I purchased this mp3 player, because in my school days I had owned old Sony Walkmans and was hugely impressed. This is a different type of product but still has classic reliability, functionality and usability as it's predecessors. I needed a device for listening to music on the bus on the way to University, and a mate of mine was sit besides me with his new fancy iPod touch, and we decided to swap (we're both geeks you see) and test our own mp3 players out, after 15 mins of browsing the web (on 3G) playing games, and obviously listening to music, I was hugely impressed. Despite this I still much prefer my Walkman. I find apps to be a bit of a gimmick. Although the odd game of Flight Control is rather fun! :) One big advantage my Walkman has to the iPod touch is the beautiful OLED screen in comparison with the LCD that the iPod dons. Another is the crystal clear quality of music. I'll start by sayinig the Apple standard headphones are horrendous in comparison with my Sony noise cancelling ones, which, on the bus work very well. The high price may be a turn off for some but in my opinion, it's totally worth it!