I owned an iPod 5.5g, which is commonly accepted to be the last decent sounding iPod. I put Rockbox on it, and loved listening to it and the incredible equalizer for a few weeks.
After bring invited to a friends house and listening to his Cowon S9 for the day while we went walking, played video games, etc. I promptly returned the iPod, becasue the Cowon S9 sounded better.
I use EQ's, becasue they can tailor a headphones to fit my tastes better, and feel that a Cowon S9 with EQ applied sounds better than an iPod with Rockbox and EQ applied.
The preset EQs on the iTouch and iPod classic are terrible, and the bass booster seems to add terrible clipping/distortion, while knocking off the treble. I also feel my Cowon to have a better interface than any iPod I've used, touch or otherwise.
I also like that it has longer battery life than any iPod.
...and that the screen has better colors, contrast, and smoother motion.
...and that I have buttons and volume control on the S9, which I can use when the screen is off.
...and that there is a radio that I can record from so that I can go back an purchase songs like.
...and that is feels better in my hand with the curve and rubberized finish.
...and that the build quality seems better as far as durability goes, because my friend and I have dropped then several times, and the screen never cracks.
...and that the interface is customizable, so that if I want something new, or even for it to looks like an iPod on the screen, I can do that too.
...and that it supports upsampling with BBE MP, along wish crossfeed with BBE ViVa and ViVa 2
...and that it will play FLAC files, in addition to most other formats besides AAC.
...and that neither the sides, nor the back of the unit show scratches like the metal back of my former iPod 5.5g.
I guess I should be talking about cons for iPods, and to keep it similar to the above, I'll only talk about the 5.5g that I owned for a few weeks. Some of this has to do with iTunes, which I gave a shot for a few days along with the standard interface.
-The new metal back had small scratches within days.
-iTunes took longer to launch than any other media player I had ever used. Winamp, WMP, VLC, MediaMonkey.
-I had to charge it every day.
-I could not adjust volume while it was in my pocket.
-Without Rockbox, I could not figure out how tp organize things by folders.
-Interface was slow to operate, and I felt hindered by the number of clicks it too me to do things like change the EQ, or screen brightness, etc. starting at the music playing screen.
-Trying to manually put my music on it was one of the most frustrating things I've done. (Yes, I realize it only supports that if you change the setting in iTunes, and drag and drop music from iTunes, as there is no native drag and drop as far as I understand.)
-No radio whatsoever
