iPod Killers For the Holidays

An anonymous reader writes, "MP3 Newswire has an excellent rundown of 29 new digital portables for the upcoming season. From the article: 'We have run the iPod Killers for Christmas/Summer series since 2004. In that time we [have] reported on 149 portable players and NOT one iPod killer from the bunch. That said, [this time] we may actually have a couple of genuine challengers to Apple. This holiday season will see Microsoft pump tens-of-millions of dollars to hawk their new Zune portable, and SanDisk's 8GB e280 flash unit is compelling high-end users. Both can realistically grab double-digit market share from the iPod... Whether they do or not waits to be seen.' The article also makes a good case as to why the Sony PSP should be included in market figures for digital media portables."

Comments

Easy + Accessories + Everybody's got one + Cool

[superkpt]

Anyone been to a Walmart/Target/Best Buy/Circuit City/Fry's/Apple Store lately? Notice the insane amount of accessories available for the iPod? Anyone notice that more and more car manufacturers are including ports or docks for iPods in their cars?

I'm not sure what the 'average' consumer is thinking about when purchasing a digital music player, but to know that there are a gazillion after-market items I can get for an iPod is somewhat comforting. Plus, the ubiquitity of the iPod means millions of websites devoted to tips, info, hacks, etc. for the iPod. And don't forget the 'cool' factor (which is hard to put into words).

Do not get me wrong. I have a couple of issues with the iPod. I used to own a Minidisc player (EXCELLENT hardware, TERRIBLE software). It had swappable, rechargeable, gumstick batteries. Plus, the exterior didn't scratch easily. And the battery life was incredible.

But come on, iPods are INSANELY easy to dump music to. I don't even use iTunes and it's still insanely easy. Drag and drop will always be the best way for us geeks to get our music on these things, but the ease of use, the ubiquitity of accessories and information, and, finally, the cool factor will make it very hard for any other player to make strong inroads into the market.

Slanted review. PSP is overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

While it might be a moderately enjoyable gaming platform to some, PSP is by no means a portable mp3 device in the traditional sense and should not be included in the same category. For one, it's crippled from the outset with a sub-standard storage media - UMD. It has a terrible battery life, does not offer the same kids of options you would get from Archos, Cowon, or even iPod.

The writer (Richard Menta) has a well-known bias for PSP. For example:

It's interesting how the best portable media player on the market today is never mentioned as an iPod Killer. That honor goes to the Sony PSP, which offers a good MP3 player and a superior video/movie player that trumps the iPod in picture quality.

PSP is the most user-hostile portable device out there, complete with awful, proprietary technologies usually found in Sony products. That's the reason why DS/Lite is eating Sony's lunch. The market even rejected PSP on its own turf.

Plugging PSP into the iPod competitor column is disingenuous. My cellphone can play MP3s too, I don't see it on there.

Re:Nothing new

[Toby_Tyke]

I used to think along the same lines. I was planning to buy a player that supported ogg, but I never found one that I liked, and I have since given up on the ogg format. It is simply never, ever, going to be widely adopted enough for the player manufacturers to bother supporting it. Sorry.

The reasons are many and varied, but the main one is, quite simply, the problem it solves is not a problem many people actually have. Ogg was an attempt to create a compressed audio standard unencumbered by licensing, which could replace MP3. Which is all well and good, except I have never, since the day I first became aware of MP3, been unable to download a piece of free (as in beer) software which would encode MP3s for me. I have never been unable to do something with an MP3 because of the license the format is issued under. In short, MP3 is free enough for me.

If you look at the two other most widely used compressed audio formats, WMA and AAC, they both have (near) monopolies pushing them. The most popular digital audio player and online music store uses AAC. The OS preinstalled on 90+ percent of computers sold in the world ships with a media player that supports playing and ripping WMAs. Who is pushing ogg?

The market for ogg is basically limited to linux users, and most of us are using MP3 anyway. There is no reason for any company to push it, and really very little reason to use it. I know it's supposed to be highter quality, but A, I can't hear the difference, and B, why would I want a high quality compressed audio format? To play on my portable music player, which supports which formats? Oh, yeah.

*NOTE TO PEDANTS - Yes, I am aware of the difference between the ogg container format and the vorbis codec. I just can't be bothered to type ogg vorbis every time.