Every couple years I go out looking for a new portable music player. The features get better. The screens get smaller/bigger/clearer and now are all in color. I go with an open mind, but I never spend my money on an iPod. iPods don't give me the features I want AND they cost more for the same amount of space/functionality. I may be American, but I'm no idiot, to paraphrase Green Day. I don't want to pay more for less.
Yet, the improved features of these alternatives are the best kept secret since the BetaMax. As much as I hear about the ground-breaking oh-so-convenient user interface of iPod, it just isn't convenient for me. How do I know? A trade show gave me a 4 gig Nano. So I thought I would give it a try and see if it was worth it for free.
What I Like
- The colors are pretty - my feminine side loves the purple, mint green, fuchsia, aqua and other girlie colors of the rainbow this comes in. Mine is a very neutral silver, but still nice.
- The size - even in the case, which is a must if you want to continue to see the content behind the screen instead of a maze of scratches, the size is miniscule.
- Accessory selection - if you want a case (see above) there are almost 100 options, and many are stylish and colorful. My case is bronze leather.
- Immediate on - click the play button and your content starts up immediately
- Bookmarking of audiobooks - of course, it is a pain to get them on through iTunes, so I gave up.
What I don't like
- Using Itunes to sync - They just don't give the options I want. For example, - I want the last 3 episodes of one TV show, and the last of another, and all of another. - I want to check the songs or albums I want synched to the ipod without creating a playlist - I want to option to choose which content I want to expire off the iPod - I want the iPod to know what content I have listened to, and offer to expire it. (and I want to tell it only to offer that for Videos of TV, and podcasts, but not for music mixes
- AAC format - which also forces me through iTunes. I want to drag and drop content. I want it to play mp3, Audible, and wma. The conversion needed eats up either time (to convert) or disk (to store the conversion)
- The click wheel - I know, the greatest invention since sliced bread, and I hate the way it works. I feel I have more control with a slider like Creative Zen, or Sansa. Or a wheel with tactile sections so you can feel how much it has rotated, like Insignia.
- The hierarchy - I want to choose the tags I group by, or put things into folders and access the folders. That playlist thing is just bogus. AND, once again, I am fighting with iTunes to see the music the way I want it.
- The battery life - two episodes of "Bones" and the player is drained. Even with the nano's tiny screen, the battery will not get me through a normal plane flight, much less an extended one.
- The proprietary, and ever-changing transfer/charging port - Haven't they heard of mini-USB? Every iPod re-imagines this interfaces, so you must keep specific docks for each model. Also the accessories then have to be sold to match this everchanging target. Honestly, a little standardization could go a long way.
- The missing features -
- FM radio
- recording from line-in or microphone
- Bluetooth headset
- two headphone jacks
- SD card expansion, so I could load content on a card and swap it in, or just increase storage
I just get the feeling that iPod is for people who don't know what they want from a portable music player, and are willing to take what Apple dishes out. So even though the Nano is free, it can't take the place of my Insignia. So I carry it as a spare in case my Insignia runs out of juice. (very rare)<
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