Don't Buy an iPod

[cstaylor]

That must be the ugliest music player I've ever seen.

[emperor]

That must be the ugliest music player I've ever seen.

What about these guys?

[mr. sparkle]

I had some out of warranty work done by Canon to fix my ZR-10. It cost me $150 for a 20 cent fuse. Am I going off? Hell no, it just helped me make 3 grand in one day on my Mac.

All Praise Jah Steve!

Join us....

JOIN US....

You'll someday huff the fumes of 'Tino and then
you can't_go_back_

No matter what the naysayers stand--
We Are iBots - and we will destroy ALL.

They just jealous....it's the sexiest device since the walkman.

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

VS




Still not sure...

[samuraiwig]

Why are people so obsessed with Apple and Sony and their pain-in-the-arse proprietary formats?

There are other options out there. I plumped for the following, and have had no problems with it (and, no, I have don't have any vested interest...).

The scroll menu could be better, but that's a small quibble given what you get for 50,000 yen compared with the competition. Battery life isn't mentioned below, but it's good. You can also store, retrieve and use non-audio files such as movies and documents.

Product iRiver H140
HDD TYPE (40GB)
File Support MPEG 1/2/2.5 Layer 3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, ASF, WAV
Dimension Approx. 60(W) X 105(L) X 22(D)mm
Weight Approx. 175g
Operating System WIN98SE/ME/2000/XP

Link: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.asp?p_name=H140

[American Oyaji]

Apple uses Mp3 format, doesnt it?

[emperor]

Why are people so obsessed with Apple and Sony and their pain-in-the-arse proprietary formats?
There are other options out there. I plumped for the following, and have had no problems with it (and, no, I have don't have any vested interest...)
...Product iRiver H140...

While Ogg Vorbis is a great compression format and isnt proprietary..
..it might aswell be - as the models that support it are so few and far between..

Apple uses Mp3 format, doesnt it?

Affirmative

[Crambo]

I thought they (Apple) used AAC, and also the new ALAC (Lossless). I could be wrong, I also thought they had locked out MP3 playback in the iPod's hardware.

[emperor]

I thought they (Apple) used AAC, and also the new ALAC (Lossless). I could be wrong, I also thought they had locked out MP3 playback in the iPod's hardware.

Negative
..iPod uses AAC - but you can use mp3 too, most of the files in the iPod sitting next to me are.
Im unaware of its ability to support ALAC.. maybe the new minis can or the 4th Gens that are due in Autumn?

Its so annoying that all these companies all push for their own unique propritery thing-a-majigs; Memory-Stick/SD/CF..AAC/ATRAC3/WMA..DVD-/+/ROM.. Soylent Red/Green/Blue...basically with the purpose of trapping you into perpetually buying their products

[katakori]

and, in the case of sony, forcing you in the long run to use their own download service to buy your music. the point that i personally like the most with the ipod is that mp3 stays mp3 (although this might change, i don't know).