Damn, Sandisk is lame...

c-unit

http://www.idont.com/

talkshoe_peter

Indeed truly lame. To pay so much for site design, only to be eclipsed by a product clearly superior in design to yours. :-P I'll keep enjoying my iPod, thanks. I have to return a so-called 'iPod alternative' that cost almost as much as its iPod equivalent, but was just junk in comparison.

stdmedia

That sucks, there's some nice art in there. Too bad it's a Sandisk thing ( I think anyways ). I'll also continue to be an "iDroid" and enjoy my far superior mp3 playing device.

Kosmo

Even if that device was the best media player out there, I still wouldn't buy one, and that is just because I hate that kind of mudslinging marketting, I have been part of few marketting teams making that kind of advert and it made me feel inferior, like I had no brain to think of anything REAL to say but to lower myself on the level of a child arguing "my dad...". Apple's own Apple vs. Microsoft advert makes me sick too, and if I ever meet that guy who came up with the idea.. well let's just say that he would have wished a quick and ultra violent death as a ALTERNATIVE of what I would do. I have no respect towards the makers of those ads and the people who accept and enjoy them.

talkshoe_peter

To me, it also comes off as pure envy of Apple's success (and the general great quality of) iPod and the fact that they are totally unwilling to even consider learning from their competition.

adrian.

I love the fact, their super duper ipod alternative is just another ipod clone, that looks like it was designed by a blind donkey.

I my ipod mini and always will.

talkshoe_peter

looks like it was designed by a blind donkey.

So true. Oh, and I totally LOL'd - if I had been drinking my coffee you'd owe me a new screen and keyboard

Bergamot

What amazes me is that, outside of a few minor revisions, the iPod has been a sitting duck for 5 years and still nobody has done anything remotely close. Surely there's *got* to be a better way.

Hory

Depends on what you mean by better. Personal entertainment is not just about the music.
I'll take the open GP2X over an iPod anytime. One disadvantage,is that it's bigger, but its size is needed to accomodate the 3.5" 320x240 screen which can be used for playing AVI (DivX, Xvid, etc.) videos (and screen is large enough to actually have fun), viewing photos, reading ebooks, emulating literally tens of thousands of games from dozens of platforms, or running native (it runs of Linux) ports such as Quake. It even has TV-out, and, of course, music capabilities (including OGG, tho without playing by genre unless you organize the directory structure as such). Runs great on good AA rechargables and can use SD cards with storage size of YOUR choice. And not lastly, it's cheaper (makes you think how greatly overpriced the iPod is).

Bergamot

Well that's basically the point; any idiot electronics company can put together a portable media player with lots of features. The components themselves are readily available and pretty cheap.

What they seem incapable of doing, however, is making it attractive and not gouge-your-brain-out stupid to use, which is amazing, considering the time span involved.

The *only* blip on the radar has been the Sony PSP, which is pretty sweet but not really in the same class of device.

talkshoe_peter

Although on the site they are touting it as the "music alternative" you do make a good point. Although I still like my Tivo more than what I've toyed around with on MythTV and the open source alternative doesn't always do it for me. I tout Linux for every server-side everything on the job, but don't always feel the open source solution beats refined offerings like the iPod. I've gotten my $400 out of the iPod already in my opinion anyway and the $200 hunk of junk I returned will never see the light of day in my house again and any non-iPod alternative will be met with much greater scrutiny.

lech

Screw an ipod, I'd rather have something like an ipaq or similar pocket PC than some ubiquitous apple clone. The only major issue with pocket PC's these days is that they seriously lack any kind of decent storage capacity that doesn't require flash memory.

Minisweeper

fuck any of that shit. I want one of these!

Krak

I love people (and posts) that bash ipods. A lot of is just bandwagon hatred, against ppl that have them, the device, or most of the time, the company, Apple.

I dont care for Apple, and strongly dislike Macs, but I own an ipod. In fact this is my second. I used to "hate" them, was on the wagon with the rest of you, but then I came to my senses and tried one. Far superior to any other mp3 player I have tried. It looks awesome, works great, easy to navigate, and the scroll wheel is just leet.

It boils down to the old "hate what you dont understand" (or cant have).

lech

Yeah, I'm just going to back away slowly now, cause I feel that this is gonna turn into another counter-productive mac vs pc debate.

Bergamot

This whole damn forum is counter-productive; learn to like it

geekdynamo

Oh, and the whole 18-month battery life issue is bogus. I know several iPod users who are on their 3rd year of battery life. I got my 5th Gen iPod this past Christmas, and I'm sure the battery will last much longer than 18 months.

Krak

lol@lech.

There is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about iPods and iTunes. Its a shame really.

NickE

>It boils down to the old "hate what you dont understand" (or cant have). Well I don't know. Every single person I've ever talked to with an iPod (which isn't too few) has had trouble with their right headphone -- either they're on their second/third/fourth pair or it's in the process of breaking. The story was even on digg a while ago; the iPod seems to break everyone's right headphone. Couple that with the fact that you have to send the darn thing in to simply replace the battery and it dosn't sound that great.

Bergamot

It is possible to change an ipod battery by hand. Not easy, mind you, but it can be done (voids the warranty, but your warranty is probably already up if your battery is dying of old age).

As for the headphone thing, my *left* iPod headphone speaker died, but that's almost certainly a result of my "jam headphones in my pocket" usage pattern rather than an effect of the iPod itself. Fortunately, headphones are cheap.

NickE

I know it's possible to replace your own iPod battery, but I don't see why I should bother voiding my warrenty when I could get a different mp3 player which a) would allow me to replace the battery (easily and warrenty-compliant) and b) would not break my headphones. Here's the link that was on digg, by the way (although the title states differently, it turns out it dosn't just affect the fifth generation): http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?threadid=144425 Also: http://money.guardian.co.uk/consumernews/story/0,,1783814,00.html