Who owns an iPod alternative?

Been using this combination for a few years and absolutely love it:

Sony NWZ-X1060 32GB OLED
Sennheiser IE8
Comply TX-500 Foam Tips

Brilliant battery life (charge it maybe once every 2 weeks), crisp clear sound and display. Use it every day at the gym and on the way to work.
 
Because I have an android phone with a plenty big enough SD card that does everything an iPod can and saves me carrying two devices.
 
I have a Sony 4gb NWZ something-or-other. I got it for £15 on the MM a couple of years ago. It's perfect for what I want. The battery lasts forever, the sound quality is much better than the iPod's I've listened to, I can just drag music onto it in pretty much any format I like, and because it's old and cheap it is very scratched so I don't care if it gets marked in my pocket.

The only reason I'd consider an iPod would be for compatibility with my cars head unit but I'm really not that bothered.
 
My first mp3 player was an iRiver H320, then used a Sony A818, I was very anti-iPod back then. Now I have an iPod Classic and an iPhone 4, funny how things change.
 
I had a 128mb MP3 player in 2004 I believe it did its job but obviously not much storage, I was given it as a gift form one of my friends for my birthday.

I then was given an MP4 player 512mb in 2005 for free, did the job again but more storage but the screen was crap so no point putting videos on it.

My dad purchased me an 8gb iPod Touch 1G for Christmas in 2007. Very impressed with it especially it's internet functionality.

For my birthday in 2009 I was given some money and I needed a higher storage capacity so I flogged off my 1G and purchased a 16gb iPod Touch 2G, this one lasted me a couple of years but with all of the software updates it started to get a bit laggy while web browsing not cool...

Last year my phone broke so I sold my iPod Touch and went onto contract and got my self an iPhone 4 32gb, very pleased with it and I must say that it has survived falling in water twice :p The screen is very good there is actually a point putting videos on it.


After the iPod Touch I did not see the point for the other competition unless it was a shock/water proof one for sports etc... The extra internet functions made the iPod worth the money however I will not touch any other Apple product especially the Macbook's overpriced and is barely powerful which is kind of embarrassing for it's price point.
 
I've had multiple alternatives, before iPod even came out, they generally have their own software suites which I assume apple also provides but I like the simplicity if my current one. Plug in to USB, drag drop mp3, go.
 
I've had a Cowon D2 for a few years. I chose it over an iPod because:

  • I needed it to play all my OGGs
  • It had a truly portable battery life [40 hours!]
  • It wasn't capacity-limited [hello cheap SD cards!]
  • I wanted excellent sound quality and sound-shaping features

I've used an iPod [and Touch] for extended periods. I don't think anyone would disagree that the user interface is light years ahead of the Cowon, but that alone isn't enough, by any stretch.
 
I thought up until the iPod touch was released that iPods were just MP3 Players which looked nice and had a terrible £/GB ratio however the ipod touch brought in the app store which turned an iPod into so much more than just a music player. It had a great interface and was very useful, particularly for a quick browse of the internet to check something if your computer wasn't switched on or just to check facebook. The android app store seems to be catching up now and I wonder if Android based music players would catch on if priced correctly, there would probably be some compatibility issues with the apps which are obviously designed for phones but if they could release a touch screen android music player at 16GB for about £100-£120 (Can't be too hard considering some Android phones are under £100) then the ipod touch would have some direct competition at a lower price.
 
I would never even put itunes on my pc but I can tell you from seeing the price, specification and apples way of doing things the product sucks. I hope they make itunes only available for mac's again .
 
I had an iPod touch for years but I got sick of iTunes and the clumsy music management that comes with it. I now have a 32gb SD in my HTC Desire and use a combination of PowerAMP and Spotify. Spotify is just awesome. Oh and the headphone socket kept breaking on the iPod because I had it in my pocket constantly.
 
I used to have a Rio 500 then I bought a Rio Karma :) best MP3 players ever.

But the world changed and along came the smartphones, so no real need for me to have a dedicated MP3 player now, I too just use my phone.
 
I still have a Diamond Rio, bought it at the time and there wasnt really any other alternative ;) Lost the parallel port adaptor ages ago though :( still works great just cant put any new music on it, but fine if I want to listen to 12 songs from 1999 ;)
 
I have an 8GB Sansa Clip, use it when walking the dog or jogging. It does everything i need it to and don't have to mess around with iTunes or pay much more for an iPod.
 
I use my HTC Desire Z as my MP3 player, admittedly the built in MP3 Player/App isn't as good as the iPod interface but I purchased (for £5) PlayerPro which I find just as good and easy to use as my girlfriends iPod touch. I don't like the fact you have to use iTunes for an iPod without jumping through hoops, my phone connects as a disk drive to my PC and I just drag and drop what I want into the music folder.
 
I've got some Sony usb-stick type thing which does me fine, rarely need it but it's 4Gb of music with a battery that lasts a silly long time that 'just works' (with the exception of drag and drop on XP without installing drivers iirc, because they just have to try to be clever don't they)

I did have a 16Gb iPod Nano a while ago, I was looking for a setup for my car/portable music, read around a lot and actually decided on a Sony alternative that was cheaper and supposedly better sound quality, plus had the added benefit of drag-and-drop media management, however no head-units supported it explicitly so I went with the iPod, my experience wasn't so great really:
User error I agree but it seems that Apple decided to mess around with the charging pin so the head unit no longer charged the iPod, useful.
Battery life was ok but nothing more, meaning mostly daily I'd need to take the ipod out of the car to recharge it.
Sound quality, oddly, wasn't that great through the head unit, at the end I replaced it with a USB stick which was far better sound quality (decent amp'ed speakers)
And of course iTunes, an utterly awful piece of software, bloated with features I had no desire to use.

So yeah, I replaced the ~£120 16Gb iPod with a 16Gb tiny USB memory stick for the car and the 4Gb Sony thing for portable-ness (it's rare I need that), total cost was half the price of the iPod and served my needs far far better.

Recently I've also got onto the google music beta, so through my phone I can play any of the >5000 songs I own whenever I want, I doubt I'll ever buy an iPod again as it's simple not needed :)
 
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