I love all the haters. Who try to be diffrent and choose something thats not an apple. Sadly if you want the best the iPod is the king, not heard one in awhile?? go and have a listen, but like with any mp3 player make sure its played through a good set of speakers

quite

As for "good speakers", I thought the idea of personal mp3 players was their portability

You krazeee kat.

I have a 20 gig Sony and love it to bits

Just look on ebay, you can find loads of USB Chargers that plug into the wall really cheaply.

Either that, or have you got a sky/virgin box? as these have USB ports that will charge it too.

Never thought of that.

I love all the haters. Who try to be diffrent and choose something thats not an apple. Sadly if you want the best the iPod is the king, not heard one in awhile?? go and have a listen, but like with any mp3 player make sure its played through a good set of speakers

The reason I'd chose something not apple is not because I'm a "hater", it is purely because ipods sound carp

I'd happily chose an ipod if (a) they actually were good quality MP3 players and ( I didn't have to resort to using itunes.

OK, there's a workaround for (, but I just don't like having to jump through hoops. FWIW, Sony used to be the same But they've finally cottoned on that versatility and openess is better than bible-bashing atheists

For me whenever there is a 'thing' that is a must have i.e. iPod I'll go out of my way to look for something else just because imho the 'thing' that is super popular is usually inferior or more expensive than other similar products.

8Gb Walkman £64, Ipod - £80

And with the walkman I can drag and drop whereas to go to Ipod I'd need to use Itunes and convert or import everything.

If I went with the flow I would have an Octy vRS either, I'd have spend the same money on a lower spec Golf.

OK, there's a workaround for (, but I just don't like having to jump through hoops. FWIW, Sony used to be the same But they've finally cottoned on that versatility and openess is better than bible-bashing atheists

Anyone know if I can get my A816 to drag and drop rather than using sonicstage?

The reason I'd chose something not apple is not because I'm a "hater", it is purely because ipods sound carp

I'd happily chose an ipod if (a) they actually were good quality MP3 players and ( I didn't have to resort to using itunes.

OK, there's a workaround for (, but I just don't like having to jump through hoops. FWIW, Sony used to be the same But they've finally cottoned on that versatility and openess is better than bible-bashing atheists

I know quiet abit about mp3 players and the iPod by far is much more richer and full sounding unit, the standard headphones dont really do the unit justice, it also depends on the quality of the track on the unit. Which many people OVERLOOK! Nano's and shuffles dont sound anywere near as good as a classic. My friends also got the new iPod the one that looks like an iPhone and even his said its not as good as the classic.

The only other mp3 players i can recommend fully is anything from iRiver. The quality is much better than the iPod and just about anything else on the market. I rember my friend purchased a baby stick drive mp3 player from them and the quality of sound blew me away.

But i also share a HATRED!! of iTunes, but as ive said before do what i do and use WINAMP. Simple drag and drop no worries :thumbup:Hope that helps

What about a Cowon?

I've got an iPod Classic and am very happy with it now.

First off , I wanted a hard drive based player as I've got far too much music to put on anything flash based (at a reasonable price) which narrowed the field immensely.

I like the user interface on the iPod - it's nice and straightforward and does exactly what I want it to.

As for the sound quality.... there are a couple of issues.

The first is that the standard headphones don't sound great so a £15 pair of Sony's make a big improvement. The second is that it doesn't like "loud" music. For as long as CDs have been around there's been a creeping trend to turn the gain up at the studio so the music is more "ear-catching". Play a modern CD and then something from 15+ years back and you'll see the difference immediately.

The problem is that the iPod doesn't have all that much headroom left at these levels and you can start to get the sound clipping and distorting on bass notes. This is made worse when you turn the EQ on and boost the bass.

It's something that seems to happen on all iPods I've heard and is a design flaw as other brands have more headroom and cope with louder tracks just fine (my GF has a cheap little 2GB sony that sounds better out of the box). Fortunately there is an easy fix - run MP3gain to drop the level of your music files down to 91db and it totally removes the clipping on bass notes. You shouldn't have to do this of course, but it's well worth it.

The other final thing in their favour - Apples do hold their value much better than the competition if you fancy reselling.

But they've finally cottoned on that versatility and openess is better than bible-bashing atheists

Or maybe they cottoned on to the fact that they weren't selling anything.

The great thing about the iPod is that everybody else has to work really hard to better it. Sony have a pretty good history of crap s/w (remember the XCP/MediaMax/Rootkit debacle). Sony tried to sell MP3 players with SonicStage & everybody bought iPods instead.

So, they ditched it & those who prefer Sony now get far better s/w. Result!

One other thing with the Sony I got. The headphones are really good. On par with my

Sennheiser CX300s. Normally you get some really nasty tinny OEM headphones but these were impressive, if a bit blingy for me with the silver ends.