ipod.jpgIve purposely stayed away from the iPod every since it has been released way back when. It isn’t because I didn’t think it was a cool device. I don’t have anything against Apple. My reason was simple.

Apple took a medium that has been around well before the iPod and proprietised it (digital, portable audio). They made a really good product to go along with it in iTunes. But I want my choice. I like to change devices way too much to knowingly lock myself in with one brand, and if I bought an iPod and started purchasing music through iTunes thats what I would be doing. Yea I could just purchase CD’s and rip them to the iPod myself. or I could get bootleg "shared" music (sorry Mr. Laporte, even though I know it is illegal and do not condone it, I cant bring myself to call that stealing) from the net and still use an iPod but that isn’t the point. When it comes to some things, I have certain principles that I really make an effort to stick too.

So, I tried to find alternatives, and I there are some good ones out there, I choose Creative’s Zen Vision M and it has been great. Somewhere down the line, after a few Firmware updates my experience with the Zen V M has degraded to a part time frustration with the device. Mainly because I am having problems with it more and more. Maybe my player is getting old, I have had it for almost a year, and it gets a really heavy dose of use from me.

Whatever the case may be, I may end up looking into a new PMP soon, and since it looks like DRM may be on its way out over at iTunes, I may start to look Apple’s way.

I also really like the Zune too, so thats always an option.