Personal Media Players: The 5 Best Alternatives to the Apple iPod

With over 120 million iPods sold, Apple is by far the market leader of portable media players, but there are other manufacturer’s doing great things. There are many reasons to look beyond Apple—perhaps you want features iPods don’t have, play files iTunes doesn’t support, or perhaps you just hate Apple—in any case, below is a list of alternatives that are actually pretty good.

iRiver
Iriver offers full line of great alternatives that even rival Apple on design. We’ll look at two: the P7 and the Spinn. The 4.42” × 2.89” × .52” P7 is dominated by its 4.3” 480 × 272 (HD1080/16) touch display, which features an amazing GUI. It comes installed with either 8 or 16 GB, but is expandable with microSD. The P7 is not only an audio/video player and image viewer, but an FM Radio, text viewer and voice recorder. It supports a wide range of file formats: MP3, WMA, WAV, Ogg, and FLAC for audio, AVI, MP4, DAT, MPG, VOB, WMV, RM, 3GP, and FLV for video, and JPEG, BMP, and GIF for images. The 6.18 ounce device starts at $179.99 for the 8 GB version and jumps to $209.99 for 16 GB.

The prominent feature of the Spinn, pictured above, like the P7, is its touch-sensitive, 3.3 inch, 480 × 272 active matrix OLED display. It also utilizes a large wheel on the right side for navigation through the beautifully designed menus. It doesn’t play all the formats of the P7, but does support Flash. The Spinn also adds Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. Measuring 3.92” × 2.00” × .42” and weighing just 2.47 ounces, the Spinn is priced at $169.99 for 4 GB and $199.99 for 8 GB.

Be sure to also check out the E100—with a 2.4” QVGA screen, 2–8 GB of storage, and a microSD slot—and the Volcano, which gives the iPod Shuffle a run for its money.
Sansa
SanDisk releases their personal media players under the brand Sansa. The two lines to look at are the Fuze, which competes against the Nano, and the Clip, a Shuffle competitor. The Sansa Fuze uses flash memory, available in 2, 4, or 8GB sizes, but is expandable using microSDHC. Each model features a 1.9″ 220 × 176 LCD screen, built-in microphone and FM tuner, measure 3.1″ × 1.9″ × .3″ and weigh 2.1 ounces. It supports MP3, WMA, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC, while images and videos are converted to JPEG and AVI, respectively, using proprietary software. The Fuze in priced from $79.99 for the 2 GB model to $129.99 for the 8 GB version.

The Sansa Clip, pictured, is small, very small. It measures 2.17″ × 1.35″ × .65″ and weighs less than an ounce. It supports the same audio files as the Fuze and also comes with a built-in microphone and FM tuner. The Sansa Clip, like the iPod Shuffle, sports a clip and comes in 1, 2, 4, or 8 GB models priced at $39.99 – $99.99.
Zen
Creative has a long history of personal media players, starting way back in 2000 with the Creative NOMAD Jukebox. NOMAD was discontinued in favor of Zen, which has several models in its line-up, from Zen Stone (small and display-less) to the Zen Mozaic (an iPod Nano competitor with a unique keypad.) The pictured Zen is 3.26 × 2.16 × .47 inches, 2.3 ounces, features a 2.5” QVGA display, and was the world’s first 32 GB flash-based media player. It also features an FM Radio, voice recorder, SD card slot, and removable lithium-ion battery. The Zen plays MJPEG, WMV, and AVI video formats; MP3, AAC, Audible, WMA, and WAV audio formats; and displays JPEG images. The Zen is priced starting at $79.99 for the 2 GB model to $299.99 for the 32 GB version.
Archos
Along with their more traditional media players, the Archos2 (iPod Nano competitor) and Archos3 (iPod Touch competitor), Archos has released what they dub an “Internet Media Tablet.” The Archos 5, pictured, features a 4.8″ 800 × 480 LCD screen in a device that is only 5″ × 3″ × .5″ and weighs 8.8 ounces. From 60 to 250 GB, its features include a full web browser and email client, music (MP3, WMA, WAV, AC3, Flac, Ogg Vorbis, and AAC,) video (MPEG-4, WMV, M-JPEG, and H.264,) images (PDF, JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF,) games, and with add-ons can be turned into a DVR, dash-mounted GPS, and even a helmet camera. There is a 30 GB Archos5g model, which also features WiFi and 3.5G HSDPA, and an Archos7, which uses a larger 7″ screen and comes with either 160 or 320 GB of storage. The Archos5, with 60 GB, is priced at $349.99.
Zune
Microsoft has three Zune lineups. First, are the flash-based Zune 4, Zune 8, and Zune 16 models. These iPod Nano competitors feature 4, 8, or 16 GB of storage, respectively. Each comes with Wi-Fi (which can be used to purchase music, sync, share images or audio, and play games with others) and an FM Radio. It supports WMA, AAC, and MP3 for audio, JPG for images, and WMV, MPEG-4, H.264, and DVR-MS for video. Measuring 1.6″ × 3.6″ × 0.33″ and weighing 1.7 ounces, they are price from $99.99 for the 4GB model to $179.99 for the Zune 16.

Next, against the iPod Classic, are the hard drive-based Zune 80 and Zune 120. These two models come with the same features and specs as the flash-based models, but with a larger form factor, 2.4″ × 4.25″ × 0.5″ and 4.5 ounces, and larger 80 or 120GB hard drives. They are priced at $229.99 and $249.99.

Lastly, on September 15, Microsoft will release the Zune HD, pictured above, to compete with the iPod Touch. It will feature a multi-touch 3.3″ OLED screen (480 × 272,) a built-in accelerometer, an HD radio tuner, and like its siblings Wi-Fi. It will also output video at 720p with an add-on dock. The Zune HD measures 2.07 × 4.08 × .35 inches and will be available in two versions: 16 GB priced at $219.99 and 32 GB at $289.99.