iPod vs. other mp3 players. which do you prefer?

I have an iRiver 20 GB player and an iPod shuffle. I like my iRiver, but i feel that i'm forever tied to rhapsody as i have to constantly acquire licenses for my player as i use rhapsody, which is in WMA format, whereas on my iPod shuffle i can download mp3s and the music is mine forever. however, i've heard that non-iPod players are better than iPods (customer satisfaction, etc.). what are your takes on the iPod vs. non-iPod debate?

I have an older iPod (one of the 2nd generation, I think), and after a while it started skipping tracks on occasion. By about 3 years old, it got to the point where it skipped so many that it was unusable.

On the bright side, Apple's in-store customer service is pretty good (at least in my experience), and they replaced my broken one with a new one of the same model for practically nothing. So that convinced me to stay with the iPod, even though I'd considered switching.

My boyfriend just got the Nike running shoe thingy for his Nano, and it looks pretty neat, so maybe iPod has the Cool Toy Factor going for it too? :)

I have a half-gig one I grabbed in Tesco for 30 quid. It's sound is lovely ( really impressive stero image surprisingly enough), it can connect to any PC or Mac with no stupid software required, and can be used to hold any kind of data as well as mp3's.

I simply cannot grasp the ipod concept....pay 10 times the money for a deeply restricted machine that's so proprietry it defies belief. It also seems very prone to breaking, and it also seems that you cannot back up your content, so when it does crash you have to pay apple more money (unless of course it CAN backup and the NOOLers reporting song-loss are just monkeys for not actually doing a backup)

I have messed with many different mp3 players, and two things bring me back to the ipod.

1 - Nothing beats iTunes, if you are an organizational freak like myself. I have all 8000 songs classified, rated, and grouped. There is nothing like the smart playlists, that I know of, on any other mp3 player, and that alone is worth it's wieght in gold.

2 - iPod has sooooo many add-ons and gadjets that the others can't even comprehend. A good example is the FM transmitter that attaches to the iPod and uses the iPod's battery (minimal wear on the battery)...no other mp3 player has this and I use it constantly, in my truck, in the house and when I'm out in the field.

The only beef....I wish they could put albums in order of year they came out.

Doctor? wrote:

I simply cannot grasp the ipod concept....pay 10 times the money for a deeply restricted machine that's so proprietry it defies belief. It also seems very prone to breaking, and it also seems that you cannot back up your content, so when it does crash you have to pay apple more money (unless of course it CAN backup and the NOOLers reporting song-loss are just monkeys for not actually doing a backup)

iPods can hold mp3s, it'snot restricted in any way that I have found. No problems in breaking and when it does Apple has been pretty good to my Marines in replacing them....and you can backup the songs, as one of the only isses with the ipod is that you HAVE to leave all your music on your hardrive of your computer. So the only way you would loose all your music is for your ipod and computer to crash at the same time.

JHC

well you could always rename the containing folder with the year and month?

My NO albums are listed as $YEAR_$NAME so they always play in order of release.

This smart playlist thing, is that like the plugin I have for xmms, where one loads a playlist, then the system assigns "weights" to tracks, lower weights fot those you skip and higher for those you repeat....the idea being that it will favour higher weights when the playlist is on random.

Surely the FM transmitter will work with any device possessing a minijack output? (Or have apple actually been so arrogantly retarded that they designed their own headphone output?)

Doctor? wrote: well you could always rename the containing folder with the year and month?

My NO albums are listed as $YEAR_$NAME so they always play in order of release.

This smart playlist thing, is that like the plugin I have for xmms, where one loads a playlist, then the system assigns "weights" to tracks, lower weights fot those you skip and higher for those you repeat....the idea being that it will favour higher weights when the playlist is on random.

Surely the FM transmitter will work with any device possessing a minijack output? (Or have apple actually been so arrogantly retarded that they designed their own headphone output?)

True on the order of release idea as I have thought of doing this as well, but then I couldn't find them in alphabetical order if I searched by album....stupid I know, but I'm an organizational freak.

Smart playlists are different. You set as many standards as you want, and any time you add a song that has that standard it is automatically added to that playlist. Anytime you change an attribute it is automatically added or deleted from the playlist.

The ipod has a remote plug in next to the headphone jack. Other mp3s don't have this remote addition so they can't take advantage of many other offerings, like the FM transmitter.

I have a Sony bean. 1 GB. Filled it up with about 11 NO bootlegs and Some Cities by the Doves. Have yet to purposely download music for it. I convert whatever I want to mp3 for it. Like to get something larger that ran on AAAs for my long ass bike adventures. The Sony is fueled by USB. Supposed 50 battery life between charges. Only went dead once when it was accidentally turned on while in my backpack. Need also to hook it up to an amp and large speakers for a proper bicycle stereo.

Twist, singer of the Blessing Way wrote: I have a Sony bean. 1 GB. Filled it up with about 11 NO bootlegs and Some Cities by the Doves. Have yet to purposely download music for it. I convert whatever I want to mp3 for it. Like to get something larger that ran on AAAs for my long ass bike adventures. The Sony is fueled by USB. Supposed 50 battery life between charges. Only went dead once when it was accidentally turned on while in my backpack. Need also to hook it up to an amp and large speakers for a proper bicycle stereo.

ipod has an added battery pack and compact speakers if so desired.

I've never had an MP3 player, so I can't comment. Interesting to know though that iPod is merely an mp3-player, I thought it was apecial format.

