iPods and look-alikes

[kallend 1,623]

I'm thinking of getting an iPOD to play into my plane's intercom system, and I noticed a whole bunch of look-alikes in the stores that are from reputable companies (such as Philips, Sony and Samsung) and are much less expensive for the same amount of memory. What would be the advantages of a genuine iPOD over one of these?

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[adamjenner 0]

i bought an actual ipod and personally i like it better than the sony's or irivers etc etc, some friends have had troubles with the look a likes.

ipods are great though, as long as a computer has itunes you can pretty much upload/download anything with your ipod.

[Sockpuppet 0]

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i bought an actual ipod and personally i like it better than the sony's or irivers etc etc, some friends have had troubles with the look a likes.

ipods are great though, as long as a computer has itunes you can pretty much upload/download anything with your ipod.

Strictly not true. You can get Eph Pod which is an itunes replacement for uploading tracks to ipods.

The look alikes have the advantages of (probably) playing encrypted (i.e. DRM protected) WMAs but not .mp4s (iTunes). Ipods it is the other way around.

Depends where you get your music from. If you buy from itunes then ipod if you rip from cd or get WMA then get a look a like.

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Two of the three voices in my head agree with you. It might actually be unanimous but voice three only speaks Welsh.

[BIGUN 1,053]

I purchased the iPod 60 gig for the navigation menu, color screen, size of screen and numerous choices of peripheral devices. I also found iTunes very user friendly.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[kallend 1,623]

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i bought an actual ipod and personally i like it better than the sony's or irivers etc etc, some friends have had troubles with the look a likes.

ipods are great though, as long as a computer has itunes you can pretty much upload/download anything with your ipod.

Strictly not true. You can get Eph Pod which is an itunes replacement for uploading tracks to ipods.

The look alikes have the advantages of (probably) playing encrypted (i.e. DRM protected) WMAs but not .mp4s (iTunes). Ipods it is the other way around.

Depends where you get your music from. If you buy from itunes then ipod if you rip from cd or get WMA then get a look a like.

Does iPOD/iTunes have a proprietary format then?

I'm not much interested in buying from the internet, I'd just load up my CD collection.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kingbunky 3]

ipods will play pretty much anything (mp3, mp4, aac) except wma. itunes will offer to convert any wma's to mp4's when you import them. that said, i find itunes kinda clunky, but it works. i have a 4gb nano, so i don't have to change out my music much.

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001

[Sockpuppet 0]

[replyDoes iPOD/iTunes have a proprietary format then?

I'm not much interested in buying from the internet, I'd just load up my CD collection.

[adamjenner 0]

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ipods will play pretty much anything (mp3, mp4, aac) except wma. itunes will offer to convert any wma's to mp4's when you import them. that said, i find itunes kinda clunky, but it works. i have a 4gb nano, so i don't have to change out my music much.

that's another thing i liked about them, and also the one i bought was the video ipod so it also holds a ton of videos and pictures and displays them in really high quality.

[Thanatos340 1]

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itunes will offer to convert any wma's to mp4's when you import them

This is NOT true.
If you purchase any Rights Managed (Legally Purchased songs) in WMA format, iTunes WILL NOT covert them. You only choice is to burn the songs to a CD and then Rip them back off the CD in MP3 (Or other compatible format).

To answer the original posters question...
There is absolutely NOTHING the ipod does that the other less expensive MP3 Players will not do.
However there are MANY things that the less expensive models will do that the iPOds will not do.

I bought an iPOd (And still use it sometimes) and absolutely hated it because of all the limitations. I purchased two other very inexpensive MP3 Players and Love them because they are MUCH easier to use if you are technically inclined at all.


If you want to spend hours and hours dicking with Play list (I dont), Not have the ability to play songs legally purchased from sites such as Napster (WMA Format), Have to find 3rd party software to use your iPod as a Jump drive, NOT be able to move songs FROM your ipod to another Computer.. But have the latest and Trendy devise.. Then spend the extra money and buy the iPod.. You cant do as much with it.. But atleast you will be cool.

[Broke 0]

I like my sony walkman. It can play both mini discs and their media cards. It works well however Sonys sonicstage program sucks ass. It does support the .ogg sound format. If you want to add another gig it will only cost you about 7 bucks for another disk. Uses one double A battery that gets about 20 hours of play. and when it dies you just pop a new one in. Perfect for long excursions where you may not be able you reach a charger. There is a bit of a lag while the disk spins up though, and it has no backlighting, but so far I have had it for over a ear and am happy. even dropped it a couple of times with no real issues.

Divot your source for all things Hillbilly.
Anvil Brother 84
SCR 14192

[weegegirl 2]

I'm a big fan of the Samsung one. I absolutely despise Ipods and Itunes. Crappy program! I don't like the conversion crap that will only allow you to play the music on Ipod products. Plus, I spent about $100 buying individual songs off Itunes. When I went to switch computers I basically lost all that music. You can't transfer stuff over and you can't redownload it. This is a total rant, but I have had nothing but ideal circumstances with my Samsung.

[Nightingale 0]

Yes, you can transfer stuff from computer to computer. you just burn it on a CD and upload it to your new computer.

[weegegirl 2]

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Yes, you can transfer stuff from computer to computer. you just burn it on a CD and upload it to your new computer.

