As above. Thanks

I’d look at either a cheap mac laptop or a windows 8 tablet (probably best to avoid a windows RT one though)

Why iTunes?

Why not iTunes

Surely if you just want it for consuming iTunes content then wouldn’t an ipad be perfect for your needs? And I say that as an apple hater 🙂

What do you mean by “for iTunes” – do you want to use it as a media player, or a library, or something else?

I’d hazard there’s almost certainly a better option than buying a whole laptop just for iTunes (and unless you’re an Apple powered household, almost certainly a better option than iTunes).

What are you wanting to do?

This one

Frak me, three grand just to play a couple of songs? Really? Do the bands come round to perform live in your living room?

As per @Cougar – we need to know what you want to use iTunes for ? To store all your music/movies/podcasts and sync with your apple devices (iphone/ipad) ?

Said why iTunes, because a chromebook is cheaper than a decent laptop (sub £200) then have Google play/spotify etc

iTunes is crap on Windows, so I definitely wouldn’t get a windows machine specially. We recently upgraded from a really old mac mini to a new laptop but after about a week put itunes back on the old mac, it was just too slow and rubbish and didn’t do some things that the mac version did.

I would agree with the “there must be a better way” opinion…

Ipod and speakers?

iPhone surely?

I was assuming the OP wants to manage ipods/phones etc. Sadly you cannot (from what i have seen) use an ipad as your central ‘hub’ for itunes. Need a mac/pc for that.

You can stream music from a pad/phone/tablet, but there’s no control over library content, ability to edit tracks, rip CDs, etc.
Bugger cloud content, you need to be able to access your music anytime you want it, and anyone who imagines that you can do that everywhere in this country is deluded. Same with Spotify, I’m not paying £120/year to basically rent music, that money would buy me a lot of physical music that’s actually mine, not crippled by the vagaries of what passes for mobile broadband in the UK.
Look for refurb MacBooks or PowerBooks, check out the specialist Mac magazines, and look at the classifieds; there are often agencies upgrading, or bankrupt stock going for decent prices. I’d be a bit wary of eBay for a top-end laptop.
Thinking about it, the Mini is an ideal little media streamer, so shoving some more RAM in, getting a nice big fast external HDD, and keep all the iTunes stuff on the external, possibly a NAS drive, then just use Remote on an iPhone or iPad. That’s how mine’s set up, then you could add AirPort Extreme’s around the house with active speakers over time.
Just a thought, you keep your Mini, which is working fine, and add flexibility to it.

Lots of great answers, now all we need is the question so we can see if any of them match up.

We found iTunes really doesn’t like it if you stick all the stuff on a NAS; everything plays fine but it sits there thinking a lot while not doing anything and iPod syncing is rather flakey – every time it synced you would end up with a different collection of music on the iPod!

I agree that iTunes is crap on windowz machines – I manage all of my media via iTunes on a Mac and a NAS (which works fine BTW, as long as you get a reasonably decent NAS), but setting up iTunes on my girlfriends PC was a ball-aching experience.

Lots of great answers, now all we need is the question so we can see if any of them match up.

any more clues?

Google play allows you to have your own library and stream music so doesn’t mean you can’t own anything.

Personally never liked iTunes and had lots of issues but haven’t owned a Mac so maybe it is a lot better on one (wouldn’t surprise me, apple are not exactly know for being fond of you using anything other than what they can sell you ;))

All I want to do is transfer music from my laptop to my ipod. Nothing else. I

Just buy any old thing then, with a suitable sized hardrive for your music. My xp running 8year old desktop does that so a any new PC would be fine.

edward2000 – Member
All I want to do is transfer music from my laptop to my ipod. Nothing else. I

The cheapest one you can find.

or use one of these
http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29716/heres-five-alternatives-to-itunes-10-for-easily-managing-your-ipod/
and you will need something very low powered and cheap.

iTunes works fine – on the mac platform – even with media on a NAS.

I’ve got around 30,000 songs in iTunes, and its perfectly fine.

Hardware is 2008 era, so not exactly fast by modern standards.

Bugger cloud content, you need to be able to access your music anytime you want it, and anyone who imagines that you can do that everywhere in this country is deluded. Same with Spotify, I’m not paying £120/year to basically rent music, that money would buy me a lot of physical music that’s actually mine, not crippled by the vagaries of what passes for mobile broadband in the UK.

Except pretty much every streaming service allows you store music locally for this very reason… Hell, Google Music even lets you up upload the music you “own” so you can access it anywhere.

@edward – cheapest solution would be a second had desktop but I’m guessing you want a laptop so you can store it away, don’t buy something new try and find a 1 or 2 year old machine. What I’d say though is of you buy a cheap laptop make sure your music is backed up (although it will be on the iPod too) as there is a decent chance it will fail.

People are throwing away hardware that does that. Go to Cash Converters and buy whatever has the biggest hard disk.