Don't buy an iPod.
I'm the first to admit, I really wanted one. You plop yourself down on the bus, pop in your ear-buds, and before you know it your commute is over and if anyone asked you for change you sure as heck didn't hear it. They're pricey, no denying it, but jealousy got the better of me and I decided it's time to stop waiting for some poor sap to forget theirs on the seat next to me, and join the 21st century. Me and money though... well, I'm a piker. I can't stand the idea of spending more then 50 bucks on something without researching it to death, and lo and behold, I find there's better MP3 players out there then iPod. Way better. Lets look at the shortcomings of iPod:
No downloading.
The biggest problem I have is that you can only put MP3's onto the iPod, you can't download them from the iPod onto your computer. Now, for a lot of people this isn't an issue. In fact, a lot of people are probably asking themselves why they would want to do that in the first place. Easy, to steal music. Let's face it, when everyone in your circle of friends has a vast library of portable music they carry around, at some point you think to yourself: “Do I ever really need to buy another CD?
No FM tuner.
Are you kidding me? Even the cheapest of Walkmans (and I'm talking tapes here) has an FM tuner. Don't expect to listen to the radio on an iPod.
No voice recorder.
Well okay, thats kind of a minor gripe. But to us writer types, budding journalists and wannabe stand up comedians, the ability to voice record is a little gift from heaven. It's one less thing to carry around.
No replacement battery.
Not really anyway. You see the iPod is not designed to be opened by the user, so when your battery goes kaput, you have to send the thing back Apple and shell out 60 bucks to get it replaced. If your warranty runs out, don't even bother to go to Apple for help, you'll have to ask some of your tech-savvy friends.
iTunes.
Not a problem if you're a mac user, but PC users beware. iTunes bogs your computer down like you wouldn't believe. PC's dislike iTunes the way a body hates a donated organ.
Alright, enough iPod bashing for now, lets get down to brass tacks. I present to you three great alternatives to the 4GB iPod Nano ($249),
the 30GB iPod ($299) and the 60GB iPod Video ($399).
Zen MicroPhoto 8GB ($189.99)
Creative made this sweet baby to hold about 4,000 songs and probably more photos then you could ever need to show your friends. It features an FM radio with a recorder in case there's a new song on the radio you have to have, and you can also collect dirt on your friends with the built in voice recorder. The battery last about 15 hours, and is removable and rechargeable.
WARNING: This is not a good option for runners, as it uses a hard drive instead of flash memory and probably doesn't like being jolted too much. If you need something that can take a few whacks without skipping, check out the SanDisk Sansa e260.
Zen Vision:M 30GB ($294.99)
Another Creative animal, this one features all the good stuff (Voice recorder, FM tuner, etc.) that the Zen MicroPhoto has, but sports a sizable 30GB hard drive and video playback! Video, for less then the price of comparible capacity iPod. Hallelujah! Oh, it also functions as an external hard drive.
pqi mPack P800 80GB ($399.99)
The monster of a multimedia player lack only one thing in my opinion, an FM tuner. That's a small gripe, considering what they do give you, specifically a TV-out port. That means, you can record shows off of your TV, or your favorite movies off of DVD. And If for some reason you still use VHS, you can record those as well through the TV.
Now, before you run out and buy one of these things, you need to make sure you're really going to use the video capabilities a lot. Battery time starts to take a hit when you add all these features, so you can expect about 4.5 hours for video and 10 hours for audio. If you just want to listen to music, go buy something cheaper.
Well, there you have it. As with anything, I always recommend doing your research. Make sure it has the features you want, and read user reviews. Anything they tell you on the company's website is just an attempt to get you shell out your hard earned cash.
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