{"id":1469,"date":"2004-11-16T22:11:26","date_gmt":"2004-11-16T22:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sunpig.com\/mt-entry-1469.html"},"modified":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2006-09-23T19:30:11","slug":"to-pod-or-not-to-pod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2004\/11\/16\/to-pod-or-not-to-pod\/","title":{"rendered":"To Pod or not to Pod"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gaahh.  I had an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iriver.com\/product\/info.asp?p_name=H340\">iRiver H340<\/a> in my Amazon shopping cart last night&#8230;and then I removed it in a fit of uncertainty.  At the last minute I found out that the US version of the H340 is subtly different from the one supplied to the rest of the world:  it doesn&#8217;t include the USB Host function.  The Host function allows it to plug (for example) a digital camera into the device and transfer photos directly to the H340&#8217;s hard drive, rather than having to slurp them off to a PC, and then move them around afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, now <em>realistically<\/em> how often am I likely to use this feature?  That would be&#8230;probably never.<\/p>\n<p>Its absence in the US version means that it is <em>substantially<\/em> cheaper than the European version, even taking the favourable exchange rate into account:  $407 at Amazon.com, or approximately &#163;225 versus &#163;333 at Amazon.co.uk.  Hey baby, come to <em>Papa<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But as soon as I figured I could live without that feature, I started to wonder what other features I really wanted, and what ones were merely nice-to-haves.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can I live without a colour screen, and the ability to record from a built-in FM radio?  Yup.<\/li>\n<li>Can I live without the FM radio (which brings players other then the iRiver Hxxx series into play)?  Surely.  For the money I&#8217;d save <em>not<\/em> buying an iRiver, I could get a tiny <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00006OAEX\/legenofthesun-21\">Sony SRF-S84<\/a> radio as well as a music player.<\/li>\n<li>Can I live with a 20GB player rather than a 40GB one?  My music collection comes out to about 18GB right now, and according to iTunes, I have less than 3GB of music I&#8217;ve rated 4 or 5 stars.  That&#8217;s what I listen to most.  Heck, I could get that on an iPod Mini, and still have space left to slap on a dozen full albums.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Come to think of it, do I really need a new music player right now at all?  Hardly.  Would it even see much use, while I&#8217;m still driving to work?  Nope.  Wouldn&#8217;t it make more sense to save the money right now, and buy one when I&#8217;m actually likely to use it (and when prices will have dropped, and new models will be available)?  Yup.<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, following the realisation of some stock options, I&#8217;ve got a nice little chunk of personal spending money burning a hole in my pocket, and we&#8217;re off on holiday to California in a couple of days&#8217; time.  The temptation to buy electronics while we&#8217;re over there is likely to prove irresistable.<\/p>\n<p>The frugal Scot in me is battling it out with the excited geek going TOY TOY TOY.  Any advice?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gaahh. I had an iRiver H340 in my Amazon shopping cart last night&#8230;and then I removed it in a fit of uncertainty. At the last minute I found out that the US version of the H340 is subtly different from the one supplied to the rest of the world: it doesn&#8217;t include the USB Host &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/2004\/11\/16\/to-pod-or-not-to-pod\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;To Pod or not to Pod&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gadget_fever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sunpig.com\/martin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}