ipod touch - any alternatives?

Bean_Counter

Hi,

My daughter has decided that she wants an ipod touch for Christmas. She will mainly be using this for surfing the net and listening to a bit of music, nothing particularly heavy duty, and no doubt downloading a few useless apps.

Can anyone recommend anything that I should be considering as an alternative to an ipod touch?

Thanks.

AmongTheLiving

I don't think there's any other mp3 player you can surf the 'net on, and sure as hell there are no others in which you can install apps. Samsung released an Android-based media player which was supposed to be kind of like a Galaxy S phone without the phone functionality (à la iPhone/iPod touch), but all the reviews I've read say it was an epic fail: http://www.otest.co.uk/p/samsung-tests/galaxy-player-50-reviews.html

Archos has also got some Android-based media players, but I played around with a couple of them once and their resistive screens really got on my nerves. I would prod and poke and the damn thing wouldn't react. Look around to see if any of their models would fit the bill and then TRY THEM OUT before you buy! If your daughter is used to capacitive screens, she'll hate them.

chrisw

You could find an alternative 100 times better, but it still wouldn't be an Ipod Touch. Don't know how old your daughter is, but at school age nothing else will do.

jayme1

chrisw wrote: »

You could find an alternative 100 times better, but it still wouldn't be an Ipod Touch. Don't know how old your daughter is, but at school age nothing else will do.

care to name one, the only ones I can think of is the Galaxy mp3 player, something by archos, and this one. all three I would say are not as good as the ipod touch (you wouldn't get any updates and doesn't really have the support by developers/websites that the ipod has)

so I personally would go ipod touch unless you need a specific feature of one on the other devices eg FLAC support of the archos.

Bean_Counter

chrisw wrote: »

You could find an alternative 100 times better, but it still wouldn't be an Ipod Touch. Don't know how old your daughter is, but at school age nothing else will do.

She is 11, so you may well have hit the nail on the head.

AmongTheLiving

Bean_Counter wrote: »

She is 11, so you may well have hit the nail on the head.

Yup. She probably wants an iPod touch because it's what the cool kids have. But don't blame it on her age, the exact same principle works on adults (also known as the Joneses Syndrome)

[Deleted User]

Well, there is stuff like this.. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003X26VNM/ref=asc_df_B003X26VNM4222230?smid=A1F8YGP86NG3IP&!!!!!googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22242&creativeASIN=B003X26VNM

Archos 32, 8GB for £87. However, you'll find it just isn't as slick, or nice to use as an ipod touch.

To reduce the ipod price, why not look at their reconditioned models?

Bean_Counter

Thanks for all of the responses. It looks like it will be an ipod touch then, which should keep her happy. I dare say I'll get a shot every now and again to see what all the fuss is about.

albionrovers

If her pals have Ipod touches they can FaceTime

[Deleted User]

Realistically, people slag off apple a lot, but their products are usually of a very high quality. The reason no one has shown a product that matches the ipod touch, is that there just isn't anything else on the market. Ironically, if most firms did try to match it, they'd end up making something more expensive

wdw2003

I tried cheaper alternatives to ipods when my kids were about your daughter's age and peer pressure is such that anything other than Apple isn't socially acceptable and probably won't get used. Buy cheap, buy twice etc. The upside is that there should be a new one coming out in a few weeks, which will make her the envy of the friends that already have one.

Even better, it's invaluable for taking on holidays abroad where you can access free wifi rather than hammering your smartphone, so it's actually a very sensible buy.