After a long battle with itunes i have finally decided to get rid of my ipod touch :|. Gutted cos i do a lot of travelling and its an amazing bit of kit but i truly, with a passion hate itunes.

So im looking for an 8 or 16Gb Mp3 Player that MUST have the ability to Drag and Drop files.

So what have u got and what are the pros and cons.

Cheers all

Might not be what you're looking for, but most other media players now support ipods too so you dont have to use itunes!

Hi

Can't point you in the right direction as to what MP3 player but I bought a little Samsung one from these guys last year, they were very helpful.

The new Sony ones are superb, cheaper than an iPod and the sound quality kicks the crap outta them too.

They're fully compatible with iTunes and have superb battery life too 😀

Sandisk Fuze – I have had two, and I would buy another (the only reason I have had two is because I gave my first one to my mate who was moving to Canada). I got my latest one from Play.com as a 8gb + 4gb memory card expansion package for around £60. You may want to get some better headphones, but I assume most people will replace the stock ones anyway.

No software is needed to put music on: Just drag and drop.

what the sh•tting crikey is wrong with iTunes?

and the 'iPod's sound crap' remark is wrong and tired. swap the earbuds if you need although they're not as bad as people say.

I also despise itunes (i use songbird), but that's matter for another topic!

I've got a Sandisk Sansa Clip. Very good, small, very good quality sound (rated on of the best), and can connect to your pc like a usb drive, so you can just copy your music across easily.

is songbird the one that can't rip a CD?

for iPod haters, this looks like a good alternative. doesn't use iTunes either.

Cute Pink Mouse MP3 Player

Check out Any Thing But Ipod. I like Sony players good quality easy to use. Mines a year or so old and works by drag and drop through windows media player, if your into video i've also found it very easy to convert and trasnfer video.

dragging and dropping 5000 songs is SO much better that iTunes. jeeez

Zune HD looks like a real iPod competitor.

http://www.engadget.com/hub/zune-hd

Just pick up anything you like the look of that's supported by Rockbox. Unfortunately your iPod isn't yet, but a lot of older ones are. It's a great and really customisable bit of software.

and the 'iPod's sound crap' remark is wrong and tired

So are they much better now? I had a first generation mini with some decent Sennheiser aftermarket 'phones. Replaced it with a £10 Zen Stone which sounds MUCH better

What's wrong with iTunes?

If you're set on getting rid of it you could try doubleTwist which I think will work with your iPod.

I like my Sony. 16Gb and was under £100.

Operates using windows media player so yeah, drag and drop.

I've just got a Sony Walkman NWZ-S639FB 16GB Drag & Drop MP4 Video Player with FM Tuner from Amazon and it is great.

It is now down to £89.99 and has a dollop load of very favourable reviews
– a lot from people who have had iPods.

Ive got a sandisk sansa clip 2gb, awesome little player and dead cheap (£20 off ebay) Its much better than the creative zen I had before it.

Think the other sandisk players are just as good. You can drag and drop and play WMA files if you need to

Oh yeh, I use sennheiser in ear headphones which seem to be pretty decent but there on there way out after 3 years.

I think I'm missing something here. iTunes IS drag and drop, but maybe not with iPods. Open up Windows Explorer and I see my MP3 player as a removable disk. I can then drag any playlist of tracks straight from iTunes into Windows Explorer. Granted if I want to have all the folder structure of Album, artist etc I have to copy and paste from my (iTunes) music library to the player but as far as I see I have the best of both worlds.

I love iPods but cant bear iTunes and wanted something that could be managed in Windows explorer and on Linux, so I did all the reasearch a little while ago and ended up with a Cowon D2 – 16gb

Advantages
Huge 50 hour battery life – only recharged mine twice so far, volume output goes mega loud which means it will drive a large pair of headphones, expandable memory via SD card, fantastic sound quality – a lot better than my iPod, Rockbox is under development for it, screen is small but nice and clear for watching films, the graphic equalizer works really well, and there's loads of themes and tweaks you can do to personalise it and of course no need for iTunes!

Disadvantages
Wont plug into ipod docks – which everybody seems to have, touch screen is a bit small and fiddly, not as user friendly as the iPod, can crash when transferring lots of files in one go. People think your mad for not buying Apple.

Did nearly get one of the Samsung players, the one with stereo Bluetooth, but adding the cost of some headphones pushed the price too high, the Sansa players are also pretty good – bit boring looking though.

Also I would recommend Mediamonkey as a great bit of software for managing your music library.

I think I'm missing something here. iTunes IS drag and drop, but maybe not with iPods.

I think I'm missing something too, where's the attraction of drag and drop? With iTunes I just plugin and have any new stuff copied over automatically, what's not to like?