Knock-off: A Stocking Stuffer Tale of Frugality

Both my kids want iPods for Christmas this year. But I don't want to spend the $100 it would cost for me to get them each a Shuffle. Then I saw an ad on TV when I was at my dad's house a couple of weekends ago:

http://mp3playerstore.com/buy_it_now__/Inno-22.html

That's a $12 cheap Chinese knock-off with a $7 coupon. $5. I bought two (coupon applied only to one), one black, one pink. Shipping was $10 for both. They failed to send the black one, replacing it with a silver one, but shipped two 2GB models at no extra charge.

Here's a side-by-side comparison with my authentic iPod:









It doesn't use iTunes, rather it shows up as a drive in Windows. You simply populate it and it plays whatever you throw at it. drax0r got one of these as a vendor gift the last training he had which was the first time I've seen one. I can't speak on its battery life, but last I heard his wife was using it as her primary portable mp3 player.

My kids will be thrilled and are too young to know the difference.

Go me.