[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: Does Price Matter?

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
Does Price Matter?
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1195432577.shtml


   I bought a portable MP3 player a few weeks ago, a house brand
   (Insignia) from Best Buy. It had a rechargeable, replaceable battery
   it said, 1 GB, FM radio and a few other features. I passed up any
   number of much cheaper units, thinking I had bought a quality unit.
   Last week, though, one channel of the FM went out. But the MP3's still
   played fine, and I don't use the radio feature much. Yesterday, it
   locked up solid in the middle of playback and I find (now) that there
   is no reset button. Fine, I'll re-power it I thought, by "replacing"
   the battery. There are no directions on how to get the battery out
   however. Those come with the replacement battery only. So, I used
   brute force to literally crack it open. I can live with it duct-taped
   later.
   The battery is NOT replaceable by us end users, requiring a jewelers
   tweezers to handle the smallest connector I've ever seen. I ripped out
   the battery to recycle that, pitched the rest of this piece of junk in
   the trash. This makes me 0 for 2 buying these devices, the first being
   a cheaper SanDisk that didn't make it two weeks.
   I'd like to consider a real iPod, but this a semi-closed platform
   designed for music, video and subscription podcasts, not my personal
   recordings and old time radio MP3's. Plus, I've heard many complaints
   about iPod's going bad, too.
   The perfect portable doesn't exist for me other than to spend $250 on
   another Pogo. Otherwise it seems that price doesn't matter so I think
   I may buy the $20 cheapie at Walgreens. Cheaper may be better in this
   case.