MP3 player/Ipod - What Should I Buy?

Don't get an ipod. Get an Iriver, I don't know an ipod owner that hasn't had it broken

Well, there have been five different types of ipods go through this family of three over the last few years and all of them worked fine. Each of us just ran out of space on the mini that was handed down and eventually we all needed an upgrade. We all love our iPods. I can't imagine living without it.

It all depends what you want to do with it, how much you're looking spend, do you want something small, how much space etc.

For the same price as a video ipod you can buy a sony psp which does the same and can watch UMD's and play games.

only want it for tunes to & from work etc, portable cd player just not convenient.

Ipod are shite... Go the iRiver. My ipod shagged itself after 3 days, and then Apple charged me $30 to get it repaired in which they told me nothing was wrong. 2 hours after getting it back, the problem was still occurring.

Customer Services was less than helpful, and asked for another $30 to have it look at again. In the end the store I bought it from was so embarrassed they refunded me with a bigger and better iRiver.

I don't know what Irivers are like but me and my sis have Ipods and they work great, very simple to use, iTunes makes loading songs easy as and if you charge it properly, very long operating times before it goes flat.
I would go on ebay and get a mini, unless you have thousands of songs it will do the same things a nano will do, just way cheaper, i mean, why do you need a colour screen to listen to music? I believe the Minis have a longer playback time then nanos do aswell.

I've had my 3rd generation ipod for over 2 years now and it's still going strong, I listen to it on the bus to and from work every day, plug it into speakers and have it playing while I go sleep, play it in the mornings when I get up, never had any problems. I'd say 95% of ipods work great but if you're in that 5% who get a dud then by all accounts Apple aren't good at helping you out (see TR's case earlier).

When this one reaches the end of its life I'd have no hesitation in getting another.

Got an iPod and never use it. The battery life is abysmal on my model (2-3 years old) and the much-touted interface is really clunky when dealing with loads of music, IMO. Also, I have 40-50GB of music, but would listen to about 10% of it regularly.

I have no experience with other players, besides an Archos Jukebox (battery life is even worse) which I used for storing photos while travelling.

I'd suggest that you get a Nano or even a Shuffle. If you have a larger music collection, then just shuffle/cycle your favourite playlists of the day.

iPods can be good in the car if you have an iTrip or audio cable that plugs it straight into your car stereo. You can get a non-brand car charger shipped over from Hong Kong pretty cheaply - don't bother with expensive accessories. Actually, there's even something that is a charger and radio tuner in one that might be worth trying.

Go the portable cassette walkman... if you get bored, change tapes....

look on the apple website under refurbished ipods. Still get 1 year warranty with them at a much cheaper price.