by Luke Wheeler

Created on: June 22, 2009

Portable music players are hugely popular these days, and it's no surprise. Being able to take hundreds, if not thousands of songs with you, within a device that is, most of the time, smaller than most mobile phones, is huge. The big daddy of the portable music player (more commonly known as MP3 player) world, is of course the iPod line, from Apple.

I think it's fair to say that the iPod revolutionised the way people listen to music. Apple have sold millions and millions of iPods, and have sold billions of songs on their iTunes Music Store. Now, Apple have introduced products such as the iPhone, which integrates a fully featured iPod with a phone, and again these products have been very successful.

It's clear that Apple has a firm grasp on this industry, so the smart choice would be to go buy an iPod, right? Well, yes and no; and there are a few reasons for this that I'll be talking about in this article. I'll also talk about the advantages of going with the flow and grabbing an iPod.

Firstly, and probably most foremost, price. An iPod, no matter which model, will most definitely have a cheaper, 'non-Apple' counterpart. MP3 players from other companies ultimately do exactly the same thing, but at a lower price point. If you want to listen to music on the go, and nothing else, then an MP3 player from a smaller company could be worth a look at.

Secondly, iPods require iTunes. Some people have a huge grudge against iTunes, and wish they could just have their computer recognize the device as a flash drive, and just copy music files onto it, much like you would with other MP3 players. Having an MP3 player that acts as a flash drive is also useful for holding any other files you may want with you as well; not because you want to use those files on the go, but because maybe you need to transfer a file to another computer.

So those are two main things, that other MP3 players have going for them. However, iPods have a whole lot more in their favour. Firstly, since iPods have become so popular, they're no longer just a gadget; they're a fashion accessory. It's cool to have an iPod these days, and having a different brand MP3 player would just not be as 'cool'. Apple obviously know this, let's not pretend they don't.

Not only to Apple have the 'wow' factor, but they have seamless integration with their music player software for Mac and PC, iTunes. You plug your iPod into your computer, and almost instantly, all your songs, playlists, photos, videos, apps (we'll

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