you're my only hope Obi-Wan

[threeplusfire]

So, I have a $100 gift card from Christmas still in my wallet. I've been kicking around the idea of getting an mp3 player for awhile now. It would be nice at work, or out in places where I want to stop listening to other people. It's not something I need but it is something I want. I think I've read half the buyer's guides on the web and I still don't know what I should get though. So, what else is there to do but post on LJ about it?

My other conundrum is that if I decide to go the Apple route, should I just wait for the iPhone? I have Cingular anyway.

[Poll #913221]

Comment and tell me how much you love/hate your music player.

Comments

[eclipsedeyes.livejournal.com]

I say creative not because I have one but because I'm planning on buying one, not because I have one. Reviews unanimously say it beats ipod on a number of points. + I have heard soooo many horror stories about ipod's inbuilt obsolescence and faultiness (EVERYBODY seems to be onto their second or third ipod) and I really think that from an environmental/anti-consumerist perspective that is really not cool. For every mobile phone made there's 50kg of resources uses and I can't imagine that ipods are much different - buy something that will last.

Hard drive vs. flash is only important because it makes a difference to capacity.

[eclipsedeyes.livejournal.com]

sorry about syntax errors, I just woke up.

[genetic.livejournal.com]

I don't think the iPods are necessarily that much worse than any other hard drive-based player. I think one of the reasons you hear so many stories about it is simply because there are so many more iPods out there than the competing devices. But I've never seen any real statistics about it.

Hard drive vs. flash is also important because a) hard drives are inherently less reliable than flash, b) if you're doing something like jogging with the iPod, part (a) becomes really important because you're jolting the player around so much.

[eclipsedeyes.livejournal.com]

Maybe in terms of the moving parts issue, but I was actually referring to ipods notorious battery/non-responsiveness issues, including (well, even particularly, thinking back) the flash models.