I was recently asked my opinion on portable music players, or MP3 players.. Given that I love to hear myself talk, and I have an opinion on most things, I was more then pleased to share my thoughts.
Microsoft, Apple or Sony?
Most people will agree that the top three players currently on the market at the Sony X-Series Walkmen, the Microsoft Zune HD and the range of iPod’s from Apple.
Of the three – my money is generally on the range of players available from Apple. There is generally something there to suit most people, and more often then not most budgets.
While the Zune HD provides a quality audio and video experience, without any real mac support – it can’t even be left in the running. The Apple range of products are also tied to a proprietary library management system as well (iTunes) but – at least it is supported on both Mac and Windows.
This brings the comparison down to Sony versus Apple. The Walkman has great sound quality and a fairly slick user interface. Unlike the Zune it does support both Mac and Windows operating systems. It however appears to get smudged and mark fairly easily, which is an aesthetic thing I know. It has a fantastic feature that the iPod’s don’t offer – noise cancelling.
Ultimately I still come back to the iPod. iTunes is almost entrenched as the music player and library manager of choice for many users both PC and Mac. It’s interface and management of the iPods is fantastic. If you choose the path of an iPod Touch, the ability to purchase, download and simply install applications on to your device is fantastic as well. Although the iPod’s don’t have noise cancelling built in, and I wouldn’t use the earphones that they come with either – I still think for quality and usability – they are still the overall winner.
The Choosing a portable music player by Troy Kelly, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
