I’ve been a holdout on the iRiver ifp-790 for a while now. It’s a durable little guy with 256MB of flash memory, support for a wide variety of audio formats, a built-in microphone, and an FM tuner (which is a requirement for me). But, it’s about 5 years old, and its age has been showing for a while now, particularly in the memory department. With all the hubbub over the new Zune HD and the 5th generation iPod nano, I’m starting to think it’s time to update my digital music player.
Now, before you burst a vein pointing out that I’ve repeatedly said I’d never purchase an iPod, you’re absolutely right. I’m not thinking about the iPod nano now, nor will I ever in the future. I do think it’s impressive that Apple finally bothered to give a crap and add an FM tuner to one of its iPods (a feature which has been on the market for years now, but which Apple was apparently to cool to bother to acknowledge) but I still just can’t stomach these things. So, the iPod is out.
The Zune HD is intriguing. In fact, I can safely say I’d probably buy this device, if it supported Ogg Vorbis. I know there are many out there who consider this a dead or dying audio format, but the truth is that it’s still technologically a superior codec to MP3 and, most importantly, a lot of my music library is in vorbis! Yes, I could undertake the monumental task of re-digitizing my collection, but that would be a huge headache and not worth the effort, because there are many other players on the market which are just as sleek as the Zune HD that do support vorbis. So, Microsoft, I wanted to give you a try, really I did, but you’re missing that one last intangible, immeasurable quality of “chemistry.” Don’t fret though; you’re getting my money on Windows 7.
So, where does that leave me? Well, certainly visiting Anything but iPod a lot, for sure. I am intrigued by the Cowon i9. It seems seems slim and light, supports a lot of audio formats (including vorbis!) and looks kind of neat. I can’t tell whether it’s actually going to be released in this country though, or how much it might cost. There are those who swear by Samsung; the M1 and R1 look interesting, but it’s not clear whether the US will ever see the M1, and the R1 hasn’t even been released yet. This is going to be tricky.
