I had a 60gb iPod photo a couple of years ago, then found I wasn't using it as much as the mp3 player on my phone, so I sold it to a coworker. I am an Apple fan in general, but I did research other players before I got my iPod. Many people really like the Creative Zen models, fwiw.
I think iPods are generally superior to other mp3 players, although you will pay more for an iPod. They are well-designed, have good longevity, and they look great. Even the Nano now comes with a reasonably large screen and is capable of presenting videos if you want to watch a television show on your lunch break or something.
For me, the big capacity iPod was just too much, and One More Thing to carry around. My Sony Ericsson phone has a great mp3 player built-in, and with an m2 expansion card, I can put as much music as I might want to listen to on the phone. That said, I miss just being able to sync playlists and songs and notes and my calendar to my iPod (nevermind that my calendar is also synced to my PDA and my phone!), and if you have a Mac, using the iPod is extremely simple.
Even if you do buy an iPod, I wouldn't recommend using iTunes to download music unless you just like it or it turns out to be the best way for you to go. Plain mp3s are much more versatile, and if you change computers you aren't in much danger of losing music, whereas Apple's proprietary format requires you to confirm that you actually bought this or that mp4 before you transfer from one computer to another. You can set the iPod to naturally import to mp3 rather than mp4, and I'd suggest you enable this option on iTunes if you get an iPod and use iTunes.
Other mp3 players' software (and my phone's software!) either don't work or don't work as well with a Macintosh; I have to dump things straight to my phone's expansion card in drive mode and then build playlists from inside the phone if I want a playlist. This is a pain, so I have got used to just copying a CD or two or an already-made playlist from iTunes onto the memory card, then just shuffling on the phone so that I get a little variety.
Depending on what you want, you can pay under £10 for a little flash drive-style mp3 player. If you want a little more and are sure you'll use an mp3 player, I'd go with the nano as the lowest-end option and not bother with the Shuffle, which has less functionality. For bells and whistles, the iPod Touch is a beautiful gadget, and it will let you connect to the net using wifi (depending on connections, natch). It also comes with a range of good and fun applications with more being developed by the minute it seems. However, memory on the iPod Touch is usually less, and again you'll pay more for it because it comes from Apple.
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I think iPods are generally superior to other mp3 players, although you will pay more for an iPod. They are well-designed, have good longevity, and they look great. Even the Nano now comes with a reasonably large screen and is capable of presenting videos if you want to watch a television show on your lunch break or something.
For me, the big capacity iPod was just too much, and One More Thing to carry around. My Sony Ericsson phone has a great mp3 player built-in, and with an m2 expansion card, I can put as much music as I might want to listen to on the phone. That said, I miss just being able to sync playlists and songs and notes and my calendar to my iPod (nevermind that my calendar is also synced to my PDA and my phone!), and if you have a Mac, using the iPod is extremely simple.
Even if you do buy an iPod, I wouldn't recommend using iTunes to download music unless you just like it or it turns out to be the best way for you to go. Plain mp3s are much more versatile, and if you change computers you aren't in much danger of losing music, whereas Apple's proprietary format requires you to confirm that you actually bought this or that mp4 before you transfer from one computer to another. You can set the iPod to naturally import to mp3 rather than mp4, and I'd suggest you enable this option on iTunes if you get an iPod and use iTunes.
Other mp3 players' software (and my phone's software!) either don't work or don't work as well with a Macintosh; I have to dump things straight to my phone's expansion card in drive mode and then build playlists from inside the phone if I want a playlist. This is a pain, so I have got used to just copying a CD or two or an already-made playlist from iTunes onto the memory card, then just shuffling on the phone so that I get a little variety.
Depending on what you want, you can pay under £10 for a little flash drive-style mp3 player. If you want a little more and are sure you'll use an mp3 player, I'd go with the nano as the lowest-end option and not bother with the Shuffle, which has less functionality. For bells and whistles, the iPod Touch is a beautiful gadget, and it will let you connect to the net using wifi (depending on connections, natch). It also comes with a range of good and fun applications with more being developed by the minute it seems. However, memory on the iPod Touch is usually less, and again you'll pay more for it because it comes from Apple.