Saturday, June 17, 2006

iPod Or Something Else?

I'm happy to report that in a couple of weeks, this music lover will be able to buy the much coveted item of mp3 player. And now the question is what brand to buy.

Looking at the available iPods, it has been decided that the 30GB is the right size. For only $30 more, the U2 Special Edition is back and quite sharp looking. Still I wonder if iPod is the way to go. Are there equal quality and ease of use players out there at a better bargain?

Feel free to comment and help me make a well educated choice. I'm tired of duct taping a Discman to my arm while I jog.

7 comments:

melusina said...

I cannot help you. Once you buy one, my husband and I will be the last people left who don't have one!

Good luck on your search, and happy mp3 listening!

John H said...

I know that everybody loves the IPOD, an almost iconic accessory by now, but with the IPOD, you have to download your music through ITUNES, using the proprietary format from Apple.

IRIVER and Toshiba Gigabeat MP3 players are not so restrictive and can 'recognize' WMA format, MP3 format and several others. If you use Napster to buy music, both the Iriver and Toshiba are 'plug and play'. Plus, you get more disk space for the same amount of money.

IPOD ain't a bad machine, but it's not the only game in town.

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

I bought in iRiver dealie a few years ago, paid WAY too much for it, and found it to be a frustrating piece of junk. The controls (common of many of the MP3 players when I bought mine) consist of one button that has to be pushed N/S/E/W. You also pushed the same button in for x-amount of seconds to bring up numerous menus...so lots of memorizing how to make the same button do 20 different things, and it rarely executed the command properly anyway.

I spent more time monkeying with the thing in the gym than I did working out.

LOVE my iPod!

Hurple said...

I've had three different MP3 players of three different brands. Granted, none were iPod, and none were a giant jukebox HD type (biggest was a 4gig). But, none of them lasted more than a month before needng repaired.

Now, on the other hand, I've been using Minidisc for YEARS, and have been using my HDMD (1 gig discs that hold MP3s) daily. My only complaint with it is that you MUST use the Sony software (Sonic Stage) to load/unload the player and it is slow and crashes alot.

Oh, and iPods WILL store and play MP3s, it's just not the preferred format. And, you do NOT have to use iTunes to load it, either http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/, http://www.tucows.com/preview/500119, http://www.tucows.com/preview/404565

John H said...

not that i make any money from IRIVER (i don't even own one but some of my friends and family do)..but the newer models have fixed the problems that gnightgirl alludes to..

You can't load mp3 formats straight into IPOD..they have to be translated via ITUNES or some other software..

IPOD is a great invention..my point is that there are others out there that are good as well and very competitively priced.

Sam Davidson said...

iPod

AWE said...

Love my Ipod. I have the 30gb and find Itunes very easy to use. Yes you have to convert everything but if you need to burn a cd for your car it is really easy to do. You just add the songs to a playlist and hit burn, then Itunes automatically converts it back to play on your car's cd.

My only gripe with the video model is the fact that it seems bulky. I bought the tough case and it made it even bigger. The Nano might be a better option for you if you run alot because it is about half the size, but you will give up alot of storage and video capability.