Everone loves ipod knockoffs.

[AndrewBird]

I've got a 30GB Zen Xtra like Josh said and love it. It's a little big, but off of Amazon, I got it for $170 shipped brand new. Even came with a leather case. Kicks the shit out of an i-pod for the price.

[Tvan]

I'll never understand the fascination with the ipod, either. My brother in law has a Creative Nomad Zen, and it's plenty badass. I think people are just hypnotized by the semi-translucent white plastic housing, because more and more electronics are starting to be made with that design. Kind of disturbing, actually.

It's too bad that Apple sets the trends for everyone else. Back when I had my first one, pretty much no one else had even seen an ipod, and it was pretty cool. After getting my 4th gen 40gb photo, I didn't even bother to bust out the white headphones, because I didn't care to be part of the croud that jumped on the bandwagon. Most of them dont' even realize that those headphones suck either. Most of my friends are ipod haters, and I have used many of theirs (iriver H300, Creative Zen, Archos Jukebox) and haven't found one to be better than my ipod. Plus, I'm a mac user.

Kicks the shit out of an i-pod for the price.

You get what you pay for.

[jht3]

i started with the little 64mb RIO
then i got a 6gb Nomad Jukebox. that thing was HEAVY, ate batteries, and had a clunky interface. but it worked great in my car. no one knew what it was and there wasn't much else on the market at the time.
ive had an ipod for a few years now and its WAY better than anything else ive used.

i'm sure there are other options, but apple has a HUGE support base which means tons of accessories

[Vspec]

Got a micro Zen because it was cheaper and I could change the batteries myself something the iPod never offered ...

[Charlie]

http://msn.com.com/2100-9595_22-5989053.html?part=msn&tag=feed_2514&subj=ns_5989053

This cracks me up.

Go creative!

-Charlie

[808BMW]

I had one of those disc players that play mp3 discs way back. People used to ask me how much my "special" cd's cost because they can hold like 150 songs. It was so hard trying to explain whats going on so I just said yeah its uber expensive, and I was the only one with it.