i sincerely do not know

[datasuspect]

and am thinking of making a consumer purchase, but all bullshit aside, is there any tangible, functional difference between an apple iPod and some other form of mp3 player that is not hype, marketing, branding?

[DarkTirade]

1. IPods are nice and all...

but I don't know if it's worth that much money.

Maybe you could check ebay though, see if you can get one cheap there. :) My sister managed to snag an ipod for the price of one of the cheaper mp3 players by doing that.

[datasuspect]

2. anything different in terms of the actual item and the way it functions?

from what people lead me to believe, it would appear it has magical properties.

my view on most electronics is that it is all the same stuff made somewhere in asia packaged in different casings and with different marketing collateral.

[DarkTirade]

5. Yeah, that's my view too.

Hence why I wouldn't buy an ipod unless I could get one for real cheap.

That, and as the person below me said, you have to use ITunes to transfer stuff. Which kinda annoys me.

[DarkTirade]

6. You also have to think about how many gigs of mp3s do you actually have?

I was thinking about getting a cheap-ass 1 gig one that has an SD expansion slot so I could use my 2 gig SD card in there, and that would be plenty for me. I don't know if I could fit ALL of my CDs on there if I ripped them, but I'm sure I'd only end up ripping about half/three quarters of them anyway. :) Do you really need the 20-80 gigs that usually come with an IPod?

[qb]

3. My daughter's iPod works great, but you have to use the iTunes application

To put songs on it.
Generic mp3 players usually allow you to just drag and drop mp3 files.

[Blue-Jay]

4. You can get more memory and similar features for less $$

by buying something other than an iPod. Shop around for the price/features/memory that you'll need.

[youthere]

7. We bought my oldest daughter an Ipod nano two years ago...

and it does work great, but you have to use Itunes which is the most user unfriendly piece of shit interface I have ever dealt with.
When we buy songs we can't just transfer them to windows media to load on my regular old MP3...you have to burn them on a disc first and then copy them off the disc. (If there's another way to do it...I haven't found it..please let me know)

[redqueen]

8. From what I've heard...

the iRiver is much sturdier.