Why Didn't You Just Buy an iPod?

I bought myself an mp3 player yesterday, and it wasn't made by Apple. It's an iRiver IFP-790T, and it's pretty darn cool. I wanted a flash memory player rather than a hard drive player, for their reduced size, longer battery life and skip protection. Of course, the downside is that flash memory players have much, much less storage space. It's all a bit of a mental juggling act, and it's a different act for different people, depending on their individual priorities. Some people only want mp3 players that are a certain shade of pink, for example.

I decided against the iPod because although it has a 25 minute anti-skip buffer, I usually jog for 30 minutes (and I'd like to go longer when I'm less of a flab monster). The 15GB iPod is also $450 Canadian Pesos (with tax) here, while my IFP-790T was $295. Then there's the fact that legions of the trendiest, most annoying hipsters in the crowd have iPods and love to show them off, but I'd never let something so superficial affect my purchasing decision. Well, maybe just a teensy bit.

I'll probably post a review of the unit at some stage in the future, with lots of sexy photos, stats and more thinly-veiled personal justifications of why I threw down such a large wad of cash on such a shiny little toy.