This does not happen to me often – but I am definitely drooling over the upcoming iPod touch.
I know it is expensive, and for the money there are competitive products which offer a lot more etc. I love electronic stuff, but I rarely splurge on them. I had zero interest of getting an iPhone as I cannot imagine having an expensive phone – I will probably leave it somewhere. I just am not yet programmed to think of my phone as a very precious thing that I have to be ultra careful about. I do take care of my RAZR, but if it is like an iPhone, I would be worried about its safety more often. That seems like more headache!
I do have an iPod – a Mini (4GB) but I did not pay for it. I got it free from a CitiBank deal – you open an account and do internet banking with atleast a certain number of bill payments for 12 months, and you get it. I got mine a few years ago and I still use it – its very useful although I can sense that the battery is getting weak.
But I want the iPod Touch and I want it now – preferably on the first day it is available.
Can I justify it based on economics? No. Need? No. Common sense? No. Will I use it regularly for video and photo (i.e. other than music)? Possible – but not entirely sure.
I want it because it looks freaking cool. And it has a browser! Ok – I will probably use it only within my house – so it is not that useful. So I guess I want it only because it looks freaking cool!
I need a weak moment to just dismiss all the “sane, rational” counter-arguments in my mind and “Just do it”!
But what about the Edirol R09?
Before the iPod droolarama, I was eyeing Edirol R09 by Roland, an expensive portable digital music recorder for an entirely different reason (besides the iPod touch announcement had not happened yet).
The “internal resistance” for this is stiffer, because given the price vs. intended use I can justify it even less. I basically need the recorder only to record my music classes. I now use a used (yeah – I am cheap which is why this is all so unusual for me) Sony minidisc recorder and it does a very good job. The great thing about minidiscs which I am not able to find in any other media, is that you can arbitrarily split and rearrange tracks out of a single recording. You can do this on the device itself. You combine tracks, split them, delete them – whatever. You may ask – so? The reason why this is so important is that I can isolate specific parts of a song that I am learning and put it in “repeat” mode. I can let it play continuously and thus rehearse a larger portion or just isolate a small portion and repeat it until I get it. A superb feature for learning stuff.
However, the trouble with the minidisc is that it does not have much “portability” with other formats/media. First, in the device I have transferring to computer is “real time” – so 45 minutes to transfer 45 minutes of music ЁЯШж ! Also, the track-marks exist only on the device. So I cannot backup a minidisc anywhere else digitally and still have track marks. In fact, I cannot even back it up to another minidisc without having another recorder. So a great, great feature “imprisoned” in the isolated world of minidisc. Thus, even though I love minidiscs, I am hesitant to buy a “new” model – which again is expensive. The way it is going I just have to keep buying more and more minidiscs. I want those track marks in my mp3/wav player – my iPod. I long for that day.
So, obviously, the Edirol R-09 does not have this, and it is freaking expensive. But I still drool as it does very good recording . Maybe I think I will use it to do fancy recording (like krishashok) – even though part of me says “Yeah right! At your level? Dream on!”
So what to do?
So what to do? My mind is restless going: iPod touch, Edirol R09; iPod touch, Edirol R09; iPod touch, Edirol R09…, now and then interspersed with a stern professor internal voice saying Come on? Are you kidding? It’s a fad, a waste!
What says you reader? Perhaps in ze inzerezt of peez of ze mind, we zust buy zem both? But, you know, we muzt zen voo ze financial controller firzt.
Just thinking out aloud ... 