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It’s sad but true – MP3 players have amounted to piles of steaming dung for the four years they’ve seen the light of day. OK, Mac users have had the iPod for about a year, but let’s be honest, how many people own a Mac? So I set out to find the one player to rule them all.

Like the bachelor picking out women for marriage, I have scoured magazines and e-zines alike for the best darn Windows-compatible MP3 player on the market … and the verdict … the Apple iPod.

“Wait,” you say. “The iPod only works on Macs.” First of all, that was never the case – programs like XPlay have allowed the iPod to speak to PCs since the beginning. But if you just have to have a Windows-branded iPod, they are now available at Best Buy.

Everyone must now put an iPod at the top of his or her Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa list. Or simply put it on the top of your credit card statement. It’s only $300-500 dollars.

So how did I come to the conclusion that the iPod is the best tympanic membrane tickler this side of a Q-Tip? And speaking of Q-Tips, I won’t settle for those crappy “cotton swab” alternatives that skimp on cotton and hard drive space.

We all want to walk around listening to music, but we don’t want a Gimli (the dwarf from “Lord of the Rings”) in our pocket. We want a compact, sturdy joy-box that will last all day on batteries, be easy to operate, and never crash – kind of like a hobbit, but not that idiot one who always got the fellowship into trouble.

Anyway, my criteria were size, utility, storage space, design, battery life and, of course, sound. There are players out there that are superior in one or another of these traits, but none really even comes close to the iPod in terms of pure enjoyment.

Sound quality from the iPod is top notch, and after much testing, I can confirm that the iPod has the most powerful headphone amp of any portable player on the market. It’s a veritable pocket-rocket.

If you want a player that is really small, you have to spend $150-$200 on a “solid state” player that has only a fraction of the storage space of hard disk-based players like the iPod and Nomad Jukebox 3. The difference between a solid-state player is that, in musical terms, solid state usually equals one hour of music while hard disk allows the listener an entire respectable music library.

If a Lilliputian player is absolutely necessary, the Creative MuVo is your best bet. It’s small enough to fit on a key chain and has interchangeable memory units. On the other hand, if you need more than 20 gigabytes, which is the maximum capacity of the iPod, you should go out and buy an external hard drive. But if you can handle Gimli shoehorned in your pocket, you can pick up a Nomad Jukebox 3 that packs a mean 40-gig hard drive. 

The player that comes closest to the iPod in terms of size and capacity is the new Toshiba Mobilphile. It’s five-gigabyte hard drive is identical to the one used in the iPod, but every other aspect of the player is inferior. It transfers music 30 percent slower than the iPod, has worse sound, worse software, and the navigation buttons look like they were engineered by LandRover (infamous for ambiguous button placement/function).

Go out and get an iPod already. I’ve had one since August. While it may not help you combat Orcs, it’ll go a long way to conquering aural boredom.

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