as some one else posted earlier, i use a creative zen, biggest advantage is it's compatable with napster to go so for £15 a m onth i've got unlimmited leagal downloads, currently over 8,000 tracks which when you look at the price itunes sell tracks for has paid for my pc, the player, my subs, my g25, iracing etc etc.


there was an article a while back in micro mart that apple were negotiating with napster to do an ipod with life time unlimmited downloads included in the price ( probably about an extra £100) so if you are likely to be downloading a lot more in the future it may be worth making some enquieries

Unless you like highly controlled DRM infected products because they are a "cool" brand. If you are happy not being able to even do something that should be simple like change the battery or use the drive as a portable USB HD get an iPod.

If you want to be able to use your device as YOU choose then get something else.

For me Apple are as bad as Sony and the current iPhone developer blocking farce has put them on my company black list. The fact you are FORCED to use iTunes as the ONLY interface between PC and iPod is just a joke. It is just a glorified external HD with a built in MP3 player.

Apple is about control over what you can do with your device. Buy one by all means, just do it with your eyes open...

On the DRM thing, it's not an issue, iPods will play normal mp3's just fine and so will iTunes. It's only the iTunes store that has DRM on some songs and it's easy enough to remove - although admittedly I buy so much music it did get frustrating so I go elsewhere now, but I still use iTunes.

I have an 8gb iPhone, and my music collection is around 40gb with about 7000 songs (and growing). The 8gb is simply not enough.

I'm a naturally scatty and disorganised person, but I have to say coverflow has made me change somewhat and my music collection is now the only organised part of my life - it takes some effort to keep the coverflow neet and working like it should, but it's worth it!

Coverflow is the one true god.

See the thing is I used to have an Iriver H320, which was seen at the time as one of the best DAPs around. There was a plethora of community development including Rockbox etc allowing it to do pretty much anything you could want from a DAP.

Now however I too have an iPhone and use iTunes, and have no problem with it at all. Synchronization used to annoy me but once you get it sorted it's better. Plus using the Air Sharing app you can drag and drop files to your iPhone/iPod touch wirelessly across your network anyway. So really the only restrictive thing is DRM on music bought from iTunes - I don't buy from there anyway.

Another nice app (for Mac only) is iPhone remote, which allows you to access all files on the machine running the application, and stream media wireless to your device.

Quote from Woz :

or use the drive as a portable USB HD get an iPod. You can use the ipod as a portable USB HD.


The fact you are FORCED to use iTunes as the ONLY interface between PC and iPod is just a joke. Most other mp3 players tell you to use their own software.... in some your aloud to just drag the music over. Either way you can get third parrty apps that allow you to move your music onto your ipod.

Apple is about control over what you can do with your device. Buy one by all means, just do it with your eyes open...

Oh and the DRM thingy, yeah i dont have any music with that on, and never will do

You can sync an ipod on winamp now iirc

Quote from Luke.S :

You can sync an ipod on winamp now iirc

And Media Monkey which is based off winamp.

Theres loads of apps which can sync music to an ipod.

In fact heres a link to a page full of ipod managers for anyone who thinks you only have to use itunes