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Topic: Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone? (Read 13946 times) previous topic - next topic
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Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?



For a Research Writing Class I am doing I am writing a paper on which players are the best. To do this I am taking a survey of the people that own the players themselves. If you own one of the below players, please take the survey to help me to get more accurate results.

     
  • Apple iPod Classic 120GB
  • Apple iPod Nano 4G
  • Apple iPod Touch 2G
  • Archos 5
  • Archos 504
  • Archos 605 WiFi
  • Cowon D2
  • Cowon S9
  • Cowon U5
  • Insignia Pilot
  • iRiver e100
  • iRiver Spinn
  • Microsoft Zune 120GB
  • Microsoft Zune 4/8/16
  • Samsung P2
  • Samsung P3
  • Samsung T9
  • SanDisk Sansa Fuze
  • Sony a720
  • Sony a820


 
Take The Survey




Thanks,
Cruleworld

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #1 –
I took the survey though I don't know what type of information you will get from it.  I can see many spots where people can put down false information.  RMAA tests have shown that the iPod classic can compete with the Zune and 2G iPod touch just fine (along with other players).  However, many people carry this negative stigma that iPods have bad sound quality.  So I would expect a trend where people rate iPods below 5 in terms of audio quality when it pretty much is just "all in their head."  However, I like the part where you asked if we were using the earbuds that came with the device.  That could help narrow down anyone claiming that their iPod sounds terrible yet they are using the earbuds that came with the device.  Its kind of like buying a Hummer and then complaining about the gas mileage, one of those "No sh**" moments.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #2 –
I would have taken the survey, but my DAPs are all too old to figure on your list (story of my life).

If this is for a writing class, you really need to define something a bit more usable than "the best." Some will go for iPods because that's what everyone has; others will avoid iPods for precisely the same reason, and neither group will (likely) have considered technical or ease of use features. Deconstruct the project, and show that a nonsense criterion like "the best" (well, in very rare cases you *can* say that something/some one is the best) engenders slanging matches and tribal wars.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: kornchild2002 on
I took the survey though I don't know what type of information you will get from it.  I can see many spots where people can put down false information.


The areas other then rating is more to see what people actually know there player can do compared to what it can actually do.

Quote from: MichaelW on
If this is for a writing class, you really need to define something a bit more usable than "the best." Some will go for iPods because that's what everyone has; others will avoid iPods for precisely the same reason, and neither group will (likely) have considered technical or ease of use features. Deconstruct the project, and show that a nonsense criterion like "the best" (well, in very rare cases you *can* say that something/some one is the best) engenders slanging matches and tribal wars.


That is just the working title for my paper and not really the final one. It sure get's people interested that hate them though

Thanks,
CW

P.S.

Added a few players:

Apple iPod Shuffle
SanDisk Sansa Clip
Creative Zen Stone
SanDisk Sansa Shaker
Samsung U3
SanDisk Sansa Express
Creative Zen Stone Plus

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #4 –
It would be nice if people who do not have an MP3 player could respond.  I've never owned an MP3 player for longer than a few days, but I've played with enough to know which players I like and why.

And I definitely know why I don't own an IPOD.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: odigg on
It would be nice if people who do not have an MP3 player could respond.  I've never owned an MP3 player for longer than a few days, but I've played with enough to know which players I like and why.

And I definitely know why I don't own an IPOD.



I am asking that people own the player because there are many quirks that one only discovers if they have the player.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #6 –
By leaving out the older iPods (5.5G and older) you are leaving out a large number of iPod users.  Not all of us run out and buy the latest and greatest thing just because it is new.

With my 80GB 5.5G iPod and my wife's 2G 8GB nano, too bad I can't participate in your survey.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: maggior on
By leaving out the older iPods (5.5G and older) you are leaving out a large number of iPod users.  Not all of us run out and buy the latest and greatest thing just because it is new.