Doctor? wrote: I simply cannot grasp the ipod concept....pay 10 times the money for a deeply restricted machine that's so proprietry it defies belief. It also seems very prone to breaking, and it also seems that you cannot back up your content, so when it does crash you have to pay apple more money (unless of course it CAN backup and the NOOLers reporting song-loss are just monkeys for not actually doing a backup)

Proprietary? I dunno... I have nothing but mp3s on mine. Screw that DRM'd AAC stuff.

As for the backup thing, I don't see how you could lose all your music with your ipod. Everything is synced back to your computer. I've had my iPod stolen before and replacing it was a simple matter of plugging the new one into my computer and reloading everything from it. Nothing lost.

Also came in handy when my laptop was stolen while I was abroad. I used some app i got from the internet to pull all my music off the ipod and back onto the new computer. Backup works both ways. It's great. I never have to worry about losing my music.

you cannot replace the battery in the ipod. ones it runs out that's it, ipod dead. the sony has a replaceable battery. oh & you CAN get the fm trasnmitters for other sorts of mp3 players.

There's no competition, iPod is iPod, the others are only mp3 players.

Love my Creative Zen Micro which holds shit loads of songs. It's got fab battery and i don't have to change the format of songs or pay for them. Anything that's on my laptop goes straight onto my mp3. Awesome.

fuck, I'm still on cassette plazzie walkmans from the market.

i must catch up.

:(

J.A.K wrote: fuck, I'm still on cassette plazzie walkmans from the market.

i must catch up.

:(

oh dear....

girl afraid wrote:

J.A.K wrote: fuck, I'm still on cassette plazzie walkmans from the market.

i must catch up.

:(

oh dear....

I know. its just my Kenwood living room Stereo and the car cd player for me I'm afraid - Afraid.

The Ipod. I've warmed to itunes as an interface too.

I've got myself a 60GB machine, and its working as it should.

my 4g ipod broke after about 5 months and i got a replacement off the shop. In August the replacement broke and Apple wanted £170 to replace it.

So the other week i got a Creative zen vision:m and its alright so far. Holds more songs, does videos, FM radio which can be recorded, and a voice recorder. As long as it doesnt break, i'd say this is better than the ol' ipod

But i do miss using itunes

I am an iPod man.

Never wanted or ever needed any other. I am on my 3rd one though, but my first one was one of the original ones, with real buttons

J.A.K wrote:

girl afraid wrote:

J.A.K wrote: fuck, I'm still on cassette plazzie walkmans from the market.

i must catch up.

:(

oh dear....

I know. its just my Kenwood living room Stereo and the car cd player for me I'm afraid - Afraid.

how's that 8-track holding up for ya?

AgentWood wrote:

J.A.K wrote:

girl afraid wrote:

J.A.K wrote: fuck, I'm still on cassette plazzie walkmans from the market.

i must catch up.

:(

oh dear....

I know. its just my Kenwood living room Stereo and the car cd player for me I'm afraid - Afraid.

how's that 8-track holding up for ya?

I was thinking more likely the gramophone.

Never bought an iPOD or indeed any MP3 player.I always used to drop and break Walkman cassette and CD players so i KNOW i'll drop and break an MP3 player and lose 1,000 songs i've spent ages transferring.

Johnny wrote: Never bought an iPOD or indeed any MP3 player.I always used to drop and break Walkman cassette and CD players so i KNOW i'll drop and break an MP3 player and lose 1,000 songs i've spent ages transferring.

I owned an iPod for about two weeks. All I wanted it for was to go running. It kept locking up on me, so I returned it and got my money back. I've not bought an mp3 player since then. I have a CD player that recognizes mp3 format, though.

I've got a little Creative USB MP3 player. I'd prefer it if it played .wma files, but now I know it doesn't I won't be using that format any more.

It's 128mb, so only holds a couple of lps, but I love it anyway.

If I was getting a higher capacity one, I would get noe that doesn't tie me to a format. Probably a Creative Zen - I like the look of that one.

Ipods can go and stick themselves up their own jacksies. Why artificially limit what you can do with you own music files? It shouldn't be the job of your personal stereo to enforce the copywrite rules on behalf of the record companies

Johnny wrote: Never bought an iPOD or indeed any MP3 player.I always used to drop and break Walkman cassette and CD players so i KNOW i'll drop and break an MP3 player and lose 1,000 songs i've spent ages transferring.

but thats another reason why ipods are great. you have all your tunes stored on your pc in i-tunes and if the worst happened and you broke your ipod and have to get a new one, it would take about 5 mins to put all your music on your new ipod. also i cant see what everyone is talking about itunes limiting your music formats? i-tunes will import any kind of format onto i-tunes

Ipods suck. Too restrictive.

I have a 40GB Creative Nomad Jukebox that holds a crapload of stuff. I upload dvds on to it so when ever we go over to people's places we just transfer and burn in about 10mins and watch concerts and stuff. Easier than hauling around multiple dvd cases etc.

Cheers.

redken wrote:

Johnny wrote: Never bought an iPOD or indeed any MP3 player.I always used to drop and break Walkman cassette and CD players so i KNOW i'll drop and break an MP3 player and lose 1,000 songs i've spent ages transferring.

but thats another reason why ipods are great. you have all your tunes stored on your pc in i-tunes and if the worst happened and you broke your ipod and have to get a new one, it would take about 5 mins to put all your music on your new ipod. also i cant see what everyone is talking about itunes limiting your music formats? i-tunes will import any kind of format onto i-tunes

I agree, when people talk about the "restrictiveness" of ipods they never divulge in what they are talking about. What restrictions? I have yet to meet up with any restrictions.

my main problem is this: i have all wma files from rhapsody on my iRiver. this means i have to go back in every few weeks and reacquire my licences, which is a pain in the ass. is there any way to transfer the songs i already have on my iRiver into mp3s without starting all over again?