i-pod versus MP3 player

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What are the differences between MP3 players and ipods?



(Be nice - I'm an old fart...)

Mp3 player can only run mp3 sound files. An ipod plays mostly it's own sound file types. Most mp3 files have no copy protection. Most ipod sound files do.

iPods play mp3 as well.

if the songs are bought from iTunes then are protect but download your cds through aren't protected.

Technically, iPods are MP3 players. The differences vary between brands and players. Most of the good MP3 players play more than just MP3 music files.

A quick search on Google using "iPod versus other MP3 players" as my search yields 548,000 results. Here are a few of them:

Apple iPod vs. the World: Which MP3 Player Is Best?

Yahoo! Answers: IPod vs. other mp3 players?

Music Players Room: iPod vs the Other MP3 Players

As I said before, the differences vary between players, some of the differences:

iPods use internal rechargeable batteries. - Other brands may also use internal batteries or they may use external batteries(AAA or AA).

iPods require you to use their program to put music on the player. - Some other brands also require you to use a program, others act like thumb drives and you can just drag and drop the music file into the player without using a program.

I don't really know much about iPods. I do know that I wouldn't want to download songs through iTunes though because those songs can only be used with the iPod. So if you ever changed to a different brand, all those songs would be pretty useless.

ipods are more expensive.

iPods have the hype and other players the price.

The only difference between iPods and MP3 players is branding. You are paying more for the iPod brand name. They force people to keep using iPods by making them need software that people can also use to buy music which can only be used on their ipods and seems to me like a big scam.

iPod is just Apple's branding for their MP3 players (although now they're more accurately just portable media players, since they also play video as well as audio).

As for iPods vs other media players...really it just comes down to storage capacity with an ultraportable form factor and good sound quality (iPods do tend to have higher maximum storage capacities than most of their other competitors...the iPod classic is availiable up to a whopping 160GB, while the only other one with that kind of capacity, the Archos 605, is notably bigger in terms of physical dimensions and more expensive, although for video playback I would recommend it over the iPod).

Then you have the iPhone and iPod Touch which are more like a smartphone and PDA respectively, rather than a dedicated media player.

Really though...if you don't need the large capacity and don't care about Apple's user interface, you're better of with going with any notably cheaper player rather than the iPod. In the low capacity market, iPods are typically notably more expensive than the other products available.

I use Creative Zen MP3 Players i will never buy an IPOD. For one Ipods break down too easily, two its just proprietory crap that Apple came up with. Three Itunes only works on Win XP/Vista or Mac OSX Tiger and Lepord. I a Win 2000, 98SE and some linux boxes around the house and Itunes won`t work on those.