With my 80GB 5.5G iPod and my wife's 2G 8GB nano, too bad I can't participate in your survey.


MY survey would not be accurate with older players included. While I understand what you are saying, It is better for me to limit the amount of versions to the most recent.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Cruleworld on
MY survey would not be accurate with older players included.


This sentence does not make sense. What happens, as unlikely as it may be, if Apple suddenly dumps the 120GB classic and moves to a 160GB. Does that suddenly invalidate your results?

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #9 –
Quote
That is just the working title for my paper and not really the final one. It sure get's people interested that hate them though

Thanks,
CW


What sort of class is this for Marketing? I personally don't have anything against them. They make solid players that have been put through various RMAA tests despite what myths are fabricated about the "sound quality" of the players they are excellent for the most part. If there is any reason to hate Apple it is simple, because they own the largest market share of DAP's in the U.S and the U.K maybe even the world. The other reason to hate them would be, because they are concerned more about "style" rather then what features they have. Those are just my observations though. It seems to me that by visiting your site you are clearly biased towards the Zune. My friend has one that he swears by and ironically doesn't like the IPod. Go Figure 


Quote
It would be nice if people who do not have an MP3 player could respond. I've never owned an MP3 player for longer than a few days, but I've played with enough to know which players I like and why.

And I definitely know why I don't own an IPOD.


I personally don't own a digital audio player. I have never had the need for one due to the fact that I don't travel around very often and think of them as somewhat of a distraction. I mostly listen to music on my computer or on my PS3 through a receiver. When I do listen to stuff in the car it's usually on CD or CD-R. I keep lossless copies of my records on my very large HD.

Quote
I am asking that people own the player because there are many quirks that one only discovers if they have the player.


What quirks? The fact that there was a law put forth in New York that almost banned people from walking with them, because of their own stupidity and the fact they were not paying attention while walking? or the fact that people sued Apple, because they were damaging their own hearing by listening to music to loud, henceforth a "volume cap"?    .

IF I had to choose between all of them though I would choose the player with features tailored to my needs that support for stuff out of the box, but could also be modified with the Rockbox. That's just my opionion though. In that regard I would probably take an older IRiver H100 or H300.  That's not on your list though so I would go for the next best thing which would probably be the "Spinn".
budding I.T professional

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
That is just the working title for my paper and not really the final one. It sure get's people interested that hate them though

Thanks,
CW


What sort of class is this for Marketing?

It is actually a research writing class.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #11 –
Quote
It is actually a research writing class.


Interesting I see. 
budding I.T professional

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #12 –
Thank you to everyone who has filled out the survey so far. Everyone person that does gets me closer to my final project.

Thanks,
CW

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #13 –


After a month of collecting data, and 166 responses, I have the results...

Check them out right here.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #14 –
Must have been a lot of work. Congratulations for getting it done!

The results don't really look statistically significant. Have you done the math?

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #15 –
This is an interesting read.  I migrated to iPod myself a few months ago from a Zen Xtra.  The Zen was decent, but it had really run its course and my wife wanted a Nano for Christmas.  Since she wanted an iPod, we both fill our devices from the same set of files, and there was an iPod available that met my requirements the easiest course was for us to both go iPod at the same time.  I probably would have looked at other alternatives if she hadn't made that specific gift request.  I have been very happy with the iPod so far.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
Must have been a lot of work. Congratulations for getting it done!

The results don't really look statistically significant. Have you done the math?


It was 3 months of collecting data and information. Thank you for taking your time to read through it. I'm confused by what you mean be the second comment. The statistics were all done with numbers. If you want to see them let me know and I will post them up.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #17 –
One issue with this is that even if the results are statistically significant, you're going to have a large amount of bias from soliciting surveytakers on a site dedicated to audio.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: Cruleworld on
Quote from: rpp3po on

The results don't really look statistically significant. Have you done the math?

