A few days ago, a friend of mine, Sam, who is a great music lover, told me he wanted to dump his Walkman CD Player. He asked me to advise him on which other portable music device he should purchase. He had set his mind on either the Nokia N91 music phone or the 30GB iPod Video.

I told him that the Nokia N91 is one of the best available music phones today. It is a mobile phone with a 4GB hard drive and 2 Megapixel camera. In addition, it has EDGE, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Above all, the N91 is an excellent music player.

The iPod Video is a simple, yet elegant combination of music player, photo viewer and video playback device. The iPod Video is available in 30GB or 60GB variant. Both are of very beautiful designs. The iPod, a product of Apple, with about 25 variants, is the world’s leading portable music device. The author owns a 30GB iPod Video.

iPod Video (Video Playback & Music Playback)

Nokia N91 Vs iPod Video

As portable music players, both the Nokia N91 and iPod Video have the following similarities:

• They are both excellent music players
• Both have the ability for video playback
• They are both good ambassadors of their respective organisations.

The advantages the Nokia N91 has as a music player over the iPod Video are:

• It is a phone as well as a music player
• 2 Megapixel camera with video options
• It has other connectivity like EDGE, GPRS, UMTS & Wi-Fi
• You carry only one device instead of a phone and a separate music player

However, the iPod Video, as a music player has the following advantages over the Nokia N91:

• The iPod Video is lighter, slimmer and more beautiful
• The iPod Video has a massive storage of 30GB or 60GB
• The iPod Video has longer battery life, about 20 hours for music playback.
• The iPod is primarily designed for music and it does it very well.

4GB or 30GB for Music?
There was a time I thought that 4GB would be more than what I need for my favourite music. However, I was wrong. I have over 4GB of favourite music now and more are being added every week. If only my iPod Video can make phone calls, browse the Internet and send text messages, I will be more content, at least for a while. Anyway, this is a question of time for iPod are already being designed to make phone calls.

This deficiency of iPod is the advantage the Nokia N91 has over the iPod. You can still make phone calls, browse the Internet, snap some pictures or record some videos, and above all still manage to listen to your favourite music on your N91 phone. I think this is still ok provided you are content to carry less than 4GB of music with you.

Get The Best of Both World
Do you know what I told my friend? “If I were you, Sam, I will buy both the Nokia N91 and the 30GB iPod Video”. He looked at me surprisingly, with his eyes demanding explanations. I told him to buy the iPod and put all his music there. He should also buy the Nokia N91 and put his favourite music there. If one of them is down, or by design, he has only one of them with him; he can still enjoy his music. However, considering the financial implication of owing both devices, I advised him to go for the Nokia N91, as this will give him greater advantage since the Nokia N91 is a digitally convergent device.

Nokia N91 Music Phone