, who will be a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, insisted that she needed a laptop.
But the computer shopping at an area Best Buy turned into a more than $2,000 purchase, complete with printer, Ethernet cables, blank CDs, pen drive and cool carrying case.
Staus' mother, Connie, said she had no idea that her daughter would need so many accessories.
She had a particularly hard time accepting that the $1,400 computer did not come with a floppy disk drive.
The pen drives, which act like portable hard drives that can be plugged into a computer, have largely replaced floppy disks, Peterburs said.
Sabatini put pen drives on his top three list of back-to-school necessities.
Also in the top three was a laptop with integrated wireless access and an account to legally download music.
Peterburs said he thinks sales of the relatively new gadgets have increased because they're becoming more affordable.
"You don't have to buy a $400 iPod anymore," he said.
Some MP3 players retail for less than $100, depending on how many songs they hold, and Apple has introduced lower-priced iPods.
Ellen Tolley, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation, said the increase in electronic sales is because of the popularity of new technology but also because traditional back-to-school electronics, such as graphing calculators, are more affordable than they have been in the past.
While they might not be items parents deem as necessities, she said, "they're still items kids want."
Gadgets such as MP3 players do have a practical value, she said, but a lot of kids just think they're cool.
The retail federation survey polled students in elementary through high school. Results for college students were to be released later.
Still, among back-to-school shoppers, it's mainly the students who are buying the new electronics, Tolley said.
"Parents have a lot of other things they need to buy for back to school," she said, noting that many students use the extra money they make in the summer to buy their gadget of choice.
"There's a lot of crazy cool stuff that I didn't have when I was in college," Peterburs said.
