We freely admit that this award was all about the iPod. There’s so much hearsay regarding the reliability of Apple’s iconic device that we felt adding the category to the survey would be interesting to all. And it was.
There were 6663 votes cast in total and Apple picked up half of them. But Apple didn’t win. In fact it came sixth. According to 500 respondents, digital-media player aficionado, iRiver makes the best MP3 players. We held off asking for audio quality to be judged because so much depends on the bundled headphones which are easily changed and frequently are. Instead the first question we asked concerned battery life.
On average 78% of all respondents said they were Satisfied or Very satisfied with Battery Life. iRiver was best with 85% of customers being satisfied. 79% of iPod users were satisfied but only 75% of LG customers were satisfied and so were a poor 60% of Toshiba customers.
In terms of Reliability, Sony scored top with 89% of customers saying they were satisfied while iRiver and Samsung were only 1% behind. The industry average saw 83% of people being satisfied – a result which the iPod matched. The lowest score came from Toshiba again - only 79% of its customers were satisfied.
Value For Money scores were relatively low. On average, across the board, 71% of buyers were satisfied here. SanDisk was top, satisfying 85% of buyers. iRiver satisfied 83% but Sony, only 75%. Interestingly the lowest score came from Apple: only 62% of iPod buyers thought they got good Value For Money. A high 15% were downright dissatisfied.
Brand loyalty was a mixed bag. On average 81% of all buyers said they’d buy from the same manufacturer again. iRiver was top with 87% and Apple was second with 85% - the low Value For Money rating having little effect. Despite scoring well for Battery Life and Reliability, only 79% of Sony customers said they’d be back – probably a tribute to Sony’s notoriously poor software. But Toshiba really bombed out with only 66% saying they’d buy from the company again.
So with top marks across the board, iRiver wins the day. Creative, Samsung, Sony and SanDisk form a tight chasing pack with little to separate them. The iPod followed this but was generally Good all-round. LG’s players are Average but Toshiba’s have little to recommend them.
