iPod or iRiver?

[Iwasgoodonce]

Hi guys. What would you go for? I want to get into this century and get a media player thingy. I like the look of the ipod Touch but have heard it only has to look at a photo of a rain drop and it stops working forever. I don't expect it to be waterproof but am I alone in thinking some weather resistance should be built in?
Most of my music is on CD. Can I get it from CD to the Touch? I don't want to have to buy the whole lot again!
What is iTunes? Do I have to use it for everything?

The other unit I like is the iRiver that has a built in digital radio. I listen to a lot of radioa nd that might just nudge it for me. Does anyone have one?

Thanks as ever.

 

[xerxes]

I don't think there are any properly weatherproof media payers, but they should be OK in the inside pocket of your waterproofs.

You can rip tracks from your CDs to your PC as MP3s or another format if you prefer and your media player can handle the file type. However, I think I'm right in saying that all Apple media players require you to use iTunes to connect and transfer your files to the media player, whereas with many other players, you can use Windows Explorer to drag and drop as you would to any other USB device.

I have my own preferences and prejudices, but rather than tell you mine, here are some others: http://www.trustedreviews.com/filte...ter=48&manufacturer=0&submit.x=26&submit.y=21

 

[perry]

I'm thinking of an iphone as my current phone is about 5 years old and I'd like to be able to reference a few pdf manuals for work and being able to look at things like sheldon browns site would be useful . Haven't seen if it'll just read a pdf file or not yet and using linux might be a stumbling block . There is a windows pc in the house but it would be nice to still not have to use it .

 

[legrandefromage]

You can drag & drop Itunes tracks to Sony Ericsson phones.

 

[ajm]

Personally (speaking from experience here) I'd avoid anything with the Apple logo like the plague. So-so quality at best, massively over-hyped, over-priced and designed for people who value fashion over function.

The ipod touch in particular has a very poor reliability record, and of course you're more or less forced to use iTunes which is a fairly horrible bloated and unintuitive piece of software in my opinion.

 

[LeeDevelopment]

Ripping CD's to iTunes is a doddle, although time consuming.

If you going for an iPod then WAIT!!! The whole line gets refreshed in September.

I'm keeping fingers crossed that they release a 128GB iPod Touch although it's looking unlikely

 

[xerxes]

Personally (speaking from experience here) I'd avoid anything with the Apple logo like the plague. So-so quality at best, massively over-hyped, over-priced and designed for people who value fashion over function.

The ipod touch in particular has a very poor reliability record, and of course you're more or less forced to use iTunes which is a fairly horrible bloated and unintuitive piece of software in my opinion.

I must admit, I'm a little anti Apple, although I did have a play with a friends iPhone the other day and the touch screen with the two finger zoom is pretty nifty. I don't like Apple software though, install quicktime on your PC and next time it updates it pre-selects a whole raft of nonsense for hardware I don't even own and software (iTunes) I don't want. In addition, I would place sound quality pretty much above all else for and audio device and Apple devices never seem to score that highly compared to others like Sony, Cowon, Samsung and Creative.

Having said that, nearly all MP3 players can be much improved by ditching the bundled ear phones. Try a pair of Koss Portapro or Sennheiser PX100: http://www.goodcans.com/HeadphoneReviews/porta.htm, I own both, and there's not much between them in sound, but I find the Portapro more comfortable. Earbuds are more descrete, but can't match the sound of bigger headphones and I personally don't like the "sticking your fingers in your ears" sensation of plug type 'phones.

 

[stewlewis]

I have a Cowon D2, sounds ACE. Not the nicest interface or the greatest storage (4+8GB on mine) but I wanted sound quality and VOLUME.

If it's for cycling with, Sansa clip is the way to go, the original ones are cheap as cheaps, sound ACE and damn solid. Very basic interface but it's in your pocket anyway.

Music collection, stored on the PC, I don;t feel the need to carry it all around with me so capacity isn't really an issue.

Songbird or MediaMonkey does my catalogue duties in much the same way as iTunes.

iPod touch looks nice, is a nice toy but I just wanted an audio player, an I can work them without looking.

I use SoundMagic PL-30 earbuds which are about the best price/performance wise. I'm quite tempted to try the PL-50, but the 30's sound so good I can't convince myself to spend more.

I also have some Sony ex-85, for about 11 quid, so cheap china copies I think, but you wouldn't know to look at them or to listen too, bass on these is fantastic.

Phones, I have Sennheiser HD-25sp, great sounding and work OK with the high level output of the Cowon.

 

[djoptix]

ipod. Sorry.

 

[mikeekim89]

I've had a iPod touch, they offer a decent level of water resistance, unless you get it in the charging port, at that point you need too get it dry, REAL fast. but, it'll handle surfacer water well, and iTunes music will go onto virtually any phone that takes MP3 playback, so any modern one, as far as mp3's go, i'd say apple every time, also i had a nano, and it got dented and worked fine, and got dropped in a sink with running watetr and still worked, wet and dry. Hope this helps

Mike,