Trust me, I'm not computer illiterate. I work on them all day. Just don't feel like typing out all the issues I had with ipod and itunes. Here, how's this, bottom line.... Itunes sucks.

[micro 0]

i know you don't feel like typing, but why does it suck? i haven't used it too much on my laptop, but it seems ok so far... just bought the 30gig video ipod too... looking forward to getting it. would like to know why you don't like itunes so much.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[mailin 0]

My hubby just got a creative zen. They also have the creative zen micro, but I don't know anything about it.

For a harddrive player (which I won't own because I abuse the crap out of my mp3 player and would destroy a harddrive dropping it off the treadmill), its pretty cool. It holds 30 gb and allows video and pictures to be uploaded too. It has a really cool touch pad and its easy to use. I've heard it called a legitimate contender to the iPod.

Personally, I believe Apple is shooting themselves in the foot with the iPod/iTunes, just as they did with the apple IIe. I won't buy one.

Here's a ZEN review: http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_ZEN_Touch_20GB/4505-6490_7-30907933.html

Good luck with whatever you choose.


Jen

Arianna Frances

[kingbunky 3]

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itunes will offer to convert any wma's to mp4's when you import them

This is NOT true.
If you purchase any Rights Managed (Legally Purchased songs) in WMA format, iTunes WILL NOT covert them. You only choice is to burn the songs to a CD and then Rip them back off the CD in MP3 (Or other compatible format).

..true, but i was referring to wma's ripped from your own cd's. i had a bunch because i used windows media player to manage my old rio, so anything i ripped was a wma, and they were not drm encoded, and itunes will/did convert them for me without issue.

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001

[mailin 0]

I agree - have you seen the new version of media player?

Personally I've always loved music match for purchasing tunes, but the new version of media player is pretty cool for organizing everything.


Jen

Arianna Frances

[Armour 0]

I use a creative Zen micro Photo. It's 8 Gb and I like the fact that there is many (and more to come) music services where you can buy and use. I have a subscription to Napster to go where you pay $10us or $15 Canadian monthly and you can download and listen to as much music as you want.

The Zen will play MP3, Wave and WMA files, I found the Zen to have a better sound (I bought both a ZEN and Ipod and compared sound with wave files of the music I like and found the Zen to be much more cleaner. )and the fact the model when I bought it came with an extra battery was a nice bonus.

Ipod has a lot of add-ons you can buy if you big for matching you Ipod slip cover with the shoes your wearing that day. I'm not a huge fan of how restrictive their Digital rights management are so that why I will not buy an Ipod or Sony product.

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Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most.

[weegegirl 2]

Short version...

Itunes is NOT user friendly. This may have gotten better in the last year. But any of their instructions/maintenance documentation is not geared toward user, but rather geared toward programmer. I didn't have much trouble, but I have heard this from many people.

If you buy a song from iTunes you get 2 downloads - 2 computers only. So since I use a work computer, my laptop, and a home desktop, I'm shit out of luck. And when I switched contracts and moved jobs, I lost all the music that was on my work computer - since that was considered one of the downloads.

My iPod puked out of nowhere, and I have seen this happen A LOT! Took me forever to figure out how to completely reset it - at which point I lost all my music that was on there that I had gone around and collected from my friends. That really bummed me out.

My samsung does not require you to convert your music. It plays as is. Itunes converts it to a format that can't be played outside of itunes or your ipod. I hated that. Time consuming and a pain in the ass.

There is NOTHING an iPod can do that my Samsung can't.

There. those are my reasons.

[squirrel 0]

i dont listen to music too much...dont even have a radio in the jeep...wind in my ears is all i need...

________________________________
Where is Darwin when you need him?

[katzurki 0]

There are the unfortunate people reveling blissfully in their ignorance of the hardships they have to endure with iTunes and Apple firmware, and then there are Rockbox users who enjoy iPods the way they were meant to be enjoyed.

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[katzurki 0]

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There is NOTHING an iPod can do that my Samsung can't.

Play video?
Run Doom?
Quake?
Duke Nukem 3D?
Back up as calculator / conversion tool?
Run almost any Linux application within reason with only a minimal bit of tweaking?

[weegegirl 2]

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There is NOTHING an iPod can do that my Samsung can't.

Play video?
Run Doom?
Quake?
Duke Nukem 3D?
Back up as calculator / conversion tool?
Run almost any Linux application within reason with only a minimal bit of tweaking?

Okay, sorry... gosh... you people are ipod addicts or something. I should clarify... nothing my Samsung can't do that I NEED or WANT it to do that an iPod can.

Video... I'm a vidiot.... I always have cameras or laptops nearby. No need to play video. I bought the thing for music. However, I do like the photo option that allows me to put cool pictures as my wallpaper.

I don't play games... and damn... you play on that tiny screen? Eek.

Calculator on my cell phone.

No aps, just tunes.

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[katzurki 0]

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I don't play games... and damn... you play on that tiny screen? Eek.

No aps, just tunes.

Er, I actually don't, but the fact I am able to if I wanted makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Us nerds get off that way, y'know.

[micro 0]

k, thanks for the explanation. i only have itunes on my work laptop (my company actually supports it!

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...