I'm confused by what you mean be the second comment. The statistics were all done with numbers. If you want to see them let me know and I will post them up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

@ WUXGA:
Quote
you're going to have a large amount of bias from soliciting surveytakers on a site dedicated to audio.

If you're doing a survey about bus usage you ask bus passengers. If you're doing a survey on TV viewing habits you ask those with a television. The "bias" is already accounted for in the survey design (i.e. what you are trying to find out). What kind of control result would non TV watchers give you? Likewise, "I don't listen to music" isn't going to yield useful results in an MP3 player survey.

The purpose of the survey was: "which players are the best". Not what % of people listen to music and of that % how many own an MP3 player?

C.

[EDIT: That said, the problem I have is what does "best" mean. But then I'm also not sure what the purpose of the "Research Writing Class" is. Is it to write a paper that looks like a Research Report? Or is it to conduct a rigorous and statistically valid survey and report the findings in a clear and objective way?]
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: carpman on
[EDIT: That said, the problem I have is what does "best" mean. But then I'm also not sure what the purpose of the "Research Writing Class" is. Is it to write a paper that looks like a Research Report? Or is it to conduct a rigorous and statistically valid survey and report the findings in a clear and objective way?]


Yes, that is correct. Having user that don't own the players vote for them would do me no good.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #20 –
Just out of interest what is a "Research Writing Class"? What do you get marked on?
Many of the HA members have made very valid points (i.e. statistical significance, sample size etc.), but how important those points are depends on what the point of your "assignment" was.

C.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #21 –
interesting results;
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PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #22 –
Quote from: Cruleworld on
The statistics were all done with numbers.
That's a quote and a half!

Good experience putting together a survey, but of course what you have is customer satisfaction polluted by reputation and fandom, not any indication of how good or bad the devices really are; to know that, you'd need to do a comparative test with unbiased testers.

Cheers,
David.

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #23 –
Quote
It was 3 months of collecting data and information. Thank you for taking your time to read through it. I'm confused by what you mean be the second comment. The statistics were all done with numbers. If you want to see them let me know and I will post them up


Did you in fact verify that your statistics were accurate using known methods? anyone can come up with biased statistics as was pointed out, which is why you need to do random sampling. I would "not" be using sources from wikipedia. If my freshman college english professor found of you were doing this she was metaphorically speaking have a heart attack. 

Introductory Statistics Online:

http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/sbk00.htm
budding I.T professional

Research Project: Are iPods Really "The Best" For Everyone?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: carpman on
Just out of interest what is a "Research Writing Class"? What do you get marked on?
Many of the HA members have made very valid points (i.e. statistical significance, sample size etc.), but how important those points are depends on what the point of your "assignment" was.

C.


A research writing class is a class that teaches one to write a research paper.  We get marked everything from having the formatting correct to citing our sources correctly. I understand your points, however I did the survey and the paper in the most fare way I saw for it to be done in such a short period and with no budget. The main point of the assignment was to collect the data and then write a paper according to the MLA Style. What you see on the website is of course the paper reformated to fit the website.

Quote from: smok3 on
interesting results;
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The site loads just fine for me with the link provided. Please try again...

Quote from: HotshotGG on
Quote
It was 3 months of collecting data and information. Thank you for taking your time to read through it. I'm confused by what you mean be the second comment. The statistics were all done with numbers. If you want to see them let me know and I will post them up


Did you in fact verify that your statistics were accurate using known methods? anyone can come up with biased statistics as was pointed out, which is why you need to do random sampling. I would "not" be using sources from wikipedia. If my freshman college english professor found of you were doing this she was metaphorically speaking have a heart attack. 

Introductory Statistics Online:

http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/sbk00.htm


The stats are as accurate as they could be. I removed the ones that were spammers and the one that either rated all 1 or all 10. As stated above I collected the data in the best way I knew how to at the time. In the future if I do something like this I will defiantly ask some different questions on the survey and do some other things..