# Does it have to be an iPod? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 7, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665 "2009-05-07T16:21:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pricciar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@pricciar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pricciar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/21 "2009-05-07T22:34:31Z")
> [@Belrix](#): > > The companion question is just how much music do you have? I have 500 CD’s ripped to my hard drive and God knows how much Yo-ho-ho musiic and I think I total only 30G or so. > > At 5MB/song (give or take) and 3.5 minutes per song, that’s 1400 hours of music, enough to play for 2 months with no repeats. > > Sure, you could by a 120 GB iPod but _why?_ > > At 120GB, yes, your choices are limited. At smaller sizes, though, there’s many more choices and usually the Apple stuff will be at the top of the price curve. I think a lot of people have 120 gigs of music and like having it at their disposal. I have that much music/old time radio on my desktop computer. Also, they stick videos and stuff on their to take up even more space. I was just balking at the 30% for cool factor claim. I am sure there are many who buy it for the cool factor. I don’t think the majority of people do it for that People going for the apple product might be going for it because of a better build, or because in some cases there are a lot more peripherals for the ipod, or in the case of shuffle because people are morons (Ok. I agree with cool factor. Or atleast ignorance there.) I just think saying that everything apple makes is more expensive because of some cool factor is off base. I think there are plenty of other actual quality issues at play. Especially, the fact, that they were there early and the wheel worked a lot better than other things that were out there. For the most part Apple’s user interface is also near or at the top of the curve for the Mp3 products. I remember owning a Rio Volt and hoping they would come out with an iPod like product, but nothing they did ever seemed high quality enough to purchase. Back on topic. I really like the MP3 players who allow you to swap out microSD cards. You can buy a couple of those and have (huge) mixes for whatever your mood is. ---
**Author:** ![maleinblack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@maleinblack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maleinblack)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/22 "2009-05-07T23:37:21Z")
I have the 120 GB Zune. It costs around the same as an iPod but the client software is much much better than the iTunes. I like the music subscription model where you pay around $15 a month to ‘rent’ as much music that you want, you cannot listen to the songs after you cancel your subscription. The cool part is that the $15 subscription comes with 10 free downloads of the songs that you like which are yours to keep even after you cancel the subscription. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/23 "2009-05-07T23:54:50Z")
Oh, I’m so glad I did a search before starting the exact same thread. I’m looking for a non-iPod myself. (iTunes scarred me for life–didn’t play nice on my computer.) ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/24 "2009-05-08T00:07:31Z")
I have a Sansa Sandisk for which I paid about $45.00. It’s great, once you’ve downloaded Media Player 11 (the drivers for the player are in this version of the player). No problems. ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/25 "2009-05-08T01:22:19Z")
Sony Walkmans have great battery life and come with much better earbuds than iPods. [http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16178&N=4294966011](http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16178&N=4294966011) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/26 "2009-05-08T01:25:25Z")
I have a little RCA Lyra that’s worked great for many years. I also have a Zen 4G which is excellent. No need to feed the Apple behemoth…TRM ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/27 "2009-05-08T06:53:42Z")
About phones, Blackberry’s have been mentioned but that may be overkill if you don’t want the PDA features. There are a lot of cheaper phones if you just want the music . Check out the low-end models in Nokia’s XpressMusic series or Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series. For example the Nokia 5130 supports 16GB cards and has a standard 3.5mm audio jack. You can get it for around $120 unsubsidized. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/28 "2009-05-08T23:45:24Z")
> [@Belrix](#): > > Like most things Apple, there’s a 30% “cool” charge tacked onto the price. At least they got over charging $50 for “black”. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/29 "2009-05-09T04:03:07Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I have a Creative Zen. It was about $100…not as cheap as **Kweeenaw** ’s but still good. It works well and I’m happy with it. Seconded. My Creative Zen Micro sounds noticeably better than my iPod classic, although it doesn’t have the storage space of the 'pod. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Buttons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Mr\_Buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Buttons)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/30 "2009-05-09T04:39:11Z")
> [@Glory](#): > > Sony Walkmans have great battery life and come with much better earbuds than iPods. > > [http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16178&N=4294966011](http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16178&N=4294966011) I second the Walkman. I just bought one of those this week, $69.95 for a 4 gig version at Wal-Mart($89.95 for an 8 gig version). It’s done everything I wanted an mp3 player to do. The battery life seems to be around 24-30 hours straight fully charged, if only listening to music. Charges back up through the USB line on your computer. (I think that’s common now, but it sure wasn’t on the last one I owned back around 2001.) Agreed that the earphones are really comfortable, but haven’t tried the Ipod ones so I can’t compare. ---
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/31 "2009-05-09T05:02:05Z")
As an iPod owner (a gift, not something I’d ever pay for) I’d suggest getting an MP3 player that doesn’t require the software needed in order to add music (E.g. when plugging in the device is read as an external drive and you can simply drag and drop music files into a folder)… Much, much more convenient in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665/32 "2009-05-09T15:59:07Z")
> [@Mr\_Buttons](#): > > I second the Walkman. I just bought one of those this week, $69.95 for a 4 gig version at Wal-Mart($89.95 for an 8 gig version). > > It’s done everything I wanted an mp3 player to do. The battery life seems to be around 24-30 hours straight fully charged, if only listening to music. Charges back up through the USB line on your computer. (I think that’s common now, but it sure wasn’t on the last one I owned back around 2001.) > > Agreed that the earphones are really comfortable, but haven’t tried the Ipod ones so I can’t compare. I got a Walkman yesterday. I don’t like the earbuds, but all earbuds are uncomfortable on me so I’m using my old headphones instead. I like the Walkman interface a lot better than the other ones I looked at (Sansa, Zunes). You click the buttons instead of sliding your finger around on the touchpads. I’m a bit old-fashioned, as you can tell. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-it-have-to-be-an-ipod/495665.md?page